Article

2003-04-10 Iraq

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by Tadderly 2003-04-10 12:03 pm|| || Front Page|| [6 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 In all-too-real news today, a suicidal Arab bore deafening testimony to the underlying insanity upon which the Arabic/Islamic world, once the brightest and most progressive civilization in the world, now sits and disintegrates.

Posted by FormerLiberal 2003-04-10 12:20:31|| 2003-04-10 12:20:31|| Front Page Top

#2 I wrote this to someone else, but I think, with little qualification, it applies here:

"I have to wonder how many of us actually understand just how wonderful a thing it is that in a world where all nations can produce men willing to pick up a gun and fight and die, it is only todayâs democracies that have produced men willing to die for another nationâs liberation instead of its subjugation.

Our American soldier says, âI will die for anyone in the world who wants to enjoy the same freedoms I have, and I will not expect the people I have died for to embrace my beliefs, even though I hold them to be self-evident.â

Our American protestor says, âI will not die for you, but I will expect you to embrace my idealistic world-view even as Iâm actively working to deny you the freedoms and comforts I take for granted. â

The chasm between them is unbridgeable for it is the same chasm that separates a true democracy from a true tyranny, and I finally realize how much more brave is the rifle-bearing soldier who risks potential death in Baghdad than the protestor who disrupts traffic in San Francisco knowing that while a thump on the noggin and pepper spray is a sure thing, it is the worst he will have to endure for his âbravery.â"

That being said, I have come to believe - where once I did not - that in fact suicide bombers are less brave than the soldiers who, though willing to die if need be, prefer life to death, prefer meeting the consequences of our actions to running away from them. And maybe, just maybe, it is only today's democracies who can produce men who believe that while any arrogant bastard can strap on a bomb and leave the mopping up to his comrades, it takes a very real humility to stick around and fix the things he was obliged to break.

We'll fix what we break. Would any other nation?

Posted by FormerLiberal 2003-04-10 12:54:50|| 2003-04-10 12:54:50|| Front Page Top

#3 We'll fix what we break. Would any other nation?

That was great, FormerLiberal. May I excerpt this and post it, with you as a guest lecturer (for the citation), at my website? (YOu don't post your e-mail, so I have to ask here.)

Posted by Ptah 2003-04-10 14:00:31|| [www.crusaderwarcollege.org] 2003-04-10 14:00:31|| Front Page Top

#4 Ptah:

Well, I'm gratified you liked what I wrote. Feel free to excerpt and quote at will.

Let me say that while I appluad what we are doing in Iraq, I do so while also realizing that our own national history is as hardly spotless - "manifest destiny" and the effect of that doctrine on native Americans comes immediately to mind, but any student of history can come up with many more examples of American nastiness at home and abroad. BUT, where I differ from the critics of American history is that I refuse to believe that the immoral actions of our past somehow compromise the efficacy of the moral actions we are undertaking at present. I think we as nation can do more and that we should do more, and we should not feel the least bit embarrased if our motivations rest on the words "moral," "right," and "just."

Posted by FormerLiberal 2003-04-10 14:58:00|| 2003-04-10 14:58:00|| Front Page Top

#5 I've put it up, and it's now here. Thanks. I couldn't bear to cut any of it.

I seem to be having connectivity problems, so availability may be spotty.

Posted by Ptah 2003-04-10 18:20:37|| [cwc.c6d7.com] 2003-04-10 18:20:37|| Front Page Top

12:38 raptor
12:14 Former Russian Major
11:21 raptor
10:54 raptor
10:46 raptor
10:22 raptor
09:39 raptor
09:10 raptor
02:25 True German Ally
01:09 Former Russian Major
00:13 Dishman
00:09 RW
23:57 Old Patriot
23:37 True German Ally
23:32 JAB
23:25 Old Patriot
23:19 True German Ally
23:03 Former Russian Major
22:55 Frank Martin
22:40 RW
22:37 Dishman
22:14 Bomb-a-rama
22:12 RW
22:04 Alaska Paul