A few words of Caution
By Paul R. Mays
07/04/07
I wanted to write about the concept of a book on a friend says hes writing about “Failures of This Administration” . I have issues on even the writing of such a book and let me explain a bit. First I think the 1st amendment is critical to a free society but with that freedom come responsibility. Let’s first take a look back at WW2 as many people have never lived through a winning of war.
Let’s say that after the attack on Pearl Harbor we had a bunch of writers write about the failures of that administration, and there were many. What might be the effect on what would happen in the future? First off the writings would be used by the Japanese to show how the Imperialist Americans have a corrupt government and was bent on ruling the world. Remember that only the Allies had freedom of the press. Our enemies would take the writings of well meaning Americans and use them to ramp up propaganda on how the people must stand and support the dictatorial form of government they have always had. So instead of our enemy feeling we are united as a nation we, are seen as a defeatable foe. This would have caused our enemy to fight just a bit longer and just a bit more fanatically . Each day longer means each day American boys die. Now if the writings of those that truly have issues on the way our government has been acting leads to our enemy fighting harder, hanging in 1 more day, workers making one more plane, should those that write this be held to account for the hundreds of American boys that die in the extra day, killed by that one more plane.
War is never fought in a vacuum. When a nation faces an enemy bend on the destruction of that nation I feel that if you cannot write about solutions or giving alternate ways to win against a determined enemy then they should keep quite until our men and women are out of danger.
If our newspapers and radio stations had been producing a running tally of the thousands of men that fell on the shore of Normandy on the first day might have we withdrawn? If instead of the newsreels showing the flag rising above Mount Sarabochi we saw stacks of body bags being loaded into Higgins boats for a slow trip to Arlington, would we not have had politicians voting on pulling funding to the troops instead of rallying behind them . And if pulled off that black sand beach may not of we had to later face those forces on the sands of California a few years later.
Now I know we do not have a perfect government. We have corrupt politicians, Presidents that make mistakes and companies that take advantage of others but before you write of how bad we are you should consider entering the arena of ideas with workable solutions not just writing of failures.
Today we are at war. The enemy has attacked us on our own soil. They have told us that their goal is to kill You and your children. To cause us to withdraw from the middle east and for them to set up a Islamic World. Let’s say we were to totally disengage from the entire middle east. What do you think would be the outcome? Do you not think that such a success would not embolden the Islamic Jihadist? In the future do you not think that those same people would use the resources to build bigger and better weapons? And as they have told us before, would they not seek a Islamic World?
I suggest that those that scream and yell about how we should not of entered Iraq, should pull funding, side with those that ban freedom of the press, should take full blame when they find themselves living in a country where they have the right to speak of such things is taken away.
What I see is a lot of people today that are upset about an election have such hate that they would risk there freedom and their lives for an uninformed political view.
I hate War. I’m a old hippy that seeks peace and would love a happy world of sitting around the camp fire sing folk songs. It’s a great idea but for that to happen everybody else has to feel the same way. And, its sad to say, there are others that Believe that your way of life should be destroyed, that you should be forced to the bidding of dictators and fanatics. They wish to tell you what kind of work you will do, what you can and cannot read or write, where you can go and what religion you will follow. And they are willing to kill you, your family, your fiends and themselves to do it.
If during WW2 the press was doing as it is today we would not have to worry about Terrorist today as there would be none, because the Gestapo would be going into the Muslim nations and killing every man, woman and child. The World Nazi Party would be wiping entire populations from the oil fields and using vacant deserts to bury the Billions of rotting bodies.
Viet Nam should have been a lesson to us all but those that caused us to withdraw have never addressed the aftermath. All in all it is estimated that more than 1 million people were killed after we left. The killing fields of Cambodia has been written about but have you ever heard any of those in the press write about their responsibility in the mass deaths. In the mountains even today there are entire villages that are hunted, starved and killed because we left them behind and took flight. In Somalia we ran after loosing brave young men and a couple of blackhawks. Our enemy told us that the prime reason that 9/11 happened is that they Knew we would not take any actions because they Knew we would not support any action that caused us to leave blood on the ground.
We are not a perfect nation but we are a caring and peaceful nation and only step up when others need our help. All those that write of how bad we are should think long and hard before writing words that in the long run kill our men and women of Honor as surly as a full metal jacket.
