I don’t know, do you think the title is too ambiguous?
There have been a couple of columns from Thomas Sowell over at the Atlasphere on the subject of the latest Israeli conflict. One of them Peacemongers and War I couldn’t agree more with. A good portion of our problems today comes from appeasers who are all too willing to talk to aggressors. You don’t talk to aggressors, you destroy them before they have a chance to act.
The second one, however, I have a real problem with. Is It Time for a Cease-Fire? offers the same old tired argument that I’ve heard from overzealous hawks since the mid-70’s, when I first started paying attention to politics. “We have to be united behind our leadership in times of crisis.” I’ve heard it so many times I can quote it verbatim. Generally they include some wording like the following:
Back then, the president’s defeated opponent in the 1940 election – Wendell Wilkie – not only supported the war, he became a personal envoy from President Roosevelt to Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Personally, I like to hear disagreement. It proves that we are indeed still a free country. The crazy thing is, no matter how many hawks recite history with a solidarity message, there was disagreement in the 1940 election on the subject of war. “Isolationism” was the rule of the day, and Wendell Wilkie and FDR both paid lip service to it. Wilkie flip-flopped on whether he was in favor of going to war or not, but FDR was “dedicated to keeping America out of the war”.
[that he went on to get us into the war by baiting the Japanese with the Pacific fleet is still hotly contested, but I suggest that you pick up a copy of Day of Deceit and give it a read]
On the subject that is really on everyone’s lips, whether or not Israel should be called to heel, I have to stand on defense; real defense, not this “holding some imaginary line” defense that lost us the Vietnam conflict. No, Hezbollah is the latest in a long line of aggressors that has sworn the destruction of Israel (and the US) and has made good on it’s threats by taking hostages and violating borders. As far as I’m concerned Israel should be allowed to continue cleaning house until the last Hezbollah fighter stops breathing or surrenders. This is the only lesson that an aggressor will respect, application of superior force.
I think we should resurrect an old pre-WWII program and lend-lease Israel whatever weapons they need. The more house cleaning they do, the less we will have to do later.
Postscript
I don’t even know who this motherfucker is. I’m scratching my head here. Was I on drugs? Was I having a bad day? I have no explanation. Israel should be allowed to defend itself, yes. Israel should also be required to accept all residents within it’s boundaries as citizens whether they are Jewish or not. There are a lot of countries that this observation should apply to, not just Israel.
Atlasphere and Thomas Sowell have both fallen off my radar these days. This is a mercy. Day of Deceit is probably also crap like most of the content on the Atlasphere. This doesn’t change the fact that FDR left the Pacific fleet in Pearl as bait, either. There are historical events that speak for themselves. You don’t need proof to know what they are.
