Submitted by GaryGagliardi on
In reading the text of Kerry's 1971 anti-war testimony before Congress, I was struck by this statement:
This statement is interesting because it cuts to the heart of the unique strategic position of America and the difficulties we face in fighting the war on terror. First, Sun Tzu teaches that a core philosophy is absolutely required to hold an army (and a nation) together. Since our revolution, the unique American philosophy has been that freedom is worth fighting and dying for, and, since the Civil War, our philosophy has been that the freedom of others is worth fighting and dying for.
The American philosophy equates freedom with life. It proposes, at once, that life without freedom is not worth living and, at the same time, that the loss of freedom leads inevitably to the loss of life. The second part of this proposition was certainly proven in Vietnam and Cambodia where millions of people were killed after this region fell to communism.
In his statement, Kerry proposes that Americans should not die for the freedom of others and that American freedom itself sanctifies the anti-war protestors rejection of our defining philosophy that says that the freedom of others is worth dying for. His conclusion is right, that this view will tear America apart, but not for the reason--hypocrisy--that he suggests. Strategically, a nation deprived of its core philosophy cannot exists. In the words Lincoln from Christ), "a house divided cannot stand."
This brings us back to the war on terror. The proposition today furthered by the media and other elements of the anti-war movement is that Americans should not be willing to die for the freedom of Iraqis, Afghans, or, by extension, Iranians and Syrians. The anti-war movement equates our fight to liberate the Islamic world from its tyrants with cultural imperialism. Their freedom to teach this idea that the American philosophy is wrong is the same freedom made possible by the America philosophy that they oppose. We can and must oppose what these anit-war forces say while, at the same time, defending their right to say it. This is not hypocrisy but the core of the American philosophy itself.
Has Kerry's opinion about the wrongness of the having American's die to defend freedom? Sun Tzu teaches us to judge people's character by their actions not their words. Kerry's attempts to silence the Swift Boat Vets through the courts, threatening legal action against television stations, book publishers, and bookstores, demonstrates his philosophy vividly. When he disagrees with someone, he will fight to the end to stop them from saying it.
And to attempt to justify the loss of one American life in Vietnam, Cambodia, or
Laos by linking such loss to the preservation of freedom, which those misfits [anti-war protestors] supposedly abuse, is to us the height of criminal hypocrisy, and it is that kind of hypocrisy which we feel has torn this country apart.
This statement is interesting because it cuts to the heart of the unique strategic position of America and the difficulties we face in fighting the war on terror. First, Sun Tzu teaches that a core philosophy is absolutely required to hold an army (and a nation) together. Since our revolution, the unique American philosophy has been that freedom is worth fighting and dying for, and, since the Civil War, our philosophy has been that the freedom of others is worth fighting and dying for.
The American philosophy equates freedom with life. It proposes, at once, that life without freedom is not worth living and, at the same time, that the loss of freedom leads inevitably to the loss of life. The second part of this proposition was certainly proven in Vietnam and Cambodia where millions of people were killed after this region fell to communism.
In his statement, Kerry proposes that Americans should not die for the freedom of others and that American freedom itself sanctifies the anti-war protestors rejection of our defining philosophy that says that the freedom of others is worth dying for. His conclusion is right, that this view will tear America apart, but not for the reason--hypocrisy--that he suggests. Strategically, a nation deprived of its core philosophy cannot exists. In the words Lincoln from Christ), "a house divided cannot stand."
This brings us back to the war on terror. The proposition today furthered by the media and other elements of the anti-war movement is that Americans should not be willing to die for the freedom of Iraqis, Afghans, or, by extension, Iranians and Syrians. The anti-war movement equates our fight to liberate the Islamic world from its tyrants with cultural imperialism. Their freedom to teach this idea that the American philosophy is wrong is the same freedom made possible by the America philosophy that they oppose. We can and must oppose what these anit-war forces say while, at the same time, defending their right to say it. This is not hypocrisy but the core of the American philosophy itself.
Has Kerry's opinion about the wrongness of the having American's die to defend freedom? Sun Tzu teaches us to judge people's character by their actions not their words. Kerry's attempts to silence the Swift Boat Vets through the courts, threatening legal action against television stations, book publishers, and bookstores, demonstrates his philosophy vividly. When he disagrees with someone, he will fight to the end to stop them from saying it.