Hail Of A Day

Winning a war that rights a wrong and creates peace brings honor.  Losing a war because you buckled to politics brings shame and allows injustice to propagate.  There is a fundamental difference in the way that people view the word “peace”. 

Even if we agree that the word “peace” means the absence of conflict, there has to be an understanding of how the peace exists.  Because humanity does not live in a vacuum, there will always be evil men contending for power, whether they live in a democracy, oligarchy, republic, communist state, socialist society, or complete anarchy.  We are all born with a desire to conquer.  For some it never transcends the joy of completing a check list, for others it is to be the best at a video game, but for many it is to be a conqueror of other people. 

When words fail to head off the power grab by power-hungry men and women, the sword is the only thing that will ever stop them.  Clinton understood that wide-spread ethnic cleansing was occurring in Yugoslavia and had the guts to use the sword.

Citizens of our country today enjoy the right to speak, the right to criticize the government, and mostly the right to live a life of peace….because our ancestors have used the sword.  The world today would be different had the US not intervened in WWII, for instance.

So the fundamental question I have for those that oppose any war or any bloodshed is this…When is it right to use the sword? 

The U.S. is the greatest society in the history of the world, because of our virtues: justice, liberty, freedom, equality, and our power.  Our economic, dare I say capitalist system, has enabled us to develop technology and military power that has allowed us to, “speak softly and carry a big stick”, according to the famous policy of Teddy Roosevelt. 

This world we live in at this moment in time is peaceful and in order, because the US has had the resources and the fortitude to maintain order, even if that was merely keeping other superpowers in check, i.e. China and Russia.  Anything that we do to diminish this power, whether real or perceived, dilutes peace in this world by empowering evil men with evil motives to conquer the world and take away the freedoms that we all value so much.

My hope and prayer is that this administration and future administrations views peace through a lens that is clear and bright and not one that is rose-colored.

Former President Clinton unveils statue in Kosovo - Yahoo! News