War Made Easy

Pt.1

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Here is a quote from this clip- the words of Lyndon B. Johnson;

"The peacemakers are out there on the field. The soldier and the statesman need and welcome the sincere and the responsible assistance of concerned Americans. But they need reason much more than they need emotion. They must have a practical solution and not a concoction of wishful thinking and false hopes, however well intentioned and well meaning they may be. It must be a solution that does not call for surrender or for cutting and running now. Those fantasies hold the nightmare of world war three and a much larger war tomorrow."

Now, this quote sounds eerily like many quotes and the logic being bantered around today regarding the Occupation of Iraq. Take note that we essentially lost the conflict in Viet Nam. World War Three did not ensue. Then, as now, calls for an orderly withdrawal were rejected as emboldening our enemy to attack America. Instead of facing reality we sunk deeper and deeper into a morass of delusion, horror and futility. The conflict left nearly sixty thousand of our own men dead and countless other wounded and/or scarred for life mentally, physically and spiritually. The toll on the families those men came from and the blot that the conflict left on the soul of America has yet to heal.

Also there were millions of Indochinese that died. The legacy of the destruction that our blindness, pride and arrogance left on that population is unfathomable to most Americans then as now. All of this horror was propelled by the fear of communism and the refusal to empathize with those we called our enemy. In the end- the whole thing was a disasterous waste. Everything we thought about our enemy, all our dire predictions about what would happen if we withdrew were absolutely false. Are we so deluded by the caustic political discourse today that we are both unable to take lessons from history or see what is right in fron t of our face? Even addressing this question is now seen as defeatism and cowardice in the minds of many. Watching millions of my fellow citizens turn off their brains and be intimidated by this tired, used, hollow argument about cutting and running is stunning...sobering...shameful, crushing and mournful. Its tantamount to watching someone you love cave in to the schoolyard taunt of "Chicken" and then doing something that causes permanent damage to themsleves and the community at large. Watching fellow Christians being driven by fear into blessing mass violence, the fever of warfare and the toxic political discourse of today is especially disheartening. It makes me sick and it makes me weep.


Pt.2


Pt.3

Pt.4


Pt.5