Jose wrote:
I suspect that 2,539 (plus 3 more today) American families think we
have already lost.

Agreed. But that's the way it is in all wars.

Including wars we shouldn't be in.


Now you have me curious. I have no dog in this fight, you understand. I
have committed myself towards working for peace. Nevertheless, I am
well aware that I am able to do so only because there are others who
are willing to break the peace in order to protect the lives of me, my
family, and all that I know.

But you appear to think that there are wars we should be in. Which are
those? Can you think of a single argument in favor of going to war
with, say, Hitler or Tojo that does not apply equally well to Saddam,
Kim Il Sung, the leaders of Iran, or of Somalia?

A few weeks ago I visited the American Cemetery in Manila. It is a
beautiful spot. I took photos of seemingly endless rows of crosses and
stars against a backdrop of flame trees. There are more than 17,000
graves there. More than 3,000 of the markers have no names on them;
they are unidentified. And there is a great circle of stone tables on
which are inscribed many thousands of more names of those whose bodies
were never recovered. And these are just those Americans (and others
from several other nations fighting under the American flag) who died
in order to kick the Japanese out of the Philippines and a few islands
in the Pacific. Was it worth the cost? I wonder what the world would be
like if, after Hitler had sunk a single ship or if the Japanese had
massacred a battalion of Marines assaulting the beach, if we had just
said that the cost of opposing Hitler or Tojo was too great, if we had
just made our separate peace, abandoning our allies to their fate.

Maybe it would not have made any difference at all. Who knows?

Do you really think the world would be better off if we simply allowed
Islamic extremists to destroy Israel, unite all of the Middle East and
South Asia under an aggressive Islamic flag, overrun some more African
nations, and threaten Europe and America with nuclear weapons? What do
you suppose we would have to do to appease these people in order to
finally stop the killing and find peace? And how would we appease their
mortal enemies, who might very well adopt the same tactics of terror
that these Islamic extremists now use? Do we just do whatever anybody
holding a gun orders us to do? And what if the person holding the gun
orders you to kill somebody, perhaps a friend, perhaps even your wife
or your children?

I think, if you want to work for peace, that you need to find serious
answers to these serious questions, and stop playing the shill for
domestic and foreign politicians who would sell their country out in
return for political gain. That is, if you want peace, give me
something other than the sophomoric arguments of Michael Moore or
Barbara Streisand. Tell me what you are really willing to do in order
to achieve peace.