Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
(Toronto Sun)
In the 1990s, western democracies stepped forward to stop ethnic
cleansing in former Yugoslavia by dispatching NATO forces in support of
UN peacekeeping operations in the Balkans. The disintegration of Yugoslavia precipitated ethnic strife, and like
all such struggles anywhere in the world, the Balkan conflict was
complex and layered with history of grievances, identity politics, and
religious bigotry. If one reaches back to the early years of the last
century, this region was a cauldron of ethno-nationalism that ignited
the First World War.
Some 16 years later, the so-called Arab Spring mirrors the conflict that ripped through the Balkans. The rotten structures of Arab states were primed to crash once the
people set aside their fear of despots. But not unlike the Balkans, the
death knell of Arab dictatorships has been accompanied by predictable
conflicts among people divided by religion, sect and ethnicity.
There is one stark difference, however, between the Balkans and the situation in the Arab-Muslim world. In the Balkans, the minority most seriously hurt by the conflict were Bosnian Muslims. It was in part to protect Bosnian Muslims that the West intervened with
force and, eventually overseen by President Clinton’s administration,
the parties agreed to abide by the Dayton Agreement of November 1995
reached in Dayton, Ohio and formally signed in Paris a few weeks later.
In the Arab-Muslim world, the so–called Arab Spring has hurt most
seriously the dwindling Christian minorities of the Middle East. While
Arab despots in the name of secularism paradoxically provided some
protection to Christians, the situation has worsened with Islamists
taking power. William Dalrymple, the well-respected historian and author of From the
Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium (1998), recently
wrote, “Wherever you go in the Middle East today, you see the Arab
Spring rapidly turning into the Christian winter … The past few years
have been catastrophic for the region’s beleaguered 14 million strong
Christian minority.”
The decline, probably disappearance, of Christians from the Middle East is an ominous sign of a tragic future for the region. And such an eventuality has precedence. Jews of the Arab-Muslim world from the pre-Christian era, with their
rich heritage and long historical presence in ancient cities across the
region — Alexandria, Algiers, Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Constantine,
Damascus, Fez, Oran, Sana’a, Tripoli, Tunis and more — were compelled to
leave lands conquered by Arabs in the name of Islam following the
establishment of Israel in 1948.
There have been numerous anti-Coptic riots with attacks on Christian
churches in Egypt. From Gaza reports have come of forced conversions
among Christians reduced to a miniscule presence. Iraqi Christians fled in large numbers following post-Saddam sectarian strife, and they found refuge in Syria. This safe-haven for Iraqi Christians is in jeopardy as the sectarian
conflict in Syria has intensified, and Syrian Christians are endangered.
While Christians flee from their ancient homes in the Arab-Muslim world,
the West’s failure to respond effectively, unlike its response in the
Balkans, is more than an immense moral failure. It is another sign of the West scandalously appeasing Islamist
totalitarianism that might well be as catastrophic as when Europe’s
major democracies appeased Hitler and the Nazis in the 1930s. Hat tip: Eye On The World