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."
Anti-Semitism without Jews in Malaysia by Robert Fulford
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
In Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, politicians and civil
servants devote a surprising amount of time to thinking about Israel,
7,612 km away. Sometimes they appear to be obsessed by it. Malaysia has
never had a dispute with Israel, but the government encourages the
citizens to hate Israel and also to hate Jews whether they are Israelis
or not.
Few Malaysians have laid eyes on a Jew; the tiny Jewish community
emigrated decades ago. Nevertheless, Malaysia has become an example of a
phenomenon called “Anti-Semitism without Jews.” Last March, for
instance, the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department sent out an
official sermon to be read in all mosques, stating that “Muslims must
understand Jews are the main enemy to Muslims as proven by their
egotistical behaviour and murders performed by them.” About 60% of
Malaysians are Muslim. In Kuala Lumpur, it’s routine to blame the Jews for everything from
economic failures to the bad press Malaysia gets in foreign
(“Jewish-owned”) newspapers.
The leaders of the country assume that Jews and Israelis deserve to
be humiliated as often as possible. In 1984, the New York Philharmonic
cancelled a visit because the Malaysian information minister demanded
that a composition by Ernest Bloch, an American Jewish composer who died
in 1959, be eliminated from their program. In 1992, an Israeli football
player with the Liverpool team was refused permission to play in
Malaysia; the team cancelled the visit. The government banned Schindler’s List,
calling it anti-German and pro-Jewish propaganda. The same government
later decided it could be shown if seven scenes were cut. Steven
Spielberg refused, so the government removed all his films from
Malaysia’s screens.
In 2003, the prime minister’s political party gave delegates to the
United Malays National Organization copies of Henry Ford’s anti-Semitic
book from the 1920s, The International Jew, a favourite of Hitler, translated into Bahasa Malay. For half a century, Israel has tried to establish diplomatic
relations, but Kuala Lumpur has always replied that Muslim opinion makes
that politically impossible. Instead, Malaysia has joined the Arab
campaign to defame Israel. Trade with Israel is officially banned — but
goes on nevertheless, through covert arrangements with third countries.
(Sales of products from Israel’s Intel computer chip factory to Malaysia
amount to many millions of dollars a year. Malaysian policy softens
temporarily when confronted with certain products at the right price.)
It’s only when we grasp the unremitting and mindless hostility of
countries such as Malaysia that we begin to understand the pain and
difficulty of Israel’s place in the world. This is the context in which
we should think about the Harper government’s pro-Israel policy. Israel
faces automatic enmity from all the Arab nations, most other
Muslim-dominated states and the many organizations in democratic
countries that dedicate themselves to showering abuse on Israel (and no
one else) in the name of human rights. Except during civil wars, no other state, not even the worst
dictatorship, not even Iran or China, is so badly and so often maligned.
Now only Canada and the United States (in certain moods) give Israel
the benefit of the doubt. Yet many Canadians apparently believe that there is something unfair
in this situation, not in the invective heaped on Israel but in Canada’s
habit of friendship with the only democracy in the Middle East. It’s
argued that this policy has done harm to Canada. Jeffrey Simpson of The Globe and Mail says that because of our attitude to Israel, “Canada’s reputation in the Arab world is mud.” Tony Burman, of the Toronto Star,
former head of Al Jazeera English, and now a journalism teacher at
Ryerson University, says that our government’s “passionate pro-Israeli
stance” has damaged Canada’s reputation throughout the Middle East
“after decades of being one of the world’s respected ‘honest brokers’ on
Mideast issues.”
That phrase “honest broker” seems to me one of the most dubious of
Canadian clichés. I have not once in several decades seen it applied to
us by a citizen of some other country. In my experience, it’s one of
those compliments many Canadians, and only Canadians, pay to Canada.
Burman expresses nostalgia for an attribute that hasn’t existed, so far
as I’m aware, since the 1950s.
Simpson says the Harper government’s policy is based on a
simple-minded black-and-white view, on the evangelical Christian streak
among Conservatives, on the idea that Israel is a democracy and Arab
countries are not and on a hope of prying Canadian Jews away from the
Liberals. Or, just possibly, there might be another reason: Because it’s the right thing to do. National Post Hat tip: Elder of Ziyon
