Rudyard Kipling"
āWhen 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 soldierā
General Douglas MacArthur"
āWe are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.ā
āIt is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.ā āOld soldiers never die; they just fade away.
āThe soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.ā
āMay God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .ā āThe object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
āNobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
āIt 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."
What If Iran Had Had Nukes? Imagine this past week with a nuclear-armed Iran watching from the wings by Clifford D. May
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Israel
ā as its friends and enemies never forget ā is a āone-bomb country.ā
One nuclear weapon is all it would take to wipe out a nation whose
territory is smaller than Djibouti, with a population not as large as
that of Burundi ā fewer than 8 million people, 20 percent of them Arabs
who are enjoying rights denied to Arabs (not to mention non-Arab
minorities) elsewhere in the Middle East.
Israel is surrounded by Muslim-majority states with 60 times its
population and 650 times its territory. Most of those states refuse even
to recognize Israel. Some go further. Iranās supreme leader, Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, threatens genocide: āIsrael must be burned to the ground and made to disappear from the face of the Earth.ā
Hamasās Charter
is not more moderate: āMuslims will fight the Jews (and kill them).ā
Israel is a vital link in what the Charter calls āthe chain of Jihad.ā
Hamas cleric Yunis Al-Astal elaborated in a 2008 sermon:
Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like
Constantinople was, as was prophesized by our Prophet Muhammad. Today,
Rome is the capital of the Catholics, or the Crusader capital, which has
declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes
and pigs in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam ā
this capital of theirs will be an advanced post for the Islamic
conquests, which will spread through Europe in its entirety, and then
will turn to the two Americas, and even Eastern Europe.
Both Israelās friends and its enemies are keenly aware that this is
the backdrop against which Hamas launches its missiles. Many others
choose to be oblivious. So you constantly hear journalists suggesting
that the missiles that Hamas has been raining down on Israel from Gaza
are merely a form of āresistanceā to Israeli āoccupationā ā ignoring the
fact that Israelis gave up their claims to Gaza seven years ago,
removing every farmer, every soldier, and every grave.
Hamas does not seek a two-state solution or any other compromise. No one
who embraces the ideology of jihadism can. Again from the Hamas
Charter: āThere is no solution for the Palestinian question, except
through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are
all a waste of time and vain endeavors.ā Hamas can accept the occasional
truce; as Iām writing this, a ceasefire appears to be going into
effect. During such breaks, Hamas does all it can to prepare for the
next battle.
Hamas commanders understand that when they wage war ā and thatās what
missile attacks are ā and when they commit war crimes ā and thatās what
missiles aimed at civilians are ā repercussions will follow. Israel
takes great pains to spare non-combatants, but Hamas routinely uses
Palestinian women and children as human shields. That, too, is a war
crime.
Recently, despite Israeli efforts to block deliveries of advanced
weaponry (while simultaneously facilitating the flow of humanitarian
aid), Hamas received an estimated 100 Iranian-made Fajr-5 missiles ā
longer-range weapons that can threaten not just Israeli villages near
Gaza but more than half Israelās population. Such missiles have been
fired at Tel Aviv, while other missiles, M-75s to be precise (made with Iranian assistance),
have landed just outside Jerusalem. Muslim clerics who routinely
proclaim Jerusalem āIslamās third holiest cityā have not expressed
outrage.
If Iranās jihadist rulers acquire nuclear weapons, will they use them
in support of Hamas? Might they transfer one or two directly to Hamas,
or perhaps to Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy which has thousands of
missiles in southern Lebanon aimed at Israel? Would Jerusalem, the
holiest city for Jews and Christians, be a target? My answer to all
these questions: Why not? If Israel adopts a policy of āmutually assured destruction,ā which
was Americaās policy vis-Ć -vis the Soviet Union during the Cold War,
will that be sufficient to deter Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah? Iāll let
Iranās former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, answer that:
āApplication of an atomic bomb would not leave anything in Israel. But
the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world.ā
At a time when many in the West insist on a false moral equivalence
between Hamasās attacks and Israelās defense, President Obamaās response
to the conflict has been admirably clear-headed. Last Sunday in
Bangkok, he said:
āThereās no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down
on its citizens from outside its borders. So we are fully supportive of
Israelās right to defend itself from missiles landing on peopleās homes
and workplaces and potentially killing civilians. And we will continue
to support Israelās right to defend itself. . . . If weāre serious about
wanting to resolve this situation and create a genuine peace process,
it starts with no more missiles being fired into Israelās territory.ā
Hamas is serious about wanting to resolve this situation ā but not
through a peace process. It prefers a process that leads to victory,
which means Israelās extermination or, failing that, what it calls
āmartyrdom.ā Iranās rulers share those aspirations. Both Israelās
friends and enemies get that. Many others choose to be oblivious. National Review ā Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on national security.
