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."
Genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid; if you've ever had the pleasure of speaking with some of the more zealous haters of Israel
you'll hear these phrases at some point, normally yelled at you by a delightful middle class keffiyeh-wearing student. I guess to some extent, sadly, we have become slightly
accustomed to these libels. The hypocrisy of those claiming to be
pro-Palestinian and champions of human rights and their obsessive hatred
of Israel has led to the abandonment of those who suffer true
apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing. Detractors will
undoubtedly be quick to ask why supporters of Israel point to other
regimes to exonerate Israel. But this is not really what I'm doing.
Israel needs no exoneration as, fortunately, Israelis are able to
protest, challenge and choose their governments. That's democracy folks.
But, just for the sake of argument, let us say all the malicious lies
have some truth to them. Still the question remains: Why is Israel
singled out for protests and global marches lauded by the 'enlightened'
regimes in Tehran
and Damascus, yet some of the world's human rights catastrophes carry
on daily, completely ignored, by the same holier than thou activists?
For me, a particular source of pain and anger is the situation of minorities and women in my parents' homeland. In Pakistan,
not a week goes by without a story of rape, murder, humiliation and
torture. In this Islamic country, terms such as Jesus Christ are banned
in text messages and a young girl is shot for demanding basic education.
Yet apart from the attempted murder of Malala Yusufzai, these stories
rarely make it to the press. The brutally oppressed Christian minority
suffers at the hands of an archaic blasphemy law, yet, apart from
small-scale protests held by Pakistani Christian groups, there were no
calls to boycott Pakistan and no flotillas were planned. I guess
murdered Pakistani Christians maybe not a trendy enough cause. I wonder
if a British newspaper would publish a cartoon
of a Pakistani mullah murdering minorities to pave the way for a
Sharia state. Our journalists love freedom and liberty, but the love
their lives a little bit more.
Obsessed with destruction of Israel
The House of Saud promotes religious apartheid, destroys history and
spreads wahhabism, yet the world remains silent. Maybe the cause isn't
cool enough. Or maybe we should just allow people to suffer and dismiss
it as a cultural phenomenon; maybe we should say this is how things are
in that part of the world and focus on the need to stop 'apartheid
Israel,' which just elected another Knesset member of Ethiopian descent.
Remember when a handful of Darfur nationals and real human
rights activists protested outside the UN Human Rights Commission
against the atrocities in the region? Well, the instigator of the ethnic
cleansing, Sudan, sat on the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Once again, so many of our activists remained silent because
Israel was not involved. It is interesting to note that some of Israel's
fiercest enemies like Syria, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain dismissed the UN
report on Darfur, penned by Nobel laureate Jody Wolfe, and acted to
protect Sudan at the UN. Why are the self-appointed defenders of Palestinian rights
silent while Palestinians are being massacred in Syria by Assad's
regime? And why do they remain silent when a Palestinian girl is
murdered in the name of honor? Where were they when Hamas fired rockets
from inside a school in Gaza? Oh, I forgot, they were outside the
nearest Israeli embassy chanting slogans in support of Hamas. I know there are
many people who genuinely care about Palestinians and want to see them
live in peace with their neighbors, but there are too many modern-day
Jean-Paul Marats who are full of fiery rhetoric and demand blood. People
have become obsessed with the destruction of Israel. These people
should be ashamed of themselves, emulating the Nazis by urging boycotts
of Jewish businesses while murder, rape and humiliation are rampant in
so many nations. Real apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing are
occurring on our watch, yet these people have become so obsessed with
the end of Zionism that the suffering of others had become a side show.
Protest the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia and you'll have
my respect. Protesting against an Israeli theater group is pathetic.Numerous Middle East countries consistently violate human
rights, yet the UN vilifies Israel. Is it just me or is something deeply
wrong with our moral compass? Ynet News
