We find, on this Memorial Day, that we are still at war. Seventy years ago, Germany put pen to paper and acknowledged their unconditional surrender to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force and the Soviet High Command. It has been nearly ninety-seven years since the end of the ‘War to End All Wars’. And while it is true that there have been no formal declarations since, (neither Korea nor Vietnam were declared wars, but were considered a ‘police action’ and a conflict for Communist containment) we never the less remain in a de facto state. We entered Afghanistan in 2001 to get Bin Laden and shut down the Taliban, then Iraq in 2003 to get Hussein and his WMD’s.
Apart from murder and rape, there is no more detestable a form of human conduct than war. Sadly, it seems engrained in too many of us. Daily, my stomach churns over stories about ISIS, ISIL, Al Qaeda, and Boko Haram. I don’t care what religion or form of ideology they claim; they are animals. Actually, that does the animal kingdom a disservice. They are cockroaches. Just this morning comes the news that ISIS executed 262 Syrian fighters and civilians, including 13 children. The ancient city of Palmyra is in danger of destruction if they follow the pattern established at Nimrud. When they capture a town or a village, men and boys over the age of 14 are murdered, and the sisters and wives suffer the abuse of rape and torture.
In the past, America has been slow to take up a cause, especially when it involves putting our military in harm’s way. It’s easy to understand our reticence. Who wants to see their son or daughter, their husband or wife leave with the possibility they’ll never return. It took us three years to intervene in WWI and more than two to answer Germany’s declaration of war in WWII. The night before the invasion of Iraq, I overheard a conversation in a Pizza place in Queens. The girl was speaking in cliché, saying that we shouldn’t be going in, that it wasn’t our problem. I feel the tug of conscience pulling from either side of the argument. But all the while, insects like the dark-clothed jihadists spread their evil and subject our fellow humans to unimaginable despair, torture, and death. It’s embarrassing to read that in the past couple of weeks, six people have been arrested while attempting to go to Syria for jihad, and the FBI estimates that at least 150 have already gone. Garland, Texas should serve as a wakeup call that the war has arrived inside our borders. Leaders of these fundamentalist organizations are practically begging their adherents to attack military, police, and civilian targets to such a degree that our bases have put personnel on alert. Not content to fight on their own soil, they are committed to bringing the conflict right here.
We all know what happens when you fail to take a cockroach infestation seriously; it raises the possibility of extermination to nearly impossible levels. We need to think hard about what it will take to curb this aggression, both here and in the Middle East. I’m afraid that the choices may feel neither popular nor palatable.
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If ISIS is cockroaches then USA is what ? do this modern world needs America ? acting like police of the world, america is just cancer from modern world
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The United States is a nation with some serious problems, however, the last time I looked we weren’t running around committing heinous crimes of wholesale rape and murder, or beheading people, or sponsoring killers to shoot at people because they draw a cartoon, killing men and boys over the age of 14 then taking their wives and sisters for forced sex, or destroying monuments of the past. Please, ISIS is an infestation that needs to be exterminated. Did the U.S. help create the vacuum of power that led to the rise of ISIS? Yes, but like my mother used to say: you made this mess, now go clean it up.
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US and ISIS are same both are terrorist. US is state terrorist and isis is terrorist organization why US look arrogant they think they superior human race in this planet acting like they can control anything on this planet did you forget what US did at Japan (first atomic bomb to kill human being), vietnam, afghanistan, Iraq and many part of this world.
ISIS = USA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes
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Oh that’s right, but I guess you forgot that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor – at a time when the U.S. had resolved to remain neutral, plus Japan invaded China and committed atrocities against those people. Saddam Hussein was murdering his own people. If the rest of the world wasn’t sicker than we are – and the Middle East has been screwed up for thousands of years, far longer than America has existed – then maybe we wouldn’t have to step in and clean up everyone else’s crap.
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How US going to clean up ISIS ? another war ? war and war against why so many war junkies on this planet !
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Because humans are a sick species. There would be no need for war if the idiots in the black outfits stopped chopping heads off, burning 80 year old women to death, and raping young girls.
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Most sick human species lives in America keep dreaming this world will love USA like in hollywood movies *LOL, it’s funny most of war after WW 2 Caused by America. don’t forget we have google just type in google about US war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, vietnam and etc.
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Funny though how many countries in Africa and the Middle East have thousands upon thousands fleeing their homes as extremists approach and yet millions are still trying to immigrate to America. Guess we must be doing something right.
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The wildly misguided GOP invasion of Iraq to find US-manufactured poison gas (sold by the Reagan administration to Saddam in the early 80s) was ironically a key factor behind the rise of ISIS.
Sad, but true.
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So very true. I know we went there for the wrong reasons, but I’m glad we took out Saddam since he was killing his own people. The handling of the situation after definitely contributed to the uprise of ISIS. Unfortunately, as my mother used to say: It’s your mess, now go clean it up. This is what we’re facing now…
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“but I’m glad we took out Saddam since he was killing his own people.”
There’s lots of dictators who have – and are – killing their own people that America hasn’t touched. Kim Jeong Il was one of them, except, unlike Iraq, North Korea doesn’t have large amounts of oil. Neither do many failed African states that America hasn’t touched.
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So true, and I wholeheartedly think we should go after them too.
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War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart Mill
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Excellent quote…thank you… 🙂
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Very true.
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No doubt we did create the environment from which ISIS grew, but we can’t now allow it to swarm over us.
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The girl was wrong. It is our problem. We created ISIS. War is horrible. Manipulation of peoples and governments carries a price. We never like paying that price. It tarnishes the shield we still pretend stands for “good guy.”
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