Moral High Ground
“The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism.” Colin Powell
I believe Colin Powell is an honorable and moral man. His comment, though, has me wondering. If the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis for our fight, then I believe it has little to do with the methods we use to interrogate mass murderers that would cheerfully kill many more of us. Instead, it has more to do with a worldview skewed by the conflagration of such comments emanating from the mouths of supposed learned men. General Powell’s statement is a polite, diplomatic way of expressing Ted Kennedy’s sentiments when he held posters of Abu Ghraib abuses in front of television cameras and stated that Saddam’s torture chambers reopened under our management.
I respect John McCain for what he endured in service to our country. But, clarification of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, specifically defining what this means: “(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment” will not undo the torture that he and others endured at the hands of the North Vietnamese. Nor will it prevent future episodes. Nor will it threaten American morality.
General Powell, Senator McCain and the others insist that if we define for ourselves what Common Article 3 means, we will put our Soldiers at greater risk if captured and we will lose the moral high ground in our war. Thinking like this is why we have difficulty understanding and confronting an evil enemy. It’s why too many of us still cannot grasp what happened on 9/11. The problem is that most of us view the world, which includes our enemies, through our own prism - a national prism that values life, freedom and the moral high ground although that ground is enduring rapid saturation by moral relativism on many fronts. Just ask Rosie. Through our prism we view, but do not see what motivates a religiously driven death cult that hopes to render our infidel world subservient. Their moral high ground, their sworn purpose, is our eradication from the planet. They view the hastening of our end as doing a good thing – a moral thing. It’ll bring about the end and paradise for them. It’s was Ahmadinejad’s apocalyptic prayer for us in front of the U.N. The implications of it totally lost on our Rosies and most Americans who are more concerned about the price of gas and whether or not they should buy CITGO.
“I emphatically declare that today’s world more than ever before longs for just and righteous people with love for all humanity, and above all, longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet.
Oh, Almighty God, all men and women are your creatures and you have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirsts for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by you, and make us among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause”.
My prayer is that we come to our senses before it costs us 3million lives instead of only 3000.
I’m not schooled in politics and diplomacy, as is Colin Powell, John McCain and the others who are concerned about losing American morality, but here’s what I conclude. The nation states that would adhere to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions will never go to war against the United States. Go back and read that sentence again please. Those that would engage us in a war (including the Nation State of Radical Islam) would not seek out Lindsey Graham to help determine if they are following the Geneva Conventions. Besides, they probably can’t find their copy. I expect most of you who are reading this have been in a scrap or two in your lifetime. When you were in that eye gouging, hair pulling, biting, testicle-kicking scrap, did you ever stop and think gee, I really need to gain the moral high ground here? Well, that’s where we are. Placed there courtesy of politics and a failed assessment of evil viewed through a prism of decency.
Do we really have to work at gaining the moral high ground from people that would shoot a defenseless nun in the back because the Pope quoted an ancient text? People that would behead three girls walking to school - because they were Christians? People that would torture Soldiers and mutilate their bodies, film it and display it on the Internet? People that indiscriminately bomb women and children and chant god is great while they saw the head off a trussed up non-combatant? Murderers that would kill 3000 people because their god instructed them to? Gaining the moral high ground over a genocidal death cult is a very low standard. I believe America is secure on the high ground. What concerns me is that some in our own country apparently do not believe we are.
We’re not fighting a war against terrorism. That’s another of our mistakes. Terrorism is the manifestation of the death cult that’s defining modern Islam. The enemy in our war is the black hats that keep captive, hopeless and ignorant populations whipped into frenzy and believing that our goal is the destruction of their faith. What we need is a proper view of our enemy through their prism. The prism that says we all need to die. Then, maybe our intellectual and diplomatic leaders can set aside politics and declare that enough is enough.
It’s not our morality that’s at risk. It’s our survival.
Copyright © J.D. Pendry 2006
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Never try to teach a pig to sing. It annoys the pig and it wastes your time.
September 24th, 2006 at 3:15 am
Well said, Sgt Major.
What our nay Sayers fail to grasp is that not standing up to and defeating these terrorists that have high jacked a religion and believe they have God’s blessings is that it is IMMORAL NOT to fight them.
They have no regard for human rights, peaceful co-existence or religious freedom. Simply wearing lipstick can result in a woman’s death. Being raped can be cause to kill her because she is no longer pure, while the rapist might receive a few lashes.
History shows that they fail to see evil or stand up to it until very late. Europe alone should see the similarities between this war and the last two that decimated their continent. Wishing for peace won’t make it happen. “Dialogue” won’t bring it, it just prolongs the inevitable.
To die for their cause is glorious to them, making them very hard to fight. A sane person fights but keeps their own life in regard. These terrorists don’t. After all, they have been convinced of the glory they receive afterwards.
Odd too that they fail to see their leaders don’t ever forfeit their lives fighting us.
We are up against a very formidable foe, one that hides amongst women, children and Mosques. We are not facing a nation, per se, but an ideology found within several nations. Geneva Conventions are cute, but they won’t defeat an enemy that laughs at them and demands we follow them while they violate every aspect of them.
Powell, McCain, Graham and others may feel we need “Moral High Ground,” but they also need to see the blood on their own hands as they tie the hands of our brave all volunteer forces defeating this enemy, when they are allowed to fight.
Every death because we have to treat the enemy with kid gloves is on their hands. Every death due to unknown intelligence that we would have pried out of a detainee but couldn’t because it might be humiliating to be questioned by a female belongs on their heads as well.
As my wife said recently, until we are prepared to slit their throats, as they are ours, we cannot win.