Now Is The Time

I read of the London bombings first on the Internet yesterday. I am not proud to say that the horrific nature of this crime against the people of Britain has not fully sunk in just yet. My world is too jaded for me to fully appreciate the severity and horror of that reality. There has been so much killing and destruction in the last few years that my brain is becoming numb to it. That is sad. This posting is my first attempt to do something about that.

So what will I do? Well, I will not give in to the terrorist's methods. They want to isolate the US. They do this by perpetrating acts of cowardice against innocent people. Now I just called the citizens of the UK and the US innocents. The terrorists would have you believe that the citizenry of a country is not innocent of their leader's actions. Well that is not quite true. That only applies to countries they do not like. Their countries however their citizens are innocent and the US and the UK have no right to be involved there.

So which is it? Are the non-military, non-government citizens of a country responsible for their leader's actions? Interesting question isn't it. You want to say "yes", but if you do, then you justify the terrorists. You want to say "no" but then you justify the US and UK governments. What a predicament.

I posit that the citizenry are mostly not responsible. How so? I am a citizen of the US. But I have no direct influence on individual military situations. As a citizen of a democracy, or at least a republic, your influence as a voting citizen does not extend to the day to day operations of the government or the military. Yet you are responsible for electing the leaders of that country. And as was the case in the late 1700's, those citizens have the responsibility to stand up to bad leadership. It happened again the mid 1800's when the citizens of the southern US thought the northern US states were doing a bad job. In both of those cases, there was armed conflict. In one, the uprising won, and the US exists. In the other, the uprising was defeated, and a whole US still exists. But I would argue that in both cases, the result has been that the US has improved in both circumstances.

Now this does not condone force to overthrow a government. It is an illustration of the fact that Americans believe that the citizens own their own country, and should take care of things themselves. And for a long time, the US held that isolationist attitude. And what happened? People in other countries berated the US and its citizenry for not being more involved in the world, to rid it of evil, and to make it a better place. After all, we had a lot of power, but we did little to improve the rest of the world for over 100 years.

This is how I feel. That other countries want our money. They want our help when they get into real trouble. But they don't want to help us. And they certainly don't want our interference. But in some countries, an elite minority retain such a choke hold on its populace that there is no one speaking for the ordinary citizens. In places like Iraq, they were tortured and killed for it. This is a fact. The government of Iraq used nerve gas against its own citizens. And then they moved against their neighbors.

Study history people. Germany after WWI was not a threat. Sure there was this one guy, kind of crazy, became their dictator, but he wasn't bothering us was he? Or was he? Once Hitler rose to power, he moved against his neighbors. And he tortured and killed his own citizens, the Jews and those that aided them. It wasn't until he invaded France that the UK and other countries realized that something needed to be done about it. However, their delay nearly lost them the war. The German war machine had grown very powerful without intervention from other countries.

And what were we doing in the US all that time? Waiting. And selling supplies to the UK and other Allies. Sure we took some hits in our shipping lanes. The Germans knew we could be a threat, even if all we did was to supply the Allies. So they sniped at our ships. But then, while we were all smug in our "hands off the world" approach to international relations, the Japanese launched a sneak attack against the US at Pearl Harbor. And thus the sleeping giant was awakened.

So now in this 21st century, we have different threats, but the same old evils, and the same old tired excuses for not being involved. The terrorists are no less lethal than the German U-Boats of WWII and they are no less threatening than the soldiers on the field. The difference is they fight in cowardice, attacking non-militants, men, women, and children alike. They do this because they fight from a position of weakness. It is accepted by all that in a conventional battle, few could stand against the combined might of the US and the UK. So they deal in terror. And people want to wait some more.

Now is the time. Now is the time to NOT yield to the cowards. Now is the time to unite against them. Their tactic is to isolate and destroy. Stand together and no nation on the earth can defeat the US with the UK and their allies. And those that would sit on the sidelines, entire countries in fear of a few terrorists, like France, to remember your past, and remember your pride. Do not let the terrorists win. Stand up. Now is the time.