Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   9/09/2014

        Thoughts and quotes from patriots

The 9/11 commemoration of the most devastating attack on America’s home soil in our history, inspires me to offer several quotes and thoughts from patriotic sources. From Ronald Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing” speech, we have an alternative paradigm for dealing with America’s mortal enemies, compared to making them a “manageable problem” (President Obama).

Reagan: “Now let’s set the record straight. There’s no argument over the choice between peace and war but there’s only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender. Admittedly, there’s a risk in any course we follow other than this but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement and it gives no choice between peace and war, only between fight or surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum.

“And what then? …(Enemy leaders) have told them that we’re retreating under the pressure of (the then-cold war; now, the Islamic terrorist war) and someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, morally and economically. They believe this because from our side they've heard voices pleading for peace at any price…And therein lies the road to war because those voices don’t speak for the rest of us.

“You and I know, and do not believe, that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin—just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the Pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard ‘round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn’t die in vein. Where then is the road to peace? Well, it’s a simple answer after all.

“You and I have the courage to say to our enemies: ‘There is a price we will not pay.’ ‘There is a point beyond which they must not advance’… Winston Churchill said, ‘The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we’re spirits—not animals.’ And he said ‘There’s something going on in time and space and beyond time and space which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.’

“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

If you go to Powerlineblog.com, look up the September 3 post, “A Word from Ronald Reagan,” to see the moving juxtaposition of scenes of America’s military and the men, women and children who comprise that vast family of heroes, as well as the weapons upon which their success, and our collective freedom, depend.

Another more recent perspective from then-President George W. Bush: “We have learned that terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength; they are invited by the perception of weakness. And the surest way to avoid attacks on our own people is to engage the enemy where he lives and plans. We are fighting that enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets, in our own cities.”

Also posted at Powerlineblog.com on September 3 was “Parents of Navy Seal Ask Obama to Resign,” a letter by Billy and Karen Vaughn, parents of Aaron Carson Vaughn, member of SEAL Team VI, killed when his Chinook helicopter, carrying thirty Americans and eight Afghans, was shot down on August 6, 2011. It should have been covered and talked about on every news broadcast and cable show (hint: if it had been addressed to Bush from antiwar mom Cindy Sheehan, it would have been).

Excerpts: “(Upon viewing the beheading of James Foley) I have been left with a level of rage known only to those of us who have sacrificed unspeakable offerings on the altar of world peace. My offering was my only son…I have been asked what drove my son to choose his particular career (to become a Navy SEAL). Aaron Vaughn was a man who possessed the courage to acknowledge evil. And evil, once truly acknowledged, demands response…so few are willing to look it in the eye. It is much simpler—much safer—to look the other way.

“That is, unless you are the leader of the Free World…Your cowardly lack of leadership has left a gaping hole—not only in America’s security—but the security of the entire globe. Your message has come across loud and clear, sir: You are not up to this job. You know it. We know it. The world knows it. Thanks to your ‘leadership’…the world is in chaos. What’s been gained, you’ve lost…You’ve demolished our ability to hold the trust of allies…America has always been exceptional. And she will be again. You, Mr. President, are a bump in the road.”