Monday, February 19, 2007

The Long War for Human Rights

OregonGuy has a great post on his blog tracing The Long War for human rights over the political expediency of excusing mass murder in the name of “self-determination”. Here’s part of his post:

In the past decade we’ve been attacked by Iran, Iraq, Libya, and their proxies. An argument could be made that we’ve been attacked by the Saudis as well, but the discussion of Saudi policy versus governance would be lengthy, so I’ll just posit that the “official” Saudi position has been to support the United States as an ally. (Go ahead and rant off at this point. But what else are stipulations for, but to side-step the grease and go for the guts?)

During this period, the US has attempted peace-keeping. Negotiation. Bribery. Covert and direct aid. We’ve spilled American blood in Germany, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, Israel, Egypt, Crete, Turkey, Indonesia, Yemen……all lost as a result of Islamic Terror. And the list isn’t complete. You’re forgetting the thousands killed on September 11, 2001.

But at that critical moment, a moment where America stood upon the world stage and made one of the greatest political and diplomatic victories of a century……just at that time in 1975 a coup de grace occurred on the world stage. And a counter-coup occurred in America.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Just as it abhorred the political vacuum during the Carter years, government hates the political vacuum we’re dealing with in Congress right now.

And the counter-coup occurred when the men and women at the ramparts of democracy failed to believe in the dream of democracy. Today, to too many people, democracy is a failed policy. The dream of all the world’s people living with the rights to human dignity described by the Helsinki Accords is just another Imperialist, Rethuglican, War-mongering, neo-Nazi plot to subjugate and conquer. Far be it for this writer to point out that sixteen years after the signing of the Helsinki Accords the Baltics would be free of the former Soviet Union, and that Communism would fall. In Poland, Hungary, Latvia, Slovenia, Slovakia……freedom and democracy are lived and practiced. Carter ignored the power of democracy. Carter lost.

And we lived through it. And we’ll live through this. More people will die as we fail to face up to the realities of the world we’re living in. Innocent people. People who didn’t choose to fight. That’s the cost of not living up to your responsibilities. People, real women, college kids, farmers, children get killed. And they will when the Lefties in Congress get their way.

Not that Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children want to fight. No one who knows war wants war. But when tasked with the mission, they choose to fight. They go into the battle with full knowledge of the cost of failure. Unlike the men and women of the Twin Towers. Or, the Achille Lauro. Or the men, women and children of Iraq, Kurd, Shia and Sunni. If we don’t choose the mission, the mission will choose us. I just hope few Iraqis will die because America chose not to stand with them.

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