To The Peace Activists: WAKE UP!!!

In the five years since September 11th, 2001 the United States and its allies have been fighting a “War on Terrorism”. In these five years the US and its allies come under fire on a regular basis by peace activists (just as happened back during Vietnam, and to a lesser extent previous wars). However, there does seem to be theme in this war’s peace activists and it has become very apparent in the Israeli/Hezbollah conflict that started last week. Now I am someone who prefers peace, and will always want peace. But these modern peace activists seem to be living in a dream world or a movie or something. Because they continue to make assumptions that have no basis in reality and follow huge leaps in logic.

So for all you peace activists out there I’m going to throw a bucket of cold water on you with this post. I will outline the assumptions that you have been making and what the actual reality is of those assumptions.

Assumption 1: One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
Reality 1: A terrorist is not a soldier, a rebel, a criminal, or an honorable person. Terrorists intentionally attack civilians. They intentionally attack women and children. They would kill their own mothers if it would further their cause. They simply don’t care who they kill, they just want to kill.

Assumption 2: When a western power is involved (US, Israel, UK, etc.) it is western imperialism or “cowboy diplomacy” that started the war.
Reality 2: WWII; the Empire of Japan slaughtered countless Chinese. The US response to this was to stop selling supplies to Japan. In response, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor waking the “sleeping giant”. Gulf War; Iraq attacked and invaded our ally Kuwait. Afghanistan; Al Qaeda attacked the US on September 11th, 2001 killing more people than who died in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Taliban controlled Afghanistan gave Al Qaeda permission to use their country as a base of operations. Iraq; Sadam Hussein after continuously defying the cease fire agreement created after the first Gulf War through the attempted development of WMD’s, the firing of missiles at aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones of Iraq, and the fundraising for Palestinian suicide bombers who attacked Israeli targets.

Assumption 3: If a non-western civilian is killed as a result of western military action then it was an intentional attack on that civilian.
Reality 3: The fact is folks that this is war. I’m not a historian, but there has never been a war that avoided civilian death. That does not make a civilian death right or ok. It’s just a reality. But in this war in particular we have terrorists who hide among civilians. See Reality 1 above. Terrorists don’t care about the lives of civilians. They don’t care about international law. They don’t care about human rights. All they want is to kill as many as possible. So they hide among women and children while firing rockets at women and children. This leaves a horrible decision to the military commanders whose job it is to stop these terrorists. Do you kill the terrorist now and put an end to the terrorist attacks and risk killing the civilians he has surrounded himself with, or do you wait for him to get out in the open and hope you can still kill or capture him and in your waiting the terrorist continues to actively kill civilians? Is the death of a civilian ever a good thing? Never. Is it ever an ok thing? Never. Can the death of a civilian ever be justified? Never. That’s what makes this a horrible decision for the military commanders to make. But the question you peace activists need to ask yourselves once in a while is who caused the death of those civilians? Was it the commander who ordered the attack on the terrorist hiding among the civilians? Or was it the terrorist who chose to hide among those civilians and use them as shields?

Tags: Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Hamas, War, United States, United Kingdom, Iraq, Iran, Syria