Recently I have been pondering about the opinions of those people who wish to withdraw the US troops from Iraq. They always reference the number of deaths of our young men and women. They say that we are fighting for a lie perpetrated on the American people by the evil George W. Bush and his oil-loving buddies. I must confess that in the days leading up to our attacks on Iraq, the whole debate seemed centered around WMD's, which turned out to be poor intelligence. I believe Saddam at one time had WMD's, but too bad more focus was not made on Saddam Hussein's crimes against humanity. That Hitleresque style of leadership is reason enough for me to justify taking out Saddam's regime. Iraq is better off today than it was under Saddam. The Iraqi people are free! Isn't freedom a principle that is greater than life itself?
Mel Gibson Braveheart (1995) addressed the point powerfully:
William Wallace: ...I see a whole army of my country men, here in defiance of tyranny. You've come to fight as freemen, and freemen you are. What will you do without freedom?! Will you fight?
Man: No . . . we will run . . . and we will live.
William Wallace: Aye. Fight and you may die. Run and you'll live, at least a while. And, dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance -- just one chance -- to come back here and tell our enemies, that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!
Human life is extremely valuable. Sure, each newborn child has the potential to find the cure to cancer. Do we need to care for the sick and needy and relieve the suffering of others? Obviously, yes. But perhaps I value mortality less than others do because of my religious perspective. Our souls did not begin, nor will they end with this life. Perhaps because of that eternal view, I find great value in the sacrifice of one's life for principles that are greater than life itself. Freedom from evil, like Saddam Hussein and terrorists, is worth all of our lives.
If every last freedom-loving person were to give his or her life in the defense of freedom and the only remaining mortals on earth were terrorists, our sacrifice would have been worth it!!!
The freedom to be found beyond this life will be far greater for those of us who fought on the side of righteousness.
4 comentarios:
I like it Rob! It is clear to me that "certain principles are greater than life itself"... I'd like to expand on the thought, but no time today. Just wanted to check in. Good stuff, thanks!
John
There are folks, even in the military, who forget what we fight for. Maybe someone should write down their values on torn peice of a coat or something. Then we could fly it like a flag and it would remind people of their homes, their God, and their families. If only there were a prescedent like that for Americans to look to for inspiration. Too bad we don't know our actual histroy well enough to lift up the real American heroes.
I think it's odd that the media only shows all the bad things about wars; about soldiers dieing and how "we desperatly need to get them out of there." Media shuns out the fact that we're accomplishing many more good things than bad by keeping the soldiers in Iraq.
I would say our media doesn't even show us "all the bad things", quite to the contrary, one has to go outside the sanitized U.S. media in order to get any idea of the collateral damage that has been caused.
We have fallen far short of the mininum of what we needed to accomplish, but don't worry, we've only spent 200 billion so far in up front costs, and the administration asked congress for another 25 billion last week.
Perhaps the media would do some pretty stories, if the country weren't so possitively lethal, if there was a modicum of security and a journalist could travel.
But we tried to do this job on the cheap and now we're really paying. Of course none of this has been added to our tax bill yet, it's all debt we are defering for now.
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