Herding into the streets of various cities across America,
leftist activists gathered last weekend to collectively denounce
the Bush administration and the war in Iraq.
Though they attempt to hide their real agenda behind a cloak of
humanitarianism, the actual goal of these self-proclaimed advocates
of “peace” is not peace at all. They seek instead to
undermine the only means available to achieve peace:
self-defense.
In the twisted view of the protestors, all war is evil, no
matter who started it or why. In their eyes, all violence ““
whether in self-defense, or with malicious initiation ““ is
equally condemnable.
But the issue is not the simple dichotomy between those who deny
the basic right to self-defense (the left) and those who advocate
that we sacrifice ourselves ““ and our troops ““ to
protect the world (the right).
The only way to lead the war successfully is to recognize the
fundamental principles involved and apply them to the situation in
Iraq specifically and the region more generally.
Fundamentally, the right of each individual to his own life is
paramount. When someone’s right to his life is violated by an
attacker, he necessarily has the right to defend himself by any
means.
When an entire society is targeted by foreign attackers, the job
of the government is to defend the citizens, to be the agent of
their self-defense.
For decades before Sept. 11, 2001, the United States had been
consistently attacked by a radical faction of Islam that only grew
in popularity after decades of our halfhearted responses.
But in the world of Islamic terrorism, Iran is our most
dangerous enemy. Since the inception of the anti-U.S. Islamist
movement in the early 1960s, Iran has been the main sponsor, both
financially and ideologically, of terrorism against the United
States.
From the Iranian hostage crisis of the ’70s to the current
president’s open support of terrorist organizations to their
nuclear weapons programs, Iran is the most dangerous enemy the
United States faces.
In the necessary task of defending itself, America has the
absolute right to use whatever means it deems necessary against
whatever target it finds most appropriate.
The United States’ choice to fight Iraq, an indirect
sponsor of terrorism in the United States, is surely poor military
strategy, but it is not cause for withdrawal.
In order to win the war, we must recognize not only our absolute
right to self-defense, but also the evil of sacrificing our troops
for any other purpose.
Rather than engage in safe aerial attacks and carpet-bombings of
known terrorist centers, our troops have been sent to die fighting
expensive and time-consuming ground battles aimed at reducing
civilian casualties. This is just as much a negation of our right
to self-defense as the left has ever offered.
We are not the aggressors in this war, we are the victims. Our
World Trade Center was attacked. Our embassies were bombed. Our
soldiers were killed. All casualties resulting from the war rest
squarely on the shoulders of our attackers.
Such was our mindset in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By acting only
to win the war quickly and save our troops, lives were saved and
the war was ended quickly and decisively. In the end, even Japan
was better off for it and is now a thriving economic
powerhouse.
Our self-sacrificial attempts to reduce civilian casualties at
the expense of our own soldiers must be regarded as the same evil
as the demands of the protestors, for they are two faces of the
same beast ““ one that can only be defeated by unabashedly
asserting our right to exist and implementing the decisive attacks
that make our defense possible.
Hurst is the chairman of L.O.G.I.C.