[antimedia] antimedia: Wretchard has written....

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Posted by antimedia:
Wretchard has written....
http://www.antimedia.us/posts/1149970849.shtml


   ....[1]a compelling essay that should be read by everyone. He
   discusses the dilemma of standing upon principles versus taking the
   fight to the enemy.

     I don't mean to refute Talk Left's reproof, because I'm not sure if
     there are any canonical answers to the question of when it is
     proper to cast away the law. But I think it's important to make the
     choices clear to the public. It's dishonest to promise to keep them
     always safe; to ever "connect the dots" yet simultaneously promise
     never to match savage men for savagery. It would be better to tell
     the truth: that if in order to maintain our values we must
     sometimes stop short of harsh methods, we must also risk and spend
     lives to preserve those ideals. That if we hold them dear enough
     then a price must be paid for keeping them. In the very same way
     that US soldiers must daily risk their lives to obey rules of
     engagement. And a public unwilling to bear that risk should take
     the moral burden upon itself and change the rules rather than
     expect men to transgress them in secret for its guilty peace of
     mind.
     In the last analysis, the preservation of a civilization's values
     is never free. It is possible to play by whatever rules we feel
     that our deepest civilizational values compel us to observe. But we
     must pay the price. We can, like the early Christians choose to
     face the lions rather than renounce our beliefs. But no one should
     have any illusions about the lions; and those Christians were
     virtuous precisely because they had no illusions about the lions.
     Our willingness to fight by the strictest legal standards must be
     matched by a corresponding willingness to sacrifice in order to
     uphold those standards. It may be necessary to bleed and to bleed
     at home to uphold our beliefs. Or change them. Talk Left merely
     poses the dilemma. But the choice is ours. The tragedy of the West
     is that it is simultaneously impatient for safety; intolerant of
     hardship and unable to bear guilt. The demand for no body bags; no
     protracted war; no inconvenience; no painstaking effort also means,
     in it's own way, a secret demand for no law.

   This is precisely what is wrong with America today. Too many people
   have a completely unrealistic view of what war is. When confronted
   with its brutal reality, they want to turn away -- to not face it
   headon. But face it we must. And make decisions that could cost us our
   lives or the lives of our loved ones. The losses we suffer in war are
   in direct proportion to the brutality or "civilized behavior" we are
   willing to employ.

References

   1. http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2006/06/pedicaris-alive-or-raisuli-dead.html