Something has really stuck in my craw since reading Anhata’s post in the Electoral College thread. I can’t help it. I’ve got to cough it up.

I think the statement that summed up her view of the U.S. and the efforts of our military could be found in sentence 1, graf 3.

"Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan--all of the carnage in these countries before 2001 was caused by U.S. interference in order to destroy the basic rights and capacity of those peoples to construct their own independent, sovereign society. This doesn't even touch the mess in Central and South America or Africa that we caused by propping up dictatorships, etc." [Emphasis added]

If I seem emotional here, pleae keep in mind you’re talking to the daughter of a Vietnam vet.

No, our troops were not over there spreading some sort of American hegemony. They were there fighting for the FREEDOM of all those people. They were combating communism. If you could point to one single example where communism has brought freedom, or even improved the lives of the people who live under it, such a statement might get a pass. But all the examples from real life demonstrate the opposite. People in North Korea are starving to death under a madman. People in Cambodia died horribly after we abandoned that part of the world to the communists. If we had allowed Central America, Afghanistan, etc. to go the same way, what do you suppose would have happened? Just judging from history? There’s not even room here to list the endless examples of the persecution of our Christian brothers and sisters in China--imprisonments, beatings, executions--not to mention the infamous Tienanmen Square. It behooves us to learn from history, so we don’t have to repeat it.

You seem to conveniently forget that the "carnage" was not limited to civilian deaths. OUR MEN died over there by the thousands! Where’s your solidarity with them? You are saying they died to "take away people’s basic rights" and "interfere with their national sovereignty." You even imply that our troops took aim at civilians. All of which would be laughable, if not for the sobering reality that they sacrificed their lives in an attempt to secure people’s basic right to self-determination. You have it exactly reversed. Are self-determination and independence what you think communists wanted for people? Read any Solzenitsyn lately?

I apologize if I seem emotional, but men like my dad had to put up with this kind of slander from prominent people for decades, and to hear it repeated here is almost too much, especially with the husbands of our members here deploying or just returning from deployment. It almost amounts to spitting on the graves of the people who died in those conflicts. I doubt that’s how we want to celebrate Veteran’s day.

Oh, by the way, referring to your final paragraph, does your political philosophy really allow for an overtly Christian foreign policy? Whatever happened to the *strict* line of separation between church and state? Anyway, I do agree that it’s a nice warm fuzzy idea, if only the rest of the world could be trusted to have America’s best interests at heart. That’s a pretty big "if" on which to gamble our national security and economic well-being.

Furthermore, you’ve engaged in a huge theological leap. Jesus’ teaching was directed to individuals, not national entities. Jesus also told Peter that all those who draw the sword will die by the sword. However, Paul in Romans 13 makes perfectly clear that that teaching does *not* apply to civil government, which has the God-given authority to wield the sword against evildoers. A nation’s military is an extension of its civil government. What Jesus meant was that his church was not to be established by any bloodshed but his own.

America may not be "my country, right or wrong." But it is the premier example of the representative form of government on the face of this earth--the first nation in all of history to be founded on the basis of inalienable rights and limited powers of government. It is unsurpassed, in my view, as a haven of freedom and goodness. (Read Dinesh. That has to be my favorite article ever.) Whatever may be wrong with us, this much is true: we are not building a hegemony, we are making FREEDOM possible for the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, freedom to determine their own future for the first time since the beginnings of human history. Lovers of freedom and democracy should be able to celebrate the recent elections there. Those who disapprove of "propping up dictators" should have less respect for the opinions France, Germany, and Russia, and a little more respect for our military men and women *and our many allies* who deposed a murderous despot like Saddam Hussein. But that’s only possible if one’s political viewpoint admits reality.

Finally...

HOO-AH!!!

Signing off with a great, big "thank you" to our military,

Susannah Cox