
 |
|
May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Jan. 8, 2010
22 Teves 5770
When War Is Not Metaphor
By
Suzanne Fields
| 
|
|
|
| |
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
My dinner partner at the holiday table was home on leave from Army
Ranger training. He had been living outdoors, learning to be at home in
the rain and the mud, eating to lose weight and build muscle through
rigorous sleep-deprived maneuvers. He could run, jump and do push-ups in
numbers that would embarrass the regulars at the local gym who pump iron
and swim their laps in the comfort of indoor luxury.
He was looking forward to deploying to Afghanistan. I wasn't sure I
heard him right, so I asked him to repeat himself. Yes, he was looking
forward to deploying to Afghanistan.
He had been an ROTC cadet at one of our elite Eastern universities. He
was sure that none from his class could be happier than he was. He
wanted to be an Army Ranger because it would give his life meaning and
purpose. He wasn't sure many of his classmates in other professions
would say that. He wanted a part of ensuring the future of his country.
With neither sentiment nor arrogance, he talked of taking seriously the
defense of country. He regards al-Qaida-trained terrorists as a deep
and lethal threat to everything he holds dear. He was very matter of
fact, and it was I who waxed sentimental, imagining him listening to
Kate Smith sing "God Bless America." She was the lyrical voice of
patriotism during World War II and made Irving Berlin's song a new
battle hymn of the republic.
We don't have a Kate Smith today. Our showbiz celebrities act as if they
don't know there's a war on. They're more concerned with acting
outrageous than honoring the courageous. They no longer bother to give
lip service to the values of God and country, and yet we face enemies as
deadly and as determined as any we fought 70 years ago. The enemy today
hides in caves, covens and cells but is just as real as the Nazis who
set out to rule the world. They wear neither uniform nor identifiable
insignia, and sometimes designer suits as camouflage. But their goal is
as evil as the goals of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan.
President Obama observed the obvious in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize,
but it was a needed reminder: "Evil does exist in the world. A
nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations
cannot convince al-Qaida's leader to lay down their arms." He reminded
his Norwegian hosts that many of their countrymen feel "deep ambivalence
about military action today."
What he didn't talk about was the deep ambivalence many Americans as
well feel toward military action. It's those ambivalent Americans the
president yielded to in granting the Christmas Day bomber a civil rather
than a military trial. Why the man with explosives in his underwear
should be dealt with differently than, say, the eight Nazi saboteurs who
arrived on the Atlantic shore in 1942 with explosives in a suitcase is a
puzzle. They got their day in a military court, and though they never
managed to detonate a single bomb, six were executed in the electric
chair, one was sentenced to life in prison and the other was sentenced
to 30 years.
Some of our most squeamish citizens cannot grasp the reality that the
war on terror is not metaphor, that neither a saboteur nor a terrorist
is entitled to the rights of a common criminal. Their arguments are weak
and predictable.
"We have nothing to be ashamed of, little to fear and much to be proud
of treating captured foreign terrorists as we would treat any upstanding
American who tried to blow up an airplane full of people," writes
Michael Kinsley in The New York Times.
Such reasoning is easy for those who intend no sacrifice, and patently
absurd. There's a huge difference, obvious to most of us, between a
domestic shooter serving his own ends and a terrorist recruited in the
Third World, radicalized in London and trained in Yemen to blow up
innocents and spread fear. Our law recognizes such difference, and only
a fancy double-talker would try to equate them.
The desire for this Yemen-trained terrorist to stand trial complicates
the closing of Guantanamo. Almost half of the 200 remaining prisoners in
Guantanamo are from Yemen, and as Thomas Wolfe might put it, they can't
go home again. No other country wants them.
We know now that Yemen recycles terrorists, and those who trained Umar
Farouk Abdulmutallab in his underwear-bomb tactics will cheer him on in
the spotlight of a civilian trial. Ranger, beware.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on JWR contributor Suzanne Fields' column by clicking here.
Suzanne Fields Archives
© 2006, Creators Syndicate, Suzanne Fields
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|