IBDEditorials raises an interesting point regarding Obama's love letter to Iran:
Franklin Roosevelt's strategy against Hitler was not to send a Christmas card noting the artistic achievements of Goethe and Wagner. Does this Democratic president, like his great 20th century predecessors, recognize evil when he sees it?
The love letter, or video, in question was sent by Obama in observance of the Persian New Year. He extolled the virtues of the Iranian culture and expressed appreciation for them making "the world a more beautiful place."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was not impressed. His reponse, according to IBD was:
"Ahmadinejad spokesman Ali Akbar Javanfekr immediately responded to Obama's message by calling on the U.S. to end its support for Israel and apologize for: siding with Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s; accidentally shooting down an Iranian airliner in 1988 (for which the U.S. has already paid Iran $132 million); and the CIA's role in the shah's 1953 coup.
The Tehran regime has been in a de facto state of war with the U.S. for 30 years. It has provided bombs that have killed our soldiers in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan. It spends millions supplying and training Lebanon's Hezbollah terrorists, and funds Hamas' rocket and suicide attacks against Israel."
Clearly, Iran has no intention of making nice with us. They are not impressed or concerned with overtures of peace 'n love. They are still holding Roxana Saberi after all.
Commenter Anonymous left me this message last night in response to this post:
"Please. We are such an isolated country. Europeans have MUCH higher percentages of Muslims (or what you would call enemies) in their countries than we do. So why do we feel so threatened? For some reason, we feel like we are protected when we have more guns. what a joke.
When the horrible socialist English were bombed DAILY by the Germans. They carried on with their daily lives in defiance of the attacks. We were attacked ONCE, 8 YEARS AGO, and we still try to scare each other into believing that the rest of the world is out to get us, so GO GRAB YOUR GUNS!
Conservative America - Quite [sic] being scared."
Am I scared? I'm not sure scared is the right word, but do I think danger is on the horizon for America? Yes, I do. To Anonymous, I would say "Get your head out of the sand." We still consider Iran a terrorist state; the same Iran that is rapidly developing a nuclear program knowing full well there is nothing there to stop them now. Ronald Reagan once said that "man has never developed a weapon he didn't eventually use."
Iran denies the Holocaust ever occurred and calls for the destruction of our ally Israel.
Do I believe that a nice little video with Farsi sub-titles and the American flag cropped out will make one bit of difference? Do I think that we just need to love them more and Iran will love us back? As if our differences are just some ideological, communicative misunderstanding? Do I feel safer because of it?
Those are rhetorical questions and I don't even need to answer them.
1 comment:
When I intially read Anonymous's comment about us running scared since 9-11 and for us to grab our guns, I just shook my head and had pity for someone who obiviously believes there is a place inhabited by unicorns, and they eat rainbows and poop butterflies. I wish there was a place, but there isn't.
We are living in a dangerous world and thankfully I have been trained to defend myself. But my ability to defend myself is limited to what is brought against me, compared to what I have.
When you go into combat, you go in with enough equipment and manpower to get the job done as quickly as possible. There I concede that the Bush Administration may have screwed up by listening to Rumsfeld. But I'm a firm beliver in "Peace Through Superior Firepower." Because if you have a bigger stick than the guy who wants to swat you, the other guy may think twice.
However, there are some people, no matter what you have, are fanatical enough not to care, and those are the ones who scare me. And pretending that those people don't exist doesn't make them go away.
Heaven forbid that I should say I believe what the Bible tells us as to what is going to happen as we near the End Times. The people who believe in unicorns will probably, and they most like will, tell me I live in a dream world. But recently I've seen things occurring that tend to make my belief even stronger, and sending messages of I Love You, You Love Me isn't going to stop those who want to harm us.
I know people are tired of war. I'm tired of war, and I've lost friends I've served with in this war. I was even been separated for a time from my loved ones because of this war.
Here's a little history lesson for those who think we should stick our head in the sand and the evil will just ignore us.
When Germany lost WWI, one of the concessions it made in the Versailles Treaty was to have a limited military and not to militarize the Rhineland.
Hitler came into power in the early 1920s and eventually became Chancellor of Germany in 1933.
One of his goals was to restore Germany's military and reclaim what he beleived was the original German Empire.
In 1936 Hitler moved troops into the Rhineland in defiance of the Versaille Treaty. His army wasn't strong at that time, and the French could have easily moved in and enforced the treaty, but they chose not to. This non action only encouraged Hitler and his army got stronger and Europe, as well as the rest of the world, started to take notice.
Hitler then decided to annex what was called the Sudetenland which was then part of Czechoslavakia and was once part of German Empire.
This act really started to catch the attention of people in Europe and especially the Prime Minister of Great Britan, Neville Chamberlain. Chamberlain met with Hitler in Munich in 1938 and got Hilter's promise to be a good boy and all would be well.
Chamberlain returned to London, waived a piece of paper in the air and exclaimed, "We have peace in our life time."
In the mean time, Hitler thought Chamberlain was just an "insigificant worm" and the rest is history.
So take a lesson from history and learn.
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