The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave..... The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations, has been the victim.
George Washington
or the musings below from letter-writers who would receive the coveted "Go sit in the corner" treatment if I wasn't so angry:At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
Abraham Lincoln
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, isn't a descendent of the stereotypical wild-eye dictator. The threat from Islamic radicals, what some call Islamofascists, isn't ordinary. And the threat posed from even a handful of such zealots is significantly greater than the threats posed from Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin or Mao Tse-tung.
Mark E. Kramer
SchaumburgIran is now governed by an Islamic dictatorship. If this dictatorship were to acquire nuclear weapons, it would almost certainly use them if its survival was threatened. I see no alternative to war.
Frank Brunner
Park Forest
2 comments:
Of the two of them, Frank makes a realistic point - many nations would use nuclear weapons if their survival were threatened, including, I suspect, one nation formerly known as the United States of America. On the other hand, the alternative to war would be, let me see, not starting a war and threatening their survival.
Mark, on the other hand, should be sent to a detention center where he could spend the next few years being reacclimated to reality.
I'm sure Mark and Frank are heading down to a recruiting center as we speak.
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