Redefining "Infamy"

The following is reprinted from a guest editorial by myself in
the Intermountain Commercial Record, 14 September 2001: 

“Yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy,” said President Franklin Roosevelt sixty years ago.  Yesterday, September 11th, 2001, redefined “infamy.”

Looking back on the events of a generation past, the actions of the Empire of Japan are understandable––diplomacy had failed, leaders on both sides were convinced war was inevitable.  A declaration of war was prepared, the attack was made by the military, against a military target, in a country whose policies and goals constituted a clear and present danger to the policies and goals of the Empire.  Every game has rules and the rules for starting a war are simply this, “Strike first, strike fast, strike decisively.”  At Pearl Harbor, Japan played by the rules, expertly.  The rules for ending a war are equally simple, “Destroy your enemy’s ability to make war, destroy his will to make war.”  At Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States played by those rules, expertly.  One might almost call it an honorable exchange.

Today, the United States stands as the lone superpower — we can project our will anywhere on the planet, and no nation will take the field against us, because no nation can withstand us.  Today, the United States and the Empire of Japan are partners so economically intertwined as to be inseparable, and our citizens and subjects are welcome visitors on each others' shores.  We have proven our strength, and we have proven our compassion.  But, compassion is for the victors.

At Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said, “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.  We are met on a great battlefield of that war...”  Yesterday, all of America became “a great battlefield.”  The civil war in which some have been engaged now encompasses all of humanity, for if we allow these — an adequate descriptive escapes me — “war criminals”? “murderers”? “animals”? — we shall have to create unprecedented vilifications for these unprecedented villains. If we allow them to rise victorious, no nation — neither our friends nor our opponents — will ever again rest comfortably, for America shall have proven to the world that terror is the effective political policy of the 21st Century, that destruction of innocent life and private property on a scale this world has never before seen, is both possible and profitable.

We have been too lenient.  As Churchill said of Britain, we have “watched this famous island descending incontinently, fecklessly, the stairway which leads to a dark gulf.”  Yesterday, we saw the gulf that was the harbor of New York City, darkened by smoke rising from the wreckage.  We shall never see darker.  The late, and in my view unlamented, administration gutted our defense capability and shattered our fame among nations.  We are perceived as weak by our enemies.

Mr. President, you have called for justice.  I say “To hell with justice!  I want revenge!!!”  Swift, terrible, heinous, total, absolute revenge such as this world has not seen since God rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah!

Fortunately, such anger subsides, replaced by sorrow for those who unwillingly gave their lives, and great pride for those who willingly stood up to this terror knowing they would pay the ultimate price.  They are all martyrs for freedom, and I pray that God will receive them unto Himself and crown them with honor and glory.

I have read that there was a time when Roman citizens traveled from the Bosphorus to the Pillars of Hercules unmolested, because no nation willingly courted the wrath of the legions that marched with the Imperial Eagle, under names like Caesar and Marcus Aurellius.

We have our legions.  We are The Eagle.  We have names — names like Enterprise and Enola Gay — that must likewise be feared.  Diplomacy is for civilized men, fear is the only language that terrorists understand.  If it is their most devout wish to die for their cause, then I say let us give them all assistance toward this goal!

But, we must also remember that we will be judged, not by what we do — for there is no one who will fault us in removing this cancer within our bones.  We will be judged, rather, by how we act — will we go down in history as surgeons or as butchers?  Will we be the generation that brought the world together to erase the threat of terrorism or the one that tore the world apart in jihad?

We must remember the words of Winston Churchill, as he spoke of the Battle of Britain, “Let us [now] brace ourselves to our duties, and so conduct ourselves that if [this nation] last a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour’.”

And, finally, we must also remember the words of General MacArthur who gave the US Congress a reality check during the Korean conflict, when he said, “In war, there is no substitute for victory.”

A decade later, I have only this to add:
 

We have not forgotten, we will never forget – not the names, not the faces, not those left behind – and we will triumph.

God Save These United States!