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wrbones
04-18-03, 12:20 PM
Posted with permission.

IS Peace a Dirty Word?
dwswager



A recent editorial in a local paper asked the question 'Why is peace a dirty word'? It was the usual leftist rant about freedom of speech should have no consequences. I wrote a rebuttal that it appears this paper had declined to print. Hence, I thought I might give it an airing in this forum.

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"Good Inentions aren't Enough!"

University of Dayton professor Mark Brill recently asked why peace was a dirty word? The obvious answer is, it’s not! He seems concerned with the rejection expressed by most Americans to the overtures of various “peace” protesters and can’t understand why the protesters good intentions are being punished.

Professor Brill bemoans a “new political correctness… that links dissent with lack of patriotism”, but he never examines whether those dissenting are actually anti-American? It is common knowledge that the communist Workers World Party organized the large anti-war demonstrations and participates as co-sponsors of various other anti-war efforts including the “Not In Our Name” campaign. Now just because you march in a KKK anti-war rally (they oppose the war on the ever popular Jewish conspiracy argument) doesn’t make you a racist, but it does provide support for the goals of a racist organization. And the “Bush=Hitler”, “U.S. is a Terrorist Nation” and “We support our troops when they shoot their officers” slogans are clearly unpatriotic.

Without offering any evidence, professor Brill indicates that the media establishment is pro-war and journalists are in fear of being fired for not towing the line. But the only “journalist” fired thus far has been Peter Arnett and he was fired because millions of views turned the channel when they watched him commit treason on international television. His employers promptly recognized the decline in the value of Mr. Arnett’s services. Mr. Arnett retains his right to speak, his employers retain their right to fire him and the viewers retain their right to turn the channel.

Professor Brill then goes on to falsely indicate that a “shopper was forcibly removed from a mall for wearing a T-shirt that had a peace slogan on it”, when in fact the shopper was removed because he had accosted numerous mall patrons in his effort to persuade them to his cause. We are also supposed to be nauseated at the dissent expressed by Dixie Chick fans that burned their CDs. Should we not be more nauseated that a member of a university faculty is unable to discern the ethical difference between burning other people’s property to suppress their ideas and protesters burning their own property to express dissent with the views of a “Ditzy” chick.

No, the cause of Professor Brill’s consternation and that of his fellow travelers is that the American people have figured out that the leftists have been consistently on the wrong side with the likes Lenin, Stalin, Moa, Kim Il Sung, Ho, Pol Pot, Castro, Ortega and now Saddam Hussein who have left over 100 million dead in their wake. They understand that peace is not a slogan or a process and cannot be declared unilaterally. Most importantly, Americans figured out that the decision isn’t between war and peace, but between various methods of achieving peace. And for the last century, when diplomacy has failed, war, hot and cold, has been a highly effective means to bringing peace to over one billion of the world’s people.

So how should we judge this war in terms of peace? The sights and sounds from Iraq are certainly suggestive. The most indicative photo seems to be of an Iraqi man kissing a poster with George W. Bush’s picture and the words “Hero of the Peace”. As military historian Victor David Hanson explained “Iraq will be liberated and its 26 million people given a chance of freedom because of the courage of American teenagers in Abrams tanks, not because of ‘concerned’ professors who chanted ‘no blood for oil’ between lattes.”

And what of our peace and security? Iran is now proposing a national referendum to normalize relations with the U.S. At the other end of the “axis of evil”, North Korea is indicating that the multi-lateral talks insisted upon by the U.S. government don’t seem like a bad idea after all. The Washington Times reports that one Arab intoned, “The stabbing of September 11 was not fatal to America, but it was fatal to Saddam Hussein.” They killed 3,000 and destroyed a couple of buildings and in return we conquered two countries! Even the “Arab street” can do basic math. Ralph Peters of the NY Post summed it up best: “This stunning war did more to foster peace than a hundred treaties could begin to do.”

In the end, all the professor can do is trot out the specter of McCarthyism. But McCarthy was a villain because his tactics ensnared too many innocents along with all the guilty. As the opening of the Soviet and Easter European archives has proved, McCarthy wasn’t wrong, the communists had, in fact, infiltrated U.S. labor unions, media and academic institutions. Apparently, from the recent performances of numerous professors around the country, many of them are still there!