What Necessity Demands in War

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Enemies of our country kill innocent people without remorse. They ambush and deceive our soldiers, then drag their mangled bodies through the streets. They take our civilians and then demand ransoms by sending tokens such as severed digits of the hand, ultimately torturing or murdering them in gruesome fashion.

When we dare strike back, some among our own number claim that we ought reserve judgment and wrath, that to live “an eye for an eye” causes us to lose the moral high ground. However, the United States is the most moral country in the world. We were the first nation to abolish slavery, and we have been the driving force behind freedom in every war in which we fought. A former coworker of mine from Turkey told me that he liked America because we never fought a war for the express purpose of taking land. If he can see it that way, even the war in Iraq, why can’t we?

Our denigrators claim that retribution gives us a black eye. They want us to close Guantanimo Bay for the “injustices” it forces upon those poor people who for the most part enjoy a better quality of life in our military prison than they do in their native land. If we hearken to their demands and bring them inside the country we have to afford them rights under the Constitution, and the Constitution affords then an obvert enemy of the nation the same safe harbour given to its citizens. Such an idea would be expressly repugnant in the eyes of the founding fathers.

Declaring war against their own country, liberals demand that in respect to terrorists we beg their forgiveness and appease their demands for extradition. If we ask them what they would do if the terrorists were holding their daughter captive, they refuse to answer and try to change the subject. By so doing, they take the immoral position and do their family a disservice by being more loyal to terrorists than their own brood. Like it or not, Americans belong to a great family of faith, and any sin against one of us by murder or torture constitutes an offense against the body at large. If it were my daughter, my wife, or myself, I would expect the powers that be to do everything possible to set things right.

The moral thing to do is to do everything in our power to prevent those dire happenings from repeating themselves. The moral position is to support our own people, to fund our soldiers, to empower them to defend us, as a means to save American lives.

Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen and ask, “What should be the reward for such sacrifice?” Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plow and sow and reap to glut the avarice of those who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude more than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands that feed you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget ye were our countrymen. –Samuel Adams