Thursday, December 10, 2009

December 10, 2009

       Nobel laureate Barack Obama accepted the Peace Prize by talking, of course, about war.      "Evil does exist in the world," the President said, "Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary...is a recognition of...the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."      Well, yes, but some wars are more necessary than others.  An American surrender after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was unimaginable.  But Vietnam?  I'm still not sure why we were there.  George H.W. Bush, the 41st president, threw Iraq's Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait after he invaded it.  Fair enough.  But then his son, the 43rd president, went ahead and invaded Iraq, toppling Saddam.  I'm not sure we had to do that.      And Afghanistan?  Well, al-Qaeda was there.  But they're in several different places.  They are still in Afghanistan, though we've been after them there for eight years now.  And Obama mentioned Iran and North Korea as possible threats, potential nuclear powers.  Well, maybe.  But the United States was the first nuclear power, of course, and the only country ever to use atomic weapons in a war.  We attacked cities and killed thousands of civilians.      I would have dropped those bombs too;  avoiding an invasion of Japan saved many American lives.  But to assume the moral high ground, the notion that some nations can be trusted with nukes but not others?  I'm not so sure about that.  
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