Home

I was walking down the street a few days ago and I saw a bumper sticker that caught my eye. It said, "War Isn't Working". It's a simple enough phrase. And, to some degree, I agree with this sentiment, but not for the reason that one might think.

I am not fond of war. During the Vietnam era, I was a dove and I supported most of the anti-war protesters. But things were different then. First off, young men were being drafted for military service. That means that the soldiers fighting in Vietnam were mostly "involunteers" dragged kicking and screaming (so to speak) to war.

Back in the Vietnam era, few people knew what it was we were fighting for. The Vietnamese people, for the most part, liked Ho Chi Minh and would have voted for him in an election that was scheduled to be held in 1954. By the time the war had escalated, few people were afraid that the North Vietnamese people would be coming here to the U.S. to attack Washington, D.C., or blow up our cities and citizens. And since the end of the war, Vietnam (now unified into one country) isn't up there with the "Axis of Evil" and pretty much keeps to itself. This is not true of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Because of the attacks on our country, attacks on Israel, attacks on countries in Europe, East Asia, India, etc. we know the people we are supposed to be fighting are enemies of the free world supported financially by the same people supporting the insurgents in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

But, getting back to the bumper sticker: War isn't working. It's not working for the U.S. and it's not working for Israel. Why? Because, very simply, the governments of the U.S. and Israel aren't permitting their armed forces to do their jobs. The army in Iraq isn't being permitted to actually fight the insurgents. The army in Afghanistan isn't being permitted to actually fight the Taliban. The army in Israel isn't being permitted to actually fight the Hamas and Fatah terrorists in Gaza and Hezbollah in south Lebanon.

They aren't being permitted to do their jobs because their governments are listening to world opinion, the opinion of people who are afraid of the terrorists and, therefore, are capitulating to them. They are trying to keep themselves out of the line of fire. And because of that, the military forces of the U.S. and Israel are acting more like "peace-keeping forces" than fighters of defensive wars.

But by surrendering to purveyors of terror, they are perpetuating that terror. They are putting themselves in a position of being attacked further by these hate mongers who only see our overtures to peace as signs of weakness.

Egypt didn't come to the bargaining table without a show of force. Jordan didn't come to the bargaining table without a show of force. Germany and Japan, during World War II, didn't come to the bargaining table without a show of force. So why are we expecting a terror regime, a "government" (and I use the term loosely) that keeps its own citizens in squalor and ignorance, feeding their hatred and the cult of martyrdom, a suppressive, demagogic authority to be different? Why do we expect these people, epitomes of dominance, self-importance, hatred, and iron-fisted draconian control to want peace when they have nothing to gain from peace (since the world gives them what they want without their making concessions)?

If we expect the U.N. to step in and help, we're barking up the wrong tree. The U.N. is manipulated and controlled by terrorist nations, by regimes that use their influence to spread hatred and make murder palatable to the world by cloaking it in the guise of "freedom fighting". Terrorists are "freedom fighters," but not in the way we usually use the term, of people fighting for freedom. These "freedom fighters" are fighting against freedom, against democracy, against liberty, against civil rights and justice. They are attacking our way of life, assailing our values, testing our mettle. They are seeing how far they can go, how long we will acquiesce, how much hogwash we are willing to swallow before we stand up to them.

We need to make these wars work. We need to give our military forces the latitude to protect us. We need to allow our forces to give us the safety and peace of mind we deserve. And we need to send the demagogues of the world a message.

We need to tell them that we will not allow them to bully us, we will not allow them to murder our children, our spouses, our friends, our relatives, our people. We need to put them on notice that people who live by the ideals of freedom and liberty, while preferring peace to war, will not flinch if we need to protect our country and ourselves.

And we need to let the world know that we not only support the right of our allies to do the same, we demand it.

Debbie Israel is a graphic artist (see https://www.cafepress.com/compugraphd2 for some of her work) and tutor living in Highland Park.