Twelve Reasons to Love the U.S.A., III

“3.  No other country has done a better job of establishing equal rights for all citizens.  Certainly there have been times when the United States has fallen tragically short of its founding principles.  But especially in recent decades, no country has worked harder to eliminate discrimination and protect the rights of minorities.   There are plenty of nations where people’s ethnicity, religion, or gender define them as second-class citizens.  In contrast, America has been a pioneer in striving toward the ideal that all are created equal.” — William J. Bennett, The American Patriot’s Almanac, p.34

Five Strategic Thoughts of the Bush Administration

“The Bush Administration’s response to 9/11 was different from that of any previous U.S. administration to a terrorist attack.  It was based on five major thoughts:

First, the foremost purpose of the U.S. response to the attack was not punishment or retaliation but preventing the next attack–a point that argued for quick action to disrupt ongoing terrorist plans.

Second, we were at war with a global terrorist network of Islamist extremist groups, including state and nonstate sponsors–and the next attack might come not from al Qaida but from some other part of the movement.  Our strategy has to target both those groups themselves and their key sources of actual and potential support–operational, logistic, financial, and ideological.

Third, our attackers were bent not on political theater but on mass destruction.  This highlighted the possibility that terrorists might obtain chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons to maximize the death toll.

Fourth, a series of 9/11-type terrorist attacks on the United States could change the nature of our country.  Our national security policy extends beyond simply protecting people or territory.  It includes securing our consitutional system, our civil liberties, and the open nature of our society–’our way of life,’ as President Bush expressed it.

This war aim brought us to the fifth strategic thought: In order to counter this threat successfully, we could not rely on a defensive strategy alone.  The United States has so many rich targets that it would demand extraordinary measures to secure them individually–and the effort to do so would endanger our free and open society.  These considerations necessitated a strategy of initiative and offense–of disrupting the terrorist network abroad.

Taken as a wole, these five thoughts drove the Bush Administration to a strategy that gave weight not just to al Qaida but to terrorists of various stripes–such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was merely an al Qaida ‘associate’ at the time, and to groups such as Ansar al-Islam and Jemaah Islamiyah, which had trained with al Qaida in Afghanistan, and Hezbollah.” – Douglas Feith, War and Decision, p.507.

Twelve Reasons to Love the U.S.A., II

“2.  America really is the land of the free.  There are large parts of the world where people can’t say what they think, learn what they’d like, or even dress the way they want.  There are places where people spend years in jail or disappear if they question their rulers.  Less than half of the world’s population lives in countries where people are truly free.  In this nation, as George Washington put it, the love of liberty is interwoven with every ligament of American hearts.” — William J. Bennett, The American Patriot’s Almanac, p.33.

An Inauguration Prayer

Evangelical leader Al Mohler has written a prayer for Pres. Obama.  You may find it here.

Inauguration Day Thoughts

Neither my wife nor I supported Sen. Barack Obama in his pursuit of the presidential office.  We were supporters of the other guy (well, Romney at first).  But now that Sen. Obama is hours away from his inauguration, it behooves us to stand in support of him–not necessarily for his positions, but for the symbol that he has become.  The sight of an African American man ascending the most exalted office in this land of the free is a welcome vision.  At last, we who are Americans and allies of America can be proud and thankful of the fact that a segment of the country that has often found itself so haunted by the phantoms of a cruel and discriminatory past can stand tall and proud of their country at last.  They need not fear to call this country their own.  The election of Barack Hussein Obama is evidence to the world that the United States of America works hard to overcome its moral failings, and that it is still a land where justice throbs in the heart of many.  This, in the parlance of Christian theological talk, is common grace at work.  The rise of Sen. Obama to the office of president should stop the wagging lips of America’s critics and show that this nation is not as wretched or far gone as they think it is.  The U.S.A. still remains, in many respects, a model civilization.  A sort of city on a hill.

I have also found some of the conservative responses to Sen. Obama’s election encouraging and civilized. Consider these by Dennis Prager, David Horowitz, Mona Charen, and Ralph Peters for a start.  None of these people voted for Obama (at least not to my knowledge).  Yet they have responded with great civility and perhaps even a tinge of optimism.  We who call ourselves conservatives should not be sore losers.  We can lose with grace.  We can accept defeat with charity.  Especially if we believe that it is the Lord God himself who exalts and pulls down leaders.

So I wish–no, I pray–that Pres. Obama will succeed in his vocation as the leader of the world’s premier free nation.  The almighty God has called the governments of nations to pursue justice, punish evil, and preserve liberty.  My prayer is that Pres. Obama would do just these things.  I would most likely continue to disagree with him (assuming that he persists in them and that I continue not to see eye-to-eye with them).  However, I would strive to disagree  fairly.  After all, the ninth commandment also applies to the way we speak of our leaders.  What I do not want is a situation where anti-Obamaites can tell pro-Obamaites, ”I told you so.”  The wellbeing of our beloved country is too precious for that sort of partisanship. 

So may the Lord God guide this new leader in paths of wisdom and righteousness.  And may Pres. Obama continue to preserve the great American traditions of courage, justice, liberty, innovation, and generosity.

A Poor Job Explaining Itself

“One sign of the poor job the [Bush] Administration has done in describing and explaining its actions is that the public debate on Iraq reflects little understanding of the Administration’s actual rationale for overthrowing the Saddam Hussein regime.  Many believe the war was based solely on the erroneous information about chemical and biological weapons stockpiles.  Some maintain, against all logic and evidence, that the war was fought to gain Iraq’s oil–as if the U.S. had expected to take money out of Iraq instead of putting billions into the war and reconstruction effort.

Above all, there is little awareness of how Iraq fit into the broader strategy against terrorism.  Given Saddam’s role as an important problem for the United States–since his rape of Kuwait in 1990–it was clear that Iraq, along with other state supporters of terrorism, would have to be addressed within a comprehensive strategy for the war on terrorism.” — Douglas Feith, War and Decision, p.514.

Twelve Reasons to Love the U.S.A., I

“1.  The United States was the first nation in history created out of the belief that people should govern themselves.  As James Madison said, this country’s birth was ‘a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society.’  The U.S. Constitution is the oldest written national constitution in operation.  It has been a model for country after country as democracy has spread across the continents.” — William J. Bennett, The American Patriot’s Almanac, p.33.