For some people, the rumble of U.S. tanks is sweet music indeedEvil is a stark reality of life on this earth, and confronting it virtually always requires a measure of force. TEAR GAS STUNG my eyes and my throat thickened and closed as I hurried through the night. We skirted the edges of campus, my fiance and I, avoiding the mall where police and students were locked in bitter confrontation. Powerful spotlights from circling helicopters pierced the blackness. Night was as day at the heart of the battle. The place was the University of Maryland and the time was 1970. President Nixon had just announced the American incursion into Cambodia. All over the nation, college students took to the streets. As did I. Not given to violent demonstrations, though, I charted a gentler course. I marched down Constitution Ave. with thousands of other demonstrators on a hot May day. I lobbied Congress. I participated in teach-ins. I had studied Vietnam since high school. Spirited dinnertime discussions with my father, a World War II veteran then working for the Army, had sharpened my focus. I was against the war, and I let my voice be heard. After that, I grew up. My job after college was with the U.S. Veterans Administration. Dealing with returning veterans, I saw the damage inflicted by the peace movement. Already marred by physical wounds, veterans carried the scars of rejection by the culture as well. They had answered their country's call (there was a draft, remember) and returned home, in many cases, to scorn and abuse. We never expected it to turn out that way. The trouble with peace protests is that they often have their genesis in a dangerous mix: social revolutionaries and gentle, well-meaning, but naïve, people. The latter--those grandmotherly women and idealistic young men--frequently fail to recognize both the existence and nature of evil, and that they are being manipulated by those with an agenda beyond simple peace. Former leftist David Horowitz, now a conservative columnist, helps remove the blinders. Writing in townhall.com, Horowitz, a leader in the antiwar movement of the Sixties, says, "We didn't want peace in Vietnam. We wanted revolution in America." He sees the same bitter root in today's peace movement. At a recent "antiwar" demonstration at Columbia University, anthropology professor Nicholas DeGenova, addressing 3,000 students and faculty members, said, "Peace is not patriotic. Peace is subversive, because peace anticipates a very different world than the one we live in--a world where the U.S. would have no place." DeGenova went on to say, "The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military. I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus." The sickening slaughter of U.S. troops by violent warlords is, I trust, not the desire of most peace protesters. Instead, they simply want to sing along with John Lennon: "All we are saying, is give peace a chance." These people are simply in denial about evil. Having laid aside the incisive scalpel of objective truth, Americans today prefer to believe evildoers are "misguided" or "oppressed." We rationalize that terrorists are acting out of their poverty and blame cultural concerns for their anger. This is nonsense. The most evil people in Saddam's regime are also the best-fed and most well-educated. Saddam himself lives in opulence while 60 percent of Iraq's people require food aid. Evil is a matter of the heart, not the bank account. Its focus is always annihilation. That's why Saddam would just as soon gas his people as feed them. Evil thrives on fear, and Iraq has been held in its iron grip for 30 years. Violence perpetrated by evil rulers is never redemptive, it is only punitive; it seeks only to destroy. Evil is a stark reality of life on this earth, and confronting it virtually always requires a measure of force. You cannot reason with evil, any more than you can appeal to the conscience of a serial killer. Speaking to the British people as the battle began, Prime Minister Tony Blair said: "Our choice is clear: Back down and leave Saddam hugely strengthened, or proceed to disarm him by force. Retreat might give us a moment of respite, but years of repentance at our weakness would, I believe, follow." Decent people don't like to spank their kids, much less wage war against another nation. But those who rise to protest military action have that freedom only because others before them have checked evil by force. Their peace-loving souls would be easily crushed under the first brutal dictator they tried to confront. I struggled with the concept of military force when, as a young mother with a deepening faith, I became friends with some strong Christian women who were military wives. "How can you justify your husbands' occupation?" I asked, thinking only of the Bible's "turn the other cheek" message. "Jesus never told the centurion to quit his job," one replied. Eventually, I realized my feelings of empathy for other people had eclipsed my moral reasoning. In defense of the nation and those unable to defend themselves, force was justified. James H. Toner, professor of international relations and military ethics at the U.S. War College, was speaking on just-war theory in Vermont some years ago to a largely hostile audience. Finally, an elderly man, who identified himself as a classical musician, stood up to defend Toner's position. "I want to tell you," the man said, "what is the sweetest music I have ever heard.It was the sound of U.S. Army tanks. You see, they were coming to the death camp where I was being held as a young man, and that sound meant that I would be able to grow up." All over Iraq, the sound of Bradley fighting vehicles and heavy artillery means that someday, children will grow up freed of the heavy chains of a brutal dictatorship. That is why we fight in Iraq. That is why we must. LINDA WHITE assists with The Free Lance-Star's editorial pages and writes a monthly column. Date published: 4/6/2003 © 2003, Fredericksburg
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