Saturday, November 20, 2010

Worth Fighting For?

     During my course of business last week, I spotted a bumper sticker that read "War is Terrorism" on two different cars while on I-5. Now this is understandable since I was in the Seattle area, but what baffles me is that one of the bumper stickers was on a woman's car. My first reaction to seeing this woman with that sticker on her car was that she should don a burka, burn any books she owns, and quit having opinions because women under Taliban rule were not permitted such things. In other words, the notion of this person believing war unjust under any circumstance was like a double negative. How could she protest war if she did not believe in conflict?
    
     As for the message on the bumper sticker, I thought war was war and terrorism was terrorism. Let's ask Webster. War is usually an open or stated state of conflict between states or nations, or it is a state of antagonism or hostility. Terrorism is the systematic use of terror as a means of coercion. It looks like Webster agrees with me that a difference exists between these two words.
    
     I don not want to give you the idea that I am a war monger, in fact, quite the contrary. My belief is that the conflict in Afghanistan has gone on long enough and I do not believe politicians know the desired end-state for that nation anymore. This is compounded with my very personal stake of my only child being currently deployed. Sure, I want the war over, but I also believe that U.S. actions have improved the standard of living for the people of Afghanistan, which is a wonderful ancillary benefit of our so called "terrorism" in that region of the world. So I ask the "War is Terrorism" lady, what good came from the terrorist actions that occurred on September 11, 2001? As I recall that day, there was nothing but destruction. I believe those actions and preservation of our way of life are things worth fighting for.

~Slayer

http://www.merriam-webster.com

2 comments:

  1. Just think, if we would have have stayed on target with the original plan in Afghanistan things might be dramatically different over there.

    C'est la vie.

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  2. True enough George. Recently, direct questions as to our purpose in Afghanistan seem to be answered cryptically with indirect answers. This convolution leads me to believe that a direct answer no longer exists from the political perspective.

    ~Slayer

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