A Few Shiny Pebbles

By Minta Marie Morze
(Slightly different version to that originally written September 28, 2004 and sent to friends)

President George W. Bush has said that the world is safer now because of his actions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some people disagree with him.

I believe that these people are looking at the idea of “safer” in the wrong way.

To begin with, no individual is ever truly “safer”. Auto accidents, falling down stairs, strokes, hard attacks, tornadoes, earthquakes—we are all vulnerable. My oldest brother survived 13 months in Vietnam in the Marines, part of the time during the Tet Offensive of 1968. He came home safely and was tragically killed when he was hit by a car while crossing a street. When we discuss George W. Bush and “safer” we are not discussing the safety of one individual or another; we are discussing the safety and future of the country of the United States of America and its population.

And we’re not discussing a moment in history. Just before the attack on Pearl Harbor, people in the United States were safe. They were not being attacked. But they were not really safer, because countries throughout the world were on their way to being occupied and enslaved by Germany, Italy, Russia, and Japan. If these four military powers had been unopposed in their aims, the United States, after a few more “safe” years, would have faced a much, much more horrifying task in having to deal with what would be the German-Italy-Japan (and Soviet) World Order. But at the moment of the attack on Pearl Harbor, even though it meant that there would be years of danger and death in World War II for Americans, the very fact that we entered the war meant that we were actually safer in a more profound sense. When we discuss George W. Bush and “safer” we are not discussing a moment in time, or a short period of years; we are discussing the future of the United States of America.

And we’re not discussing who is and who is not a dangerous man. Some people say that George W. Bush is the most dangerous man in the world, and that that is bad. But there was another man in our recent history who became at one moment the most dangerous man in the world, and millions blessed him for it. His name was Dwight D. Eisenhower, and on the morning of June 6, 1944, he became the most dangerous man in the world because he attacked a country at peace. The country’s name was France, and it was at peace, being “peacefully” occupied by Germany. Indeed, France had signed an Armistice with Germany, and hostilities had ceased. Many other countries on the European continent were at that same kind of “peace”. (Of course living in that kind of occupied peace was a horror to the people who lived in it, just as the “peace” of the later USSR was horrible, the “peace” under Saddam Hussein was horrible, the peace of the current North Korea is horrible, and so forth.) But Eisenhower launched the assault on the beaches of Normandy and suddenly the average person in France, who had let Paris fall without a fight, was now subject to being bombed from the sky, to seeing their cities go up in flames, to finding their property destroyed, and to suffering all sorts of danger including death. In fact, they were in a great deal more danger than on June 5, 1944. But peace is not the same as liberty. The most peaceful place on Earth is a graveyard. And being dangerous is not the same as being evil. Bush, as was Eisenhower, is dangerous to those who want America to become as peaceful as a graveyard.

And we’re not discussing avenging or preventing the actions of a single man. In World War II, we didn’t battle only against the one general or the one admiral who masterminded a given attack against us on a given date. We fought all of those who were our enemy throughout the wide theaters of a world war. Equally, the dangers we face at this moment come not only from Bin Laden or al-Qaeda; throughout the world, radical Islamist terrorists are determined to destroy the “Western” way of life, determined to murder those who disagree with their particular interpretation of Islam, and determined to force their values on every country they terrify in their drive to conquering the West. When we discuss George W. Bush and “safer” we are not discussing a single man or a single group of followers; we are discussing everyone who seeks to spread the Islamist view through terror or conquest.

Our quest is really like that of a person who has cancer, who must find out about the cancer and then fight it everywhere it has established a physical foothold. Because we face the inevitability of an Islamist terrorist world war, the earlier we stop them in significant arenas, and the more land and assets we take out of their hands, the more weapons and potential for weapons we deny them, the more funding we keep from them, as quickly as possible, the safer we are, even though we face more immediate danger on the battlefields of this war, including in our own homeland. By being strong and dynamically on the offense, we ensure the maximum of safety for the future. This “safety” doesn’t mean that no one is in danger; rather, it means that the fight will be less horrible in its final duration and damage. (Just as it would have limited the duration and damage of WWII to have stopped Hitler at his very first land-grab, in the 1930s.)

After all, look at Lady Justice. She carries a sword as well as a scales. Most of the time, the sword symbolizes the power of the police and the courts, but sometimes Justice has to cast aside the scales, remove the mask from her eyes, and wield that broad, powerful sword in the fierce battles of war. With her eyes wide open, and in the full knowledge of what she is doing, she seeks out the terrorists, and their assets and resources, wherever necessary.

At that instant, though danger and death come close into our lives, we, and our children and our children’s children, are all, in the truest sense, safer.