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By January 20, 1941, when Europe and Asia were already engulfed in war,
Roosevelt told the nation that "To us there has come a time, in the midst of
swift happenings, to pause for a moment and take stock-to recall what our
place in history has been and to rediscover what we are and what we may be.
If we do not, we risk the real peril of inaction."
On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked and America was at war.
America is at new "time, in the midst of swift happenings", and must ready
ourselves again for war. It is a time to face our fears for, if we do not, we
will write a very different future than one consistent with our historic
mandate and willingness to advance the cause of freedom throughout the world.
We are at a time in which our economy has suffered a long "bear" market when
even successful companies are seeing their stock value savaged by what is
essentially fear, a loss of faith in our ability to conduct the business of
America. We have witnessed the looting of massive corporations on a scale
never imagined, but we are bringing these greedy men to justice.
Capping these trends was the sudden and awful realization that America itself
is vulnerable to attack. The shock of September 11, 2001 has since rippled
throughout our society and our economy in ways only future historians will
record. The euphoria of the 1990s, along with the revelations of what will
surely be seen as the most corrupt and feckless administration---the Clinton
years---is already waning, imploded with the Twin Towers.
In the past, Americans bore the burden of the Cold War in order to end the
threat of the Soviet Union. It was a challenge we could understand and an
enemy we deemed rational. Now, however, we search to put a face on the new
enemy. First it was Osama bin Laden and his fanatical Islamic Jihad; one that
will continue for years to come. Now, too, it is the face of Saddam Hussein,
the "Butcher of Baghdad", no less a threat to peace in his region and a threat
to our national security for his pathological willingness to spurn any effort
to control his mad ambition to be the new Saladin, leading the forces of the
Arab nation to worldwide conquest.
America is disparaged and hated by large portions of the world's population,
for our wealth, for our power, but mostly for our values. At this moment in
time, we cannot shirk our responsibility to end Saddam's quest to be a
nuclear power. Its horror is so great that we have seen other nuclear
nations, Pakistan and India, pull back from the brink of its use, but no such
promise exists with Saddam. We have witnessed his war on Iran and his
invasion of Kuwait. He must be stopped or the consequences will be too
terrible to contemplate.
We must overcome our fear of war's uncertainties. We must remind ourselves
how well we conducted the liberation of Kuwait and Afghanistan, and we must
know that we are fully capable of doing the same for the people of Iraq, both
for our own national interests and those of the entire region of the Middle
East.
We must have more faith in our economy. Wall Street's long slide will end and
I suggest it will once we have dispatched the threat of Saddam. I think
Americans will regain their courage and reaffirm our commitment to the fight
against the scourge of Socialism/Communism that has proven a failure in one
nation after another.
In 1941, in the days before America was fully engaged in World War II,
President Roosevelt said, "It is not enough to clothe and feed the body of
this nation, and instruct and inform its mind. For there is also the spirit.
And of the three, the greatest is the spirit. Without the body and the mind,
as all men know, the nation could not live. But if the spirit of America were
killed, even though the nation's body and mind, constricted in an alien
world, lived on, the America we know would have perished."
My concern today is the spirit of America. I believe, if we show the courage
and show the leadership needed at this point in time, we shall prevail and
history will recall we did not yield to fear. Inaction is not an option and
while it is prudent to have a coalition of nations supporting us, America
once again must look evil in the eye and defeat it.
Alan Caruba is the author of "The United Nations Vs. The United States", for sale from the Internet site of The National Anxiety
Center, a clearinghouse for information about scare campaigns at
www.anxietycenter.com.
Copyright, Alan Caruba, 2002
Published by permission.
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