Liberal Bumper Stickers, Part 1 - War is Not the Answer

I was driving behind a liberal-bumper-sticker-covered car today, and knew immediately the driver was a woman. I was correct. (Try this experiment once: When you see a car with any bumper stickers, try and guess the sex of the driver by the stickers. The more stickers, the more likely the driver is a liberal. The more liberal the stickers are, the more likely the driver is a woman.)

When I got home, I jotted down the stickers I could remember. I plan to analyze them (and others I have seen) in this and future posts.

• Liberal Bumper Stickers, Part 1 - War is Not the Answer

As Dennis Prager has said, "It depends what the question is." If we want to know how to make a key lime pie, then war is certainly not the answer. If, however, we want to know how to defeat major evils in the world (like Nazism, Communism, Radical Islam), then war may, in fact, be the only answer. Was it peace activists who defeated the Nazis and Imperial Japan, and who liberated Auschwitz? No, it was the combined Allied military forces who bombed and bombed and bombed until both Hitler and Hirohito realized that there was no chance at victory. Neville Chamberlain felt that war was not the answer, and he is remembered by history as one of its great fools. Did Prime Minister Chamberlain mean well? Undoubtedly. But as Winston Churchill said to Chamberlain at the time, "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war." How many tens of millions of innocent lives, from the Allies, the Axis, and other victims, would have been saved had Chamberlain said to Hitler, "You touch Czechoslovakia, and Britain will not hesitate to use all of its resources to stop you." Might there have been battles between England and the Third Reich? Might many soldiers have died. Of course. Have we learned nothing from history, with millions upon millions of innocent victims crying out to us, "Do not negotiate with evil. Destroy it!"?

"All we are saying, is give peace a chance," went the old folk song. But were those who sung it serious? Did they really want to give peace a "chance"? Or did they really want to avoid war at all cost, even at the expense of others' liberty? Saying that one wishes to give peace a "chance" means that if negotiations fail, force may be a necessity. "Speak softly, and carry a big stick," advised President Theodore Roosevelt. Know when to use wise diplomacy, he was telling us, but make the other party aware that if necessary, the United States is willing to use its military might to protect its interests. Otherwise, America will be seen as a paper tiger. And weakness is not a helpful reputation in the world today.

Here are some other examples of war being the proper and moral answer:

• Was it peace activists who brought down the Soviet Union, freeing millions trapped behind the Iron Curtain? No, it was Ronald Reagan's promise to Mikhail Gorbachev that the United States would spend more than the USSR on more advanced weaponry. It was the United States military, which showed the Soviets that they would never be able to defeat America in battle.
• Was it peace activists who saved South Korea from being swallowed up by the North, from being included in the current concentration camp which is North Korea? No, it was the Korean War, fought by America and its allies, purely to save a foreign people from being put under the yoke of Communism.
• Was it peace activists who stopped the cross-border raids of the PLO from Lebanon into Israel in the 1980s? No, it was the Israel Defense Forces, fighting a war, which forced the PLO out of Lebanon.
• Was it peace activists who liberated Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's Iraqi Army, having been swallowed up as another province of Iraq? No, it was the American-led military invasion (which, incidentally, Vice President Joe Biden opposed) which saved Kuwait from being wiped off the map.
• Was it peace activists who saved Kosovar Albanians from being slaughtered by Serbs in the late 1990s? No, it was NATO forces which bombed Serb forces. Militarily.
• Was it peace activists who saved the Iraqi people from their murderous tyrant of a ruler, Saddam Hussein? No, it was another American-led military invasion which did the job. (For those who opposed the Iraq War, you must admit that the US Armed Forces did infinitely more to protect the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein and his henchmen than any peace activist ever did. Perhaps America should not have invaded in the first place, but you must admit this fact.)

I think the historical pattern is clear. War is most definitely the answer to many conflicts in the world, especially when one of the actors is bent on murdering as many innocents as possible. When dealing with conflicts between democracies - say, America and Canada - war is most likely not the answer. But when one is dealing with a Hitler, a Mussolini, a Saddam, a Kim Jong Il, an Ahmadinejad, a Radical Islamist, war is oftentimes the only answer.