Let’s Give War A Chance

April 21, 2002

by Tom Barrett, Editor@ConservativeTruth.org

It’s time for a history lesson. This is not the first time civilized nations have suffered at the hands of savages dispatching suicide bombers. By the summer of 1945, the Allies had already beaten Hitler’s Germany. But World War Two was not over. Japan was proving to be a difficult foe to vanquish because of its Kamikaze pilots.

During the waning months of World War Two, 2,198 Japanese Kamikaze pilots intentionally died while sinking 34 American ships and damaging 288 others. Each plane contained a full load of explosives and a fanatical pilot bent on suicide. The planes took off with fuel tanks only half full. There was no turning back.

Yasser Arafat doesn’t have airplanes, but like the generals and admirals who controlled Japan during World War Two, he has no shortage of young fanatics willing to die for their religion. However, the idea of using Japanese Kamikaze pilots, mostly teenagers, was conceived out of desperation in October of 1944 as a last-ditch effort to win a war. Arafat plans ahead. He begins training his suicide bombers in kindergarten by extolling the virtues of martyrdom to four- and five-year-old children.

There are distinct differences between the Arab and Japanese suicide murderers, in both the targets of their murderous acts and in their motives. The Japanese dive-bombed military targets. The Arabs are too cowardly to face trained soldiers, so they mostly target civilians. A graduate of the Kamikaze school relates that the teenage pilots hoped their acts would save their homeland from invasion by stopping the Allied military. The Islamic fundamentalists practice pure terrorism.

One major difference between the leaders is that when Emperor Hirohito realized that suicide bombers, although they had inflicted numerous casualties, were no match for the US technological and moral advantages, he persuaded the military to end the war. Hirohito loved his people and realized it had to stop. Israel also has technological and moral advantages, but Arafat would rather see his cities destroyed and his people killed, than give up. Arafat loves only himself.

There are also many similarities between the Kamikaze pilots and the treacherous Palestinian bombers, fanaticism being the most notable. In “Echoes of Another War,” BBC’s Chris Summers relates the story of a young Japanese man who was turned away from the Kamikaze program because he had a wife and children. “A few days later his wife drowned herself and her children, leaving him free to complete his mission.” Today we see women starting to follow their men on the same mad path to suicide among Arafat’s disciples.

In both religious traditions, martyrdom is glorified. The Japanese were promised that their souls would reside in the sacred Yasukuni Shrine in the center of Tokyo. Islamic boys are told that they will wake up in paradise with 72 virgins anxious to serve their every whim. An interesting contrast between these false religions and Christianity: They promise eternal rewards for murder, while God promises His children eternal rewards for obeying His Word, which forbids murder.

There are also similarities between the cowards who send their young people to their deaths. The military leaders of Japan sent Kamikaze pilots against Allied forces in order to secure their own safety. But when atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and they realized that Tokyo would be next, they quickly surrendered.

Arafat, who cheerfully sends young boys and girls to die for him, often publicly declares his desire to be a martyr for Allah. But whenever it appears that Allah might take him up on his offer, this spineless murderer cowers behind mosques or women, begging the international community to save him. I wonder what would happen if the United States stayed out of Israel’s affairs long enough for Israel to give Arafat the same kind of attitude adjustment we gave the Taliban?

Herein lies the hypocrisy of the United States of America. We did exactly the right thing following 9/11. We gave the Taliban the chance to turn over bin Laden. When they refused, we went in and did everything possible to root out the terrorists and their breeding grounds. We said we would find the terrorists wherever they might hide and destroy them, and we did so.

Now we have the temerity to tell Israel that, faced with exactly the same situation, they should not do exactly the same thing we did. Based on population, in the last twelve months Israel has suffered eight times as many civilian murders by terrorists as has the U.S. Imagine our reaction if 24,000 Americans had been killed on 9/11. That is proportionally what Israel has suffered.

If any authority, the United Nations for instance, were to tell America that we did not have the right to defend ourselves against terrorism, the outcry from our citizens would be deafening. Why, then, do we passively stand by and allow our Secretary of State to make such pronouncements as, “Israel should heed the President’s injunction to remove their forces from Palestinian areas.” Since when did the United States have the authority to issue injunctions to a sovereign nation?

(Memo to President Bush: You have repeatedly stated that any government or leader that even gives aid to terrorists should be removed. Yet you send Secretary of State Powell to meet with Arafat, an act that bolstered the prestige of a man who had lost the respect of everyone, including other Arabs. The doctrine of the United States has always been that we do not negotiate with terrorists. Yet you are negotiating with the master of the terrorists, who has never renounced terrorism. Is an alien occupying your body? Lately you don’t sound like the George W. Bush we know and love.)

Dr. Henry M. Rubinstein, who wrote to our “Comments” email address recently said it better than I could. “The U.S. needs to butt out. Jews will have no love lost with the rest of the world if they take care of the Arab garbage problem that the U.N. created in 1948. If that means America blackmails Israel by withholding aid to Israel, so be it. America did not take the Jews out of Egypt, fight the Arabs in 1948, or pay for any of it. Keep pushing Israel to the wall and you will be buying your oil from Israel.”

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, we didn’t start a “Peace Process.” When bin Laden killed thousands of Americans last September, we didn’t send the Secretary of State to find out what his grievances were. There can be no fruitful negotiations with people who have stated over and over their intention to annihilate the other party to the negotiations. Even “moderate” Arab nations (there’s an oxymoron for you) like our “friends” Saudi Arabia and Egypt have expressed support for murdering Jews.

The Arabs see negotiations and cease-fires as nothing more than time to rest up and reload for their next murderous assault. The Israelis have never lost a war with Arabs. The Palestinians are depending on the U.S. to keep Israel from winning this war. (And make no mistake about it - it is a war.) The purpose of many wars has been to restore social order where chaos has destroyed society. If there is any place in the world where chaos reigns today, it is certainly Israel.

The Arabs don’t want to experience the humiliation of facing Israel’s well-trained, disciplined and motivated troops again. If we stop meddling, faced with Israel’s superior forces, the children of Ishmael will back down very quickly. Israel once beat back the Arab world in six days; this time they might do it even more quickly. We’ve given “The Peace Process” a chance for decades, and we have thousands of dead Israelis and Palestinians to show for it. I say it’s time to give war a chance.

Resources:
BBC article on similarities between Arab and Japanese suicide bombers;
The Life of Japanese Emperor Hirohito;
Kamikaze pilots’ views of death and the afterlife.

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  Tom Barrett has been an ordained minister for 28 years. He has written for local and national publications for most of his life, and has authored several non-fiction books. He has been interviewed on many TV and radio programs, and speaks at seminars nationwide. Tom is the editor and publisher of Conservative Truth, an email newsletter read by tens of thousands weekly which focuses on moral and political issues from a Biblical viewpoint.

Send the author an E mail at Editor@Conservativetruth.org.

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