A Choice
by Geoff Metcalf
"Those who cannot
remember the past are condemned to repeat
it."
--George Santayana
America faces a critical choice: The Bush Doctrine of pre-emption VS The Kerry
'Plan' of appeasement, UN 'approval' and Response.
Once upon a time long ago and far away (in 1389) the Ottoman Turks were rolling across Europe. They crushed everything and anyone in their path. It was a religious war. Anyone failing to convert to Islam was doomed.
Like our terrorist enemies today, they could not be appeased, compromised with, or offered any accommodation.
Serbian women were raped and sold into slavery with their children. Men who survived the battlefield were castrated and blinded to make them compliant slaves.
Entire cities became funeral pyres predating (as foreshadowing) our national disaster of 9/11. The Turks at one point nailed over 12,000 Serbians to crosses to mock the death of Christ and the faith of the Serbs.
The Turkish invasion of Europe appeared unstoppable, inevitable, and a done deal...until they reached the Kosovo Plain.
A Serbian prince, Lazar Hrebeljanovic, resisted the Turks with faith, unbridled courage, and commitment.
The June 1389 battle at the Field of Blackbirds saw some 77,000 Christian knights and soldiers meet the Turks. They all pledged (to each other and to Christ) they would die rather than convert to Mohammedism. Much like our founding fathers pledged, "with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."
The liberal left has turned America into an effete sectarian society eschewing anything 'religious' as a false violation of separation of church and state. The misused fictional axiom ignores the intent of the framers. The founder's intent was to keep 'government' out of religion...not to banish religion from government. 77,000 Christian soldiers led by Serbian Prince Lazar engaged in an horrific battle to the death. They literally sacrificed their lives to stop the advance of Mohammed's horde...not just to save the freedom of Serbia from the advance of Mohammed's barbaric hordes...but of all Europe. When the battle was over the best of Serbian men and their prince were dead on a field soaked with their blood. However, the martyrs for their faith fought so valiantly, ripping such an epic cost from Mohammed, that the advance into the heart of Europe was stopped. When word of the Prince's death reached a group of knights they raced headlong through the enemy lines...charging into the center of the enemy camp. They killed the Turkish leader Emir Murad I in his tent. Then they too died in hand-to-hand combat outnumbered two hundred to one. Masada, Thermopylae, and the Alamo were mirrored in Kosovo. Kosovo Field became to the Serbian people 'Acampo Santo', The Holy Field. It is considered by many historians of the Christian Church to be the single greatest tomb of Christian martyrs killed in a single day. Even if you ignore the religiosity of the framers, historical fact demonstrates waiting to respond to aggression is fatal. It was Bill Clinton's aggression siding with Albanian Muslims against the Christian Serbs that wasn't only counter-intuitive but literally put us on the wrong side of a conflict destined to touch our shores. Six hundred years ago on the field of Kosovo the Christian army marched toward death. In Constantinople they remained in the town hoping to the last moment that death would somehow turn its back on them. It didn't.
We are reluctant and diffident crusaders in a holy war no one (other than our enemy) dare acknowledge. Political correctness, revisionist history, and a silent, cowardly collection of alleged 'moderate' Muslims ignore the empirical (and historic) reality. Osama bin Laden and his gang consider this 'war on terrorism' as a continuation of the Crusades...and it IS. I love dogs. I like most dogs better than most people. But if a rabid dog threatens my family I will kill it. I won't try to pet it, train it, or feed it. I will kill it.
The current crusade that no one dare acknowledge presents a dogma that cannot be accommodated, appeased, OR negotiated. The only solution is a campaign of annihilation.
We have tried the carrot only to have our hands cut off and our children slaughtered. It is 'Slingblade' time...not a Neville Chamberlain/John Kerry appeasement.
Like the soldiers of prince Lazar six hundred years ago, and like the framers who gifted us with the republic, it is time to commit "with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor." It is necessary to defeat the enemy intent on converting or killing us.
That cannot and will not be done with 'summits', compromise, appeasement, or compromise.
©2004 The Tocquevillian Magazine