McG
Army.ca Legend
- Reaction score
- 2,370
- Points
- 1,160
PUBLICATION: The Ottawa Citizen
DATE: 2002.01.11
EDITION: Final
SECTION: News
PAGE: A13
I read letter-writer Kathleen Kelly‘s rebuttal to Gen. Lewis Mackenzie with an admittedly jaundiced eye. She says he is advocating a culture of war, but offers nothing to support the accusation.
The belief that the best protection from war is a strong and capable military has proven to be more accurate than the contrary school of thought, which calls for appeasement and ignoring reality. There were many earnest people like Ms. Kelly during the Cold War, telling us to disarm and open our hearts to the friendly and peace-loving people of the Soviet Union. There were just as many in the 1930s, fighting tooth and nail against all efforts to respond forcefully to Adolf Hitler.
What we face now is, thankfully, much less dangerous. However, it has grown from something very small to something capable of atrocities like the World Trade Center attacks, to the edge of even greater danger: The use of biological and even radioactive materials to attack civilians.
It has grown through our refusal to address the expanding network of violent and fanatic people around the world eager to use violence to punish those who do not share their views. It has also grown because so many of us in the West are smug, content, fat and happy in our economic success and comfortable lives, and because of the influence of well-meaning but largely uninformed people who cannot accept that violence sometimes is the only answer to violent people.
You cannot speak soothingly to Osama bin Laden and his ilk and expect them to foreswear violence. All the granola and happy faces in the world will not deter them from their hatreds. And they have become too dangerous for anyone of sound judgment to continue to ignore them.
Their destruction can only be accomplished by violent means. It is infinitely sad that this will inevitably mean the deaths of some innocents. Yet in the long run the elimination of organized terror networks will save far more innocent lives than it costs.
All of us want peace, particularly those of us who, like Lewis Mackenzie, have put their lives on the line and personally witnessed what comes of war. But peace does not come from wishes or platitudes.
Peace comes from a firm commitment to freedom and a determination to confront those who would use violent ends to destroy that freedom.
We must support those beliefs with more than rhetoric. We need a capable, disciplined and well-equipped military. Lewis Mackenzie knows this. Kathleen Kelly and Prime Minister Jean Chretien clearly do not.
John Angus,
Ottawa
DATE: 2002.01.11
EDITION: Final
SECTION: News
PAGE: A13
I read letter-writer Kathleen Kelly‘s rebuttal to Gen. Lewis Mackenzie with an admittedly jaundiced eye. She says he is advocating a culture of war, but offers nothing to support the accusation.
The belief that the best protection from war is a strong and capable military has proven to be more accurate than the contrary school of thought, which calls for appeasement and ignoring reality. There were many earnest people like Ms. Kelly during the Cold War, telling us to disarm and open our hearts to the friendly and peace-loving people of the Soviet Union. There were just as many in the 1930s, fighting tooth and nail against all efforts to respond forcefully to Adolf Hitler.
What we face now is, thankfully, much less dangerous. However, it has grown from something very small to something capable of atrocities like the World Trade Center attacks, to the edge of even greater danger: The use of biological and even radioactive materials to attack civilians.
It has grown through our refusal to address the expanding network of violent and fanatic people around the world eager to use violence to punish those who do not share their views. It has also grown because so many of us in the West are smug, content, fat and happy in our economic success and comfortable lives, and because of the influence of well-meaning but largely uninformed people who cannot accept that violence sometimes is the only answer to violent people.
You cannot speak soothingly to Osama bin Laden and his ilk and expect them to foreswear violence. All the granola and happy faces in the world will not deter them from their hatreds. And they have become too dangerous for anyone of sound judgment to continue to ignore them.
Their destruction can only be accomplished by violent means. It is infinitely sad that this will inevitably mean the deaths of some innocents. Yet in the long run the elimination of organized terror networks will save far more innocent lives than it costs.
All of us want peace, particularly those of us who, like Lewis Mackenzie, have put their lives on the line and personally witnessed what comes of war. But peace does not come from wishes or platitudes.
Peace comes from a firm commitment to freedom and a determination to confront those who would use violent ends to destroy that freedom.
We must support those beliefs with more than rhetoric. We need a capable, disciplined and well-equipped military. Lewis Mackenzie knows this. Kathleen Kelly and Prime Minister Jean Chretien clearly do not.
John Angus,
Ottawa
