Here's the article in case nobody wants to click the link :P

Back in 1991, during the First Gulf War, the media was awash with profiles of American troops expressing sympathy for the pathetic Iraqi soldiers Saddam Hussein had placed in the desert opposite American tanks. The stories definitely showed off American magnanimity, but my parents were still horrified. Each time one of those profiles came on, one of them would holler out, "You have to hate your enemy to win a war."


My parents knew what they were talking about. My Dad was a refuge from Germany and, once in the British military, fought the Germans all over Southern Europe and North Africa. He survived the evacuation at Crete and made a stand at El Alamein. My mother spent her war years interned in a Japanese concentration camp.


Aside from native fortitude and the blessing of youth, the one thing that drove my parents them to fight and survive was hatred. They truly and deeply hated their enemy. Compassion was not a part of the equation.


Let's fast-forward 70 years. My family and I are proud members of the Navy League, a wonderful organization that supports the U.S. Navy. One of the direct benefits for us is that, during Fleet Week, we get royal treatment from the Navy. With those delights around the corner, I asked my son what his expectations were for the week. Instantly, visions of battleships danced in his head. His wish was to see a ship that had actually been in battle.


He was chagrined to learn that our American Navy has not had to engage in battles recently. The ongoing wars, I told him, are land wars. I hastened to assure him, though, that the Navy doesn't just sit around and eat peanuts. Instead, it drills constantly in case the worst occurs, and is always vigilant. Indeed, I said, the Navy can be a target and, to illustrate this point, I told him about the attack on the U.S.S. Cole.


He was horrified. "Who did that?"


"Al Qaeda," I replied. "The same group that blew up the World Trade Center."


He had an opinion on that: "Al Qaeda's evil, isn't it?" "


Yes," I agreed, "it's evil."


Had the conversation ended there, it would have been a blip in my day, and not a post at American Thinker. It didn't end there, however, because my son is the product of several years in the American public school system.


"Mommy," he said, "you can't really blame Al Qaeda people, can you? After all, it's their religion. They don't know that they're doing the wrong thing, because they believe that they're doing the right thing, just like we do."


Well! He's certainly learned his moral relativism lessons, hasn't he?


I agreed with my son that Al Qaeda's members were unfortunate enough to have some profoundly wrongheaded ideas. Nevertheless, that did not relieve us of our obligation to protect ourselves and smack them down.


"Imagine," I told him, "if a lion was coming after you. In attacking you, the lion, unlike a human, isn't even making a moral choice about doing the right thing or the wrong thing. He's just doing what a lion does. If you saw that lion running directly at you, and if you had a gun, would tell yourself that, because the lion doesn't know right from wrong, you should let him eat you, or would you fire the gun to protect yourself?"


My son fully understood that, despite the lion's lack of moral culpability, it was okay to kill it to save himself.


"Let's take it a step further," I proposed. "People who grew up in Nazi Germany were sure that it was the right thing to kill Jews, and gays, and gypsies, and the mentally handicapped, and to enslave people they didn't like. Because they were doing what they thought was the right thing, did that mean we were doing the wrong thing when we fought them in World War II?"


My son got that one too. Even though the Japanese and Germans (and Italians) had been raised to the wrong ideas, it did not give them a free pass to kill and enslave the world. We did the right thing by fighting them to the last man necessary for a complete surrender. And then we did the right thing again by weaning them away from their foul ideologies.


"So," I asked, "should we excuse the members of Al Qaeda and other people like that even though they had the bad luck to be raised with bad ideas?"


With the example of the lion and the Nazis before him, my son finally got that one too. When a truly evil world view rears its head, a nation must smack down that viewpoint and, if necessary, it must destroy the people holding that viewpoint. There is no room for hesitation. It is possible to try rejiggering an ideology focused on your complete destruction, but you better be sure to have a gun at your side when you try it.


My son, bless his heart, was easy to convince. He's a bright kid and he's been hanging around me long enough to have bought into my own world view. The tragedy, of course, is the fact that so many other American kids are going to stand there waiting for the lion to bite them, all because they feel sorry for the lion's failure to understand that biting them is the wrong thing to do.

I guess you have to justify your hatred somehow.

propasaurus: I guess you have to justify your hatred somehow.

*facepalm*

The author of this article is only suggesting that refusing to subdue someone/something because it doesn't know any better is against your own best interests. That has nothing to do with compassion, dumbassmitter

Sooooooo, where does this guy explain to his son why we invaded Iraq?

That guy's parents are farking idiots. So is he. In most wars the US has fought in, the US Armed Forces have had huge numbers of enemy troops surrender to them, rather than continue fighting, because they knew they could expect good treatment from the American troops. Toward the end of WWII, you had Axis troops fighting their way through USSR troops just so they could surrender to us rather than the Russians.

You've got to be taught to hate and fear,
You've got to be taught from year to year.
It's got to be drummed in your dear, little ear.
You've got to be carefully taught.

They fark you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were farked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse

"Mommy," he said, "you can't really blame Al Qaeda people, can you? After all, it's their religion. They don't know that they're doing the wrong thing, because they believe that they're doing the right thing, just like we do."

Why does every conservative writer blogger seem to have a child that spouts off liberal-sounding positions at just the right moment?

How much of a pathetic slime do you have to be to put words in your own kid's mouth?

Neeek: That guy's parents are farking idiots. So is he. In most wars the US has fought in, the US Armed Forces have had huge numbers of enemy troops surrender to them, rather than continue fighting, because they knew they could expect good treatment from the American troops. Toward the end of WWII, you had Axis troops fighting their way through USSR troops just so they could surrender to us rather than the Russians.

Japanese would 'surrender' with grenades under their arms. We learned then to shoot before they got anywhere near us, why can't we do the same thing now whether the bomb is strapped to a person or on their car...really the same thing.

The only thing I know for a fact after reading the article that anwserman was kind enough to repost here, since clicking American Thinker links should be avoided at all costs, is that the conversation depicted in it never happened.

He's a bright kid and he's been hanging around me long enough to have bought into my own world view.

Isn't that precious.

Because Christ would want us to hate.

SilentStrider: Because Christ would want us to hate.

The Weeners on NRO is:

Matthew 5:43"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor[h] and hate your enemy.' 44But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

The person who posted that still seems to be for the War, and seems to think of the killings by soldiers as wild animals being put down.

RobertBruce: We learned then to shoot before they got anywhere near us, why can't we do the same thing now whether the bomb is strapped to a person or on their car...really the same thing.

Yea, and when we catch people who look like them we need to torture the shiat out of them and rape their kids!

RobertBruce: Japanese would 'surrender' with grenades under their arms. We learned then to shoot before they got anywhere near us, why can't we do the same thing now whether the bomb is strapped to a person or on their car...really the same thing.

Are the dagers that our soldeirs facing really like this? I thought that the bombs were stationary on the roadside and things like that. Or, are you advocating mass murder in any place that terrorists might possibly detonate a bomb?

IrateShadow: RobertBruce: Japanese would 'surrender' with grenades under their arms. We learned then to shoot before they got anywhere near us, why can't we do the same thing now whether the bomb is strapped to a person or on their car...really the same thing.

Are the dagers that our soldeirs facing really like this? I thought that the bombs were stationary on the roadside and things like that. Or, are you advocating mass murder in any place that terrorists might possibly detonate a bomb?

Three words asshole: Glass. Parking. Lot.

Of course we are!

Skleenar: Use your hate my son
feel it course through your body
hate will make you strong

THISTHISTHISTHISTHIS!

Would you kill the lion because it has the capacity to kill you but has not make a move?

It's crap like this that makes me hate the country I so loved.

SilentStrider: Because Christ would want us to hate.

W
I
N

Another steaming loaf of crap pinched off by the fine folks at the "American Thinker"...

Jeez, never thought I'd miss articles from "The View from 1776"...

vartian: "Mommy," he said, "you can't really blame Al Qaeda people, can you? After all, it's their religion. They don't know that they're doing the wrong thing, because they believe that they're doing the right thing, just like we do."

Why does every conservative writer blogger seem to have a child that spouts off liberal-sounding positions at just the right moment?

How much of a pathetic slime do you have to be to put words in your own kid's mouth?

Conservatives believe that putting words into their kids' mouths would make these 'truths' simple to grasp and easy to understand. What they don't see is that it makes their bullshiat look even more childish and removes any attempt at complexity that a lot of the issues they don't understand require.

That, and conservatives believe that real life is a drama. Their whole ideology is akin to watching a really pathetic '80s action show.

vartian: "Mommy," he said, "you can't really blame Al Qaeda people, can you? After all, it's their religion. They don't know that they're doing the wrong thing, because they believe that they're doing the right thing, just like we do."

Why does every conservative writer blogger seem to have a child that spouts off liberal-sounding positions at just the right moment?

How much of a pathetic slime do you have to be to put words in your own kid's mouth?

And why wasn't that a jumping-off point for a discussion on the evils of religious crusades?

Oh. Yeah.

I think the real lesson is don't provoke the lion then you won't need to shoot it when it comes after you.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of outright insane violent people out there. But let's not pretend like American [or other] presence around the world doesn't rack a few nerves.

I noticed more foam around the lips in these anti-right fark postings. Guess learning you don't ride the unicorn, the unicorn rides you is a little tough to take. Keep ranting against teh right when it is the guy on your left who is doing this to you.

Is it the unemployment or the raelization that Obamacare will never occur in your lifetime that hurts the most.

Oh, I know: It's Afghanistan.

Mustang Driver: I noticed more foam around the lips in these anti-right fark postings. Guess learning you don't ride the unicorn, the unicorn rides you is a little tough to take. Keep ranting against teh right when it is the guy on your left who is doing this to you.

Is it the unemployment or the raelization that Obamacare will never occur in your lifetime that hurts the most.

Oh, I know: It's Afghanistan.

I LOL'd.

Howard Finkelstein: propasaurus: I guess you have to justify your hatred somehow.

*facepalm*

The author of this article is only suggesting that refusing to subdue someone/something because it doesn't know any better is against your own best interests. That has nothing to do with compassion, dumbassmitter


i figured a graphical representation would aid your point

/hot like warp engines

Compassion for your enemies? What kind of crazy man thought of that?




/hot

My mother spent her war years interned in a Japanese concentration camp.

Gee daddy, why didn't grandpappy do the right thing and drive a stake through her heart on December 8, 1941?

vartian: "Mommy," he said, "you can't really blame Al Qaeda people, can you? After all, it's their religion. They don't know that they're doing the wrong thing, because they believe that they're doing the right thing, just like we do."

Why does every conservative writer blogger seem to have a child that spouts off liberal-sounding positions at just the right moment?

How much of a pathetic slime do you have to be to put words in your own kid's mouth?

Compared to some of the other things Republicans have been putting in kids' mouths lately...

[Mark Foley.jpg goes here]

Crush your enemies
See them driven before you
and hear the lamentations of the women.

Way to spin that headline, subby.

Mustang Driver: Is it the unemployment or the raelization that Obamacare will never occur in your lifetime that hurts the most.

It's no problem, I plan to have myself cloned.

America has always flirted with becoming a full blown fascist state. This is just more of the edge riding it loves to do.

With the example of the lion and the Nazis before him, my son finally got that one too. When a truly evil world view rears its head, a nation must smack down that viewpoint and, if necessary, it must destroy the people holding that viewpoint. There is no room for hesitation. It is possible to try rejiggering an ideology focused on your complete destruction, but you better be sure to have a gun at your side when you try it.

I agree, I say we start by eradicating this author and everyone who agrees with his evil viewpoint that we should eradicate everyone that we disagree with.

Skleenar: He's a bright kid and he's been hanging around me long enough to have bought into my own world view.

Isn't that precious.

He contradicted himself in the same sentence. No bright kid would buy into this nutjob's worldview.

DeadZone: Crush your enemies
See them driven before you
and hear the lamentations of the women.

Nope, doesn't work. Third line has too many syllables.

See this is why the bombing of Dresden was SO farkING AWESOME!! All those children that took refuge in water towers and were boiled alive? Don't think for a second they wouldn't have killed your gran, kicked your sister, raped your dog and stole your bible if given half the chance


/flaws in logic: submitter/author has them

FTFPOSA:
"Back in 1991, during the First Gulf War, the media was awash with profiles of American troops expressing sympathy for the pathetic Iraqi soldiers Saddam Hussein had placed in the desert opposite American tanks. The stories definitely showed off American magnanimity, but my parents were still horrified. Each time one of those profiles came on, one of them would holler out, "You have to hate your enemy to win a war.""

WTF? So we should have gunned down waves of pathetic Iraqi conscripts? Between this article, and two just this week arguing that we wrong to fight Nazi Germany, I am VERY afraid of where the right wing of American politics could be going.

Mustang Driver: I noticed more foam around the lips in these anti-right fark postings. Guess learning you don't ride the unicorn, the unicorn rides you is a little tough to take. Keep ranting against teh right when it is the guy on your left who is doing this to you.

Is it the unemployment or the raelization that Obamacare will never occur in your lifetime that hurts the most.

Oh, I know: It's Afghanistan.

i think if there are foaming-around-the-mouth anti-right postings it has little to do with this or that policy, but more to do with the fact that so many people are appalled and angry at how stupid, reactionary, thoughtless, prejudiced, and stupid so many people in this country are and how easily these people are lead around by the nose by the right-wing corporate media, tricked into fighting against their own self interest in favor of some twisted idealization of a country that never existed in the first place.

/yes, i said stupid twice

Mustang Driver: I noticed more foam around the lips in these anti-right fark postings. Guess learning you don't ride the unicorn, the unicorn rides you is a little tough to take. Keep ranting against teh right when it is the guy on your left who is doing this to you.

Is it the unemployment or the raelization that Obamacare will never occur in your lifetime that hurts the most.

Oh, I know: It's Afghanistan.

Knowing that we won't see a Republican president for at least another decade soothes us.

.... NO.

Don't get me wrong, the overly PC aspect of life is a bit trying, treating everyone's crotchfruit like they are precious snowflakes that will CLEARLY go on to solve all the world's problems is a bit much, and tolerating ignorant morons (whatever their affiliations) stretches the patience from time to time...

Hating doesn't help with any of the problems we're facing. Hell, we didn't even 'hate' the Russians. We hated their system, but hating makes it personal, and you can't back away from that kind of thing. Too many problems come from hating.

And in the end, you hate your own, and that's just sad.

star_topology: Way to spin that headline, subby.

No its pretty accurate. The righty was arguing that we shouldn't think about the enemies motivations, we should just hate them. No compassion, just hatred and death.

Not only is this not Christian, its also fairly stupid. As the saying goes: Know your enemy, you are already known to him.

The Righty also tries to suggest that compassion = not fighting them, which is of course, incorrect. Hes just trying to paint liberals as do nothings in the face of danger. Typical.

Ras-Algethi: It's crap like this that makes me hate the country I so loved.

Don't hate the country, hate the chickenshiat, conservatives who have done their very best to ruin it. If we could only kill all of them off or ship them to somewhere more to their liking (Saudi Arabia sounds like their kind of place) then we will have the country we should. If you are patient, then you can just wait. The old social conservatives are dying off, fewer and fewer youngsters are becoming social conservatives now (better education, and more folks going to college help there) and fewer white people in general makes the demographics very unfriendly toward their ideologically bankrupt ethos. The have never had the blacks voting for them in any numbers and the have done their best recently to alienate all Hispanics with their irrational hatred of all things non-white. fark'em they are done. Now it's just a matter of limiting their damage before they are gone completely.

/note: none of the above applies to fiscal conservatives (they, though sometimes misguided, at least have their hearts in the right place and need not be liquidated).

Debeo Summa Credo:

Knowing that we won't see a Republican president for at least another decade soothes us.

what's better, though, is that the next Republican president will probably be Hispanic...

vartian: Why does every conservative writer blogger seem to have a child that spouts off liberal-sounding positions at just the right moment?

How much of a pathetic slime do you have to be to put words in your own kid's mouth?

because they love to show how their kids had an intelligent, rational though and how they crushed it like we crushed our enemies in the gulf, HOORAH!

vartian: Why does every conservative writer blogger seem to have a child that spouts off liberal-sounding positions at just the right moment?

I think it comes from a deep-seated need to view any viewpoint to the left of Ghengis Khan's jarhead football coach as childish, deserving of little but being talked down to, and requiring correction. We've seen that phenomenon often enough around here...

vartian: "Mommy," he said, "you can't really blame Al Qaeda people, can you? After all, it's their religion. They don't know that they're doing the wrong thing, because they believe that they're doing the right thing, just like we do."

Why does every conservative writer blogger seem to have a child that spouts off liberal-sounding positions at just the right moment?

How much of a pathetic slime do you have to be to put words in your own kid's mouth?

Yeah I'm also gonna call bullshiat on this conversation she supposedly had with her son. Kid's don't speak this way, and if they did, they wouldn't precede it with "Mommy".

Crabs_Can_Polevault: Nope, doesn't work. Third line has too many syllables.

Crush your enemies
See them driven before you
and hear the lamentations of the women.women cry



HTFY

"Blessed are the cowardly, for they are the true reflection of God."

My Dad was a refuge from Germany

Well, having all those people inside you who were escaping the Nazis is bound to make you a bit grumpy.

It sounds like Sun Tzu would kick this author's ass.