McCain ready to handle threats
History has never been kind to free men. Ever since the collapse of Athenian democracy following the Peloponnesian War, tyrants have scorned democracy and sneered contemptuously at the people “You can’t handle freedom.”
Freedom needs an advocate.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy said, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
In 2008, who can be trusted to carry Kennedy’s torch of freedom?
Who will stand up to the Islamists who say, “You can’t handle the personal freedom to pursue your own happiness because you will become weak and decadent — like the Americans”?
Who will stand up to the Russia of Vladimir Putin, who says, “You can’t handle the political freedom to choose your own leaders and make your own laws because democracy violates the prime law of nature — the strong shall rule the weak because they can”?
Who will stand up for other people and challenge the cultural determinists in our own country who argue condescendingly, “Those people can’t handle freedom”?
Who will stand up for America and challenge the cultural relativists in our own country who argue angrily, “We can’t handle our own freedom”?
John McCain understands our enemy’s premise — that the march toward freedom is not irreversible and that even the United States is not necessarily permanent.
He harbors no illusions about his ability to charm to the world’s most dangerous psychopaths.
He harbors no illusions about the capacity of the U.N. Security Council, where Russia enjoys a veto, to confront Russian challenge.
He is less concerned about our image in the salons of Paris than in our commitment to freedom for the good people of Iraq, or Georgia, or Poland, or even France.
For John McCain, duty, honor, courage and commitment are not just words but moral habits cultivated over a lifetime of service and sacrifice in the cause of freedom.
Only John McCain can be trusted with the torch of freedom.
Charles L. Weber Jr.
Charlottesville
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Reader Reactions
May I refer you to an article by Michael Moore:
Like Iraq, Vietnam was not a noble cause. It’s time we stopped letting politicians and the press perpetuate the McCain War Hero myth. McCain’s sacrifice had nothing to do with protecting the United States. He was sent to Vietnam along with hundreds of thousands of others in an attempt to prop up what was essentially an American colony, South Vietnam, which was being run by a dictator whom we installed.
John McCain flew 23 bombing missions over North Vietnam in a campaign called Operation Rolling Thunder. During this bombing campaign, which lasted for almost 44 months, U.S. forces flew 307,000 attack sorties, dropping 643,000 tons of bombs on North Vietnam (roughly the same tonnage dropped in the Pacific during all of World War II). Though the stated targets were factories, bridges, and power plants, thousands of bombs also fell on homes, schools, and hospitals. In the midst of the campaign, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara estimated that we were killing 1,000 civilians a week. That’s more than one 9/11 every single month—for 44 months.
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