Zero tolerance In a time of war, a cartoonist’s
unpatriotic assaults are unacceptable
By Alan Keyes SPECIAL TO MSNBC.COM
WASHINGTON, March 12 — I want to consider
this week the implications of a cartoon strip, appearing last
week in the New York Times and other places, by a Mr. Ted Rall,
mocking the grief of those who lost loved ones in 9-11 attacks,
and of the widow of Daniel Pearl. Several quotations from the
comic will suffice.
“THEY’RE EERILY CALM. They smile and crack
jokes and laugh out loud. They are the scourge of the media. Terror
widows.”
Mrs. Pearl: “Of course it’s a bummer that they slashed my husband’s
throat, but the worst was having to watch the Olympics alone.”
Another widow: “I keep waiting for Kevin to come home, but I know
he never will. Fortunately, the $3.2 million I collected from
the Red Cross keeps me warm at night.” And so on.
FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY
Among the many responsibilities and privileges
of a free people, one of the noblest is the task of forming and
maintaining principled resolve in time of war. Citizens of the
free American Republic must supply something beyond what was demanded
of the subjects of warlike kingdoms. Along with willing soldiers
and a beehive of impassioned support at home, we must supply as
well the sustained national act of will to prosecute the war.
And this will must be formed from a genuine understanding that
our cause is just. Our leaders can and must help in this — indeed,
there may be no more important responsibility they face than ensuring
that we only wield the sword when our cause is just. But the ultimate
responsibility is ours.
Of course, an entire people cannot have so
perfect an understanding as its statesmen of the causes that justify,
even require, going to war. Human history has taught us time and
time again that as the simple faith of the peasant necessarily
lacks much of the precision of the theologian’s doctrine, so the
judgment of any nation will always lack much of the sophistication
of the statesman’s subtle reasoning. But, like the faith of the
holy peasant, the people’s grasp of the essential realities can
be astonishingly complete, and deep — even wise — when it is in
a form that a cynic might find simplistic.
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