That which we value most
Over at BlackFive, Grim has written a disturbing piece. Not so much that it is wrong, but it points out, when you get right down to it, the vast chasm that separates us in the West from the Islamofascists.
He points out, rightly, that the things that we value the most are the things that they will target the most. In order not to be attacked, we must value those things less in order to not make them targets of the attacks.
Even when it is our children.
Before you go to the link here, please be aware that it will force you to think. It starts, however, with the following:
The gentle soul -- how I respect her! -- will begin by pointing out how many innocents have died in the recent wars, and especially the children, who are the most obviously innocent. She will point out figures for Iraq, for Afghanistan, for Lebanon, and ask: "How can you justify this? These poor children, who might have been good men, good women, lain in the cold earth?
[snip]
She replies: "But how can you justify their deaths? Regardless of how hard you try, will you not kill them? Some of them? Should we not choose peace instead?"
Peace - this is the overriding concern of the those that cannot abide by war. To them, the loss of any innocent is an anathema. They struggle over the lost cost of potential, yet do not project forward into time in calculating the opportunity cost of not acting. Peace is always desire....yet, they deny that there is a cost to that peace. The current conflict in Lebanon is a real world example - everyone is crying for what they feel should be - peace. Oh, they use other words like ceasefire, cessation of hostilities, and the like, but they want peace.
And they will not get it. What they are not naming is what they will get - and that will be only temporary stability. In the general case by Grim, he understands that the foulest of actions, the suffering of innocent children, is often the price to pay for real peace. If those that desire a conquest (and that is what Hezbullah wishes, the Islamofascits desire) do not value what we do, they will use it against us.
"And yet," I say, "It is. I have shown you that it is. That means we have moved into a time beyond human wisdom. We can no longer know the right. It is beyond us.
"We can only do," I must warn her, and you. "We can only do, and pray, that when we are done we may be forgiven."
I agree with some of this, and disagree as well. I think that while many like the Lady here knows the rightness of not killing innocent children, they cannot look past that "rightness". I agree with Grim that it "is beyond" them. They do not understand or comprehend that protecting the present can and does endanger the future innocents. For if we do not win, that is the future we will have provided for them.
I disagree that we "no longer know the right". As high of a cost that suffering innocents entails, the cost may be much higher if we do not act and proceed for that "higher" rightness. The Lady's "rightness" must be overlooked and put aside for a time to defeat those that wish to enslave us. The imperative here is that we never forget what we have put aside for a time so that we can try to regain it.
But that can happen only after the peace has been won by whatever means necessary. Only then can we then regain and return to what would be normal - the rightness of the Lady.
And indeed, pray that we may be forgiven by the present innocents lost.
