The Anchoress

This article is a few years old, and I linked to it in 2006, but I wanted to post it again, this Memorial Day, because it is an Englishman’s assessment of America, not my own, and because Al Qaeda once said, “you love Pepsi; we love death.” No…what we love is FREEDOM, and we’ll die for it; we’ll die helping other people to achieve it and, leftist-mantra’s of “Imperialism” aside, we do it without asking for any more land than it takes to bury our dead.

“Americans Will Die for Freedom.” - and 7 years after the west bank danced and Osama bin Laden promised more havoc from his cave, Al Qaeda is vastly weaker, and while the threat is still there, and these terrorists are still trying, worldwide terror attacks are declining.

“Americans Will Die for Freedom.” We are winning in Iraq, as evidenced by both admissions by the jihadists and the fact that the left is starting to claim credit for it.

“Americans Will Die for Freedom,” and when an wounded enemy combatant comes our way, we save his life:

As Fr. Bautista continued speaking with us, he described the fascinating story of a young Muslim woman who was entering the Church under his guidance through the RCIA process. Her story was moving. While working with Americans, this woman, who must remain anonymous, was touched deeply when she realized that the U.S. medical personnel not only treated wounded Americans and Iraqi civilians, but also treated wounded enemy combatants, including one who was known for having killed U.S. Marines. As she put it, “This cannot happen with us.”

As Andrew Gimson wrote, from England:

…the Americans have not remained in happy possession of their free constitution without cost. Thomas Jefferson warned that the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots. To the Americans, the idea that freedom and democracy exact a cost in blood is second nature.

We went to the fine new museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, devoted to the American Civil War. It was the bloodiest war in American history. Americans slaughtered Americans in terrible numbers before the North prevailed. You can look up the names of soldiers on a computer, and I found to my slight surprise that a man called Joseph Gimson served on the Union side as a private in the 37th Regiment of Coloured Infantry, and was “severely and dangerously wounded” in the battle of Northeast Station on February 22, 1865.

We stood at Gettysburg, scene of the bloodiest battle of all, on a field covered with memorials to the fallen. Here Abraham Lincoln gave his great and sublimely brief address, ending with the hope “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.
[...]
The Americans are prepared to use force in pursuit of what they regard as noble aims. It is yet another respect in which they are rather old-fashioned. They are patriots who venerate their nation and their flag.

The idea has somehow gained currency in Britain that America is an essentially peaceful nation. Quite how this notion took root, I do not know. Perhaps we were unduly impressed by the protesters against the Vietnam war.

It is an idea that cannot survive a visit to the National Museum of American History in Washington, where one is informed that the “price of freedom” is over and over again paid in blood.
[...]
But when the Americans speak of freedom, we should not imagine, in our cynical and worldly-wise way, that they are merely using that word as a cloak for realpolitik. They are not above realpolitik, but they also mean what they say.

These formidable people think freedom is so valuable that it is worth dying for.

Emphasis mine. And how about at home? Do you sit out an election to ‘teach a lesson’ and hope that the president united to the an out-of-control congress, combined with the SCOTUS featuring three newly named justices-for-life - will wait for you to ‘win it back’ sometime in the enlightened future?

Happy Memorial Day Weekend and God Bless our Troops and CIC.

UPDATE: The Iraqi forces in Iraq, trained by American Military are beginning to take charge.