Saturday, July 30, 2005

Pulling Out of Germany
It's been 60 years since "The Greatest Generation" defeated the Axis Powers and demonstrated to the world what fortitude and courage mean. Now it appears their work is finally over in Germany and plans are being made to end the occupation. Thanks to Varifrank for an excellent essay on this subject. Here's a good bit from his essay, but please read it all for yourself:
"The miracle of World War II isn’t that Americans, who having survived the great depression went into battle with only 90 days of training and managed to beat the “Aryan superman” on his own home turf at a war they had trained for 10 years to fight. The miracle was that despite our losses in a war we didn’t start, that despite our natural desire for vengeance we still managed to set it aside because we recognized the common goodness of mankind. We fed our former enemies and helped rebuild their country. We bet on the Germans, and the bet paid off. It was a gamble, and it was by no means certain to win. Its over now and we can go home, as friends.


We are placing the same bet on the Iraqis. The Iraqis are people and they deserve the freedom that was taken from them by people who wished only to enslave them.

We owe them the same faith in humanity that we owed the Germans. Don’t deny the Iraqis their victory over enslavement by reducing their victory with the derisive term “pullout”.

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