“But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.”
– Exodus 23:22
The day after the Pearl Harbor attack, hundreds of thousands of young American men responded to a call from President Roosevelt to rally against an enemy that attacked the United States.
While that enemy had a clear address – Japan, the enemy in 2001 is a little more ambiguous, a little more doubtful, a little more vague.
Yet, make no mistake about it, there is an enemy out there – a very real and dangerous enemy that can strike the vulnerable United States at will in ways few Americans have ever imagined.
President Bush needs to rally Americans to fight that enemy today – fight them on the land, in the air and on the sea, as Winston Churchill once pledged. We need to fight them in the fields, fight them in the streets.
This is war, America. I know you haven’t seen it for a long time. I know many Americans never thought it would happen again. I know this generation has grown complacent, thinking their lives would never really change or be disrupted like this.
And Bush needs to put this in perspective. He needs to pull people together, help them set their priorities, get them on a war-footing, prepare them for combat – physical and spiritual combat.
That’s a tall order for a man not known for his inspiring rhetoric. Pray he rises to the occasion.
Here’s what Bush should rally us to do as a nation:
- Build a missile-defense system as quickly as possible – no matter what the cost, no matter what the sacrifice. Maybe now people will understand the threats they face in a hostile world.
- Cut off all foreign aid to Yasser Arafat and his Palestine Authority, which, despite their attempt to distance themselves from these attacks, bears at least some responsibility.
- Take the handcuffs off Ariel Sharon and Israel to respond appropriately to the terror attacks the Jewish state has endured for the last year.
- Achieve energy independence by beginning an aggressive domestic oil-drilling effort in Alaska and elsewhere, removing all misguided environmental barriers to this national security necessity.
- Repeal all restrictive gun laws so that every law-abiding American can take part in national defense against this elusive enemy who can strike anywhere, anytime.
- Require every airliner in America to include armed guards on board, require all crews to be armed and to allow properly permitted passengers to bring firearms on board as well. Think of the lives that might have been saved if any one of those four airliners was carrying some appropriately armed crew members or passengers.
- Drop all plans for relaxing controls at our borders and step up rigorous enforcement of our immigration laws. Amnesty? Forget about it.
- Call for a national day of prayer – just as our Founding Fathers would have done in a time of national emergency.
This is unconventional warfare and it needs to be fought in unconventional ways – enlisting ordinary Americans in the cause.
It should not be fought with unnecessary restrictions on the lives of Americans, with infringements of our civil rights and with an abrogation of the U.S. Constitution.
It’s time to teach Americans to be self-reliant again. It’s time to recognize that government can’t protect you, can’t take care of you, can’t save you from attacks. The best it can do is respond. Only a free people can truly defend themselves. Police-state tactics will only serve the purposes of the enemy.
What Bush should not do is retaliate impotently at targets that are not truly meaningful, not tied directly to the perpetrators, not really the enemy’s vulnerable spots.
Retaliation is not only appropriate, it is a necessity. But the retaliation has to hurt those responsible. The enemy needs to pay in blood and pain and real cost. The blows should be devastating and overwhelming – not just matching the devastation here in the United States, but compounding it exponentially.
Most of all, what America needs to do is repent of its sin. It needs to recognize the way it has strayed from the ways of God. It needs to understand that it is not immortal, not invincible, not impregnable. It needs to believe that government is not its master, only its servant. It needs to comprehend that God is sovereign, He is in control and only when we turn to Him will we be safe, secure and steadfast.
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