A Lesson of War Repeated

America has been free for two centuries. Why this favored status?

The President said: "The sudden criminal attacks perpetrated (against America) provide the climax of a decade of international immorality.

Powerful and resourceful gangsters have banded together to make war upon the whole human race. Their challenge has now been flung at the United States of America.

Together with other free peoples, we are now fighting to maintain our right to live among our world neighbors in freedom, in common decency, without fear of assault.

We are now in this war. We are all in it; all the way.

Every single man, woman and child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history. We must share together the bad news and the good news, the defeats and the victories: the changing fortunes of war."

No, it wasn't George Bush. It wasn't after 9/11.

It was Franklin D Roosevelt, December 9, 1941

International Terrorism is however as serious a threat as international fascism was back then. Some fear we have taken on too much.

To those who think declaring war on evil men like Bin Ladin is a futile gesture I give the words of Roosevelt concerning the enemy of his day:

"Most earnestly I urge my countrymen to reject all rumors. These ugly hints of complete disaster fly thick and fast in wartime. They have to be examined and appraised."

I needed to hear these words last week because my heart was torn by the pictures of the dining tent attack in Mosul, Iraq. Victory against terrorists is more than body counts. Ho Chi Minh told the French in Indo-China:

"You will kill 10 of our men, and we will kill 1 of yours, and in the end it will be you who tire of it."

Many say that a war on terrorism cannot be won.

True enough, it cannot be achieved simply by force of arms, unless one returns to the doctrine of Scorched Earth (burn and demolish everything in the occupied country), but we have come with a high and noble mission. The goal is stated in those powerful lines

"The freedom you defend is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity."

Yes, that is President Bush.

We, like the American patriot must say that we have only begun to fight. F.D.R. warned:

"It is only a beginning of what still has to be done. We must be set to face a long war against crafty and powerful bandits. The attack (Pearl Harbor) can be repeated at any one of many points in both oceans and along our coastlines. It will not only be a long war, it will be a hard war. That is the basis on which we now lay all our plans. That is the yardstick by which we measure what we shall need and demand; money & materials."

Each generation of American soldiers has come to see the value of Ronald Regan's maxim:

"No weapon is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."

America has been free for more than 2 centuries. There's a Psalm where God says of King David:

"My hand will sustain him. No enemy will subject him to tribute; no wicked man will oppress him."

Why this favored status? It was only one side of an agreement. A few verses later we read:

"He will call out to Me - You are my Father, my God, the Rock and my Savior."

Many generations of ordinary Americans have known their Creator in that quadruple relationship. It's been the spiritual heart of our success.

Should this war against a worldwide terrorist army, whose twisting of even their own religion embraces a very different understanding of deity, be long - we will need to know God.

You can make an immediate contribution to beating religious thugs and murderers. It's not by being spiritually neutral.

It's by taking this month to ardently seek the Lord on all 4 of these levels:

Father, God, Rock and Savior.