Senator Hillary Clinton got more mileage out of her “3am Call” commercial than just about any other candidate this cycle ever got out of any of their ads. While her opponent, Senator Obama, tried to mock the message of the ad by asking if anyone thought he wouldn’t answer the phone, the hard truth is that the question raised is a legitimate one. In a world where America’s enemies are real and ruthless, the role of commander-in-chief is the most important of the President’s duties.
With news headlines now dominated by declining stock prices, skyrocketing oil prices, home foreclosures, and political sex scandals, it is easy sometimes to forget that the dangers we face are not just economic. As the most powerful and most prosperous nation in the world, we are and will remain a target for tyrants and terrorists trying to carve out an empire and a legacy in this world. It is more important than ever that we have a President who understands this truth and will be ready to confront our foes.
For a civilized people, a strong national defense is a necessity, not a luxury. Human history is brutal. War, disease, famine, and lack are the norm, not the exception. Over the millennia, far more governments have risen and fallen by the sword than by the ballot. Yet the surge of freedom and liberty in the world during the last two centuries has caused many to forget how savage humankind can be. Safely ensconced in our homes and offices in 21st century America, we too often take for granted the security we enjoy, even in the insecure environment of the Post 9/11 world. However, if the last century was any indication, matters have only worsened.
The 20th century was the bloodiest in our mangled history. We saw two world wars, a cold war, the attempted annihilation of Jews and Armenians by sitting governments that were considered world powers, and wholesale slaughter in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge. Then just when some thought the fall of communism had given birth to a brave new utopian world, the west stood by and watched a brutally efficient attempt at genocide in Rwanda and reacted far too slowly when faced with “ethnic cleansing” in the Balkans.
Today, billions still suffer under the yoke of madmen who dominate their nations by bullets rather than by popular support. Functioning in this paradigm, only the strong survive.
The war on terror will not be the final war we fight. Nor will Operation Iraqi Freedom. Read the news on any given day and count the number of times you see the words Iran, North Korea, and China. Even if none of these nations engages in a conventional war with America, be assured that some other nation eventually will. This is because it is the way of the world. And it is because too often America disarms after winning a major conflict. We instinctively choose to believe that the last war was the final war. Until events like Pearl Harbor and 9/11 shake us from our comfortable slumber.
War is more common to the human condition than is peace, and so it is that we must be strong. For weakness invites attack. Those who dream of empire start wars only when they think they can win. There will always be a “most powerful nation in the world”. The question we need to ask ourselves is who do we want to play that role?
For today and the foreseeable future, the answer to that question must be the United States. For the last half-century America and her allies have preserved freedom and liberty. As wars and rumors of wars continue to abound, it is we who will be called upon once more to draw the line in the sand. It must be clear to all who would threaten our way of life that we will not allow ourselves to be bullied or blackmailed. It must be equally clear to them that war with America is the last thing they should ever desire and something they should avoid at all costs. That message must be delivered by a commander-in-chief with credibility. One who foreign powers understand will be ready, to paraphrase Churchill, to “visit violence on those who would do us harm”.
