My father was an Army officer in intelligence for 30 years (retired now for
many more years), and while I have much compassion for those in other
countries who suffer at the hands of their misguided governments or
fruitless and racist civil wars, it was only later, after lengthy
discussions with him that I came to the opinion below. Bosnia was one of
the examples he used. But, it's a relative situation to the context (For
example, our intervention in WWII DID help to stop a genocide.) In other
words, the military weighs a lot of information that we civilians don't have
to determine the outcome of any actions they might take before they make
their decisions and act. RE: Bosnia, he gave me five or six different
approaches that could be taken by the U.S. in the situation, all of which
would have been fruitless to solve it by the military's (and his)
calculations.
To outsiders, what the military/government does may seem wrong, but they
don't know what the people involved know. I'm not arguing that they're
ALWAYS right or that they're always pure in their motives, but most of the
time they're a lot more right than the people on the street and sometimes I
think the cynicism and criticism is far too much and undeserved.
Another bit of wisdom from my father, that transformed my worldview:
"Things that don't work, eventually fail."
He was thinking of communism when he said that (he said this after 1989),
but since then, I've found it applies to virtually everything in life (such
as business situations...or my car). The key word is "eventually." While
in the short term things that don't work may seem to get ahead, or win a
battle here and there, if it doesn't work, it has to fail in the end. It
just will. So let it. "Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord," or so that verse
goes. Life teaches our enemies (and us) the lessons by the way nature is
structured. We either learn them, or fail. Iraq refuses to learn them,
and so is failing. Terrorist groups and attacks will always (eventually)
fail. The method, the philosophy, the culture of terrorism, just doesn't
work in the long run.
By the way, there's a reason America is the greatest and strongest nation in
the world, and continues to be, despite tragedies that hit us from time to
time like today's...it works.
-----Original Message-----
From: Walker Percy Literary and Philosophic Topics
[mailto:PERCY-L@listserv.lsu.edu]On Behalf Of Rhonda McDonnell
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 11:24 PM
To: PERCY-L@listserv.lsu.edu
Subject: Re: Better than Monday morning?
>From: Karey Perkins <karey@CHARTER.NET>
For the U.S. to bail them out - any country that
>suffers due to its own poor government/politics/social situation - doesn't
>solve the underlying problem....in fact, I would claim that much of the
>time, it enables it to continue.
>
About a year ago, Harper's ran an article that examined the situation in
Bosnia and came to the same conclusion. By preventing the working out of the
situation, even when that working out is through the violence of war, the
antagonism is prolonged, and the historical course of human events--war and
the conquering of one group by another--is prevented. Not knowing much about
such matters, I was easily persuaded. Much as I abhor violence, many humans
seem to have difficulty maintaining peace, even at the most basic domestic
level. I leave the rest up to those of you who know far more.
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