Who is responsible for deaths of innocents?

By Bruce Kesler

Let’s get this straight: Over the past several decades tens and hundreds of thousands in specific countries, millions cumulatively, of civilians died directly under the guns and deprivations of depraved rulers and of terrorists. The world stood by. A miniscule fraction of that number of innocent civilians – many zeroes after the decimal point -- have died directly at the hands of the U.S., or Israel, as the former stood against terror and the latter for its very survival.

Let’s get this straight: The murderers of millions did so purposely. The U.S. or Israel, either accidentally or as an aberration from their enforced rules of engagement.

Let’s get this straight: The deaths of the millions by major and petty tyrants, as well as the far fewer but more publicized deaths from “collateral damage” or breaking the rules, are equally or more the fault of world governments and opinion that looked away toward narrow interests or avoidance and allowed the tyrants’ carnage and power to grow till directly threatening world security and peaceful living in other countries.

Let’s get this straight: The U.N.’s Kofi Annan is not an exception but a representative of the majority of the world’s governments who would either rather see Western civilization be so weakened, or even perish (except for their NY penthouses, and palaces at home), it cannot stand in hopeful contrast to their oppressed peoples.

Let’s get this straight: Those in the West who argue for no or half-measures by it, or who concentrate their artillery against those willing to stand up against tyrants and terrorists, are directly culpable for both the millions of innocent civilians dead before Western armed resistance and the hundreds or thousands after. Equivocation or fancy sophistry doesn't erase or lessen this direct trail of blood to their doors.

Ed Morrissey writes in the Examiner,

Why? Because no one expects terrorists to follow the rules. This is the soft nihilism of low expectations….
If the world wants to live without terrorism, it needs to stop enabling terrorists with disproportionate criticism of civilized nations that wage war within established limits. This soft nihilism of low expectations encourages non-state actors to engage sovereign nations, knowing that the world will not allow the nations to fight terrorism effectively.

Read it all, and let’s get this straight.

Reprinted with permission of Bruce N. Kesler,  ChFC REBC RHU CLU