A Star-Spangled Lesson

So, as I sat in church this morning, I noticed the Star-Spangled Banner is no longer in the Presbyterian Hymnal. Wow.

There are other patriotic songs in there, such as America the Beautiful, and My Country 'tis of Thee, which is really funny because that song is sung to the tune of God Save the Queen.

So at least the tune of the British national anthem is in there. As is the beautiful Lift Every Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson, often considered the "Black national anthem". But not our own American national anthem. At least not any more.

I could make this a rant about what it says about our politically correct society or the decline of patriotism, but I won't. Sadly, much of what I learned about the national anthem I gleaned as a child from the printing of the whole song in the church hymnal. And, not assuming much about the state of civics and history education in America today, allow me to pontificate here on the basis that you, gentle reader, do not know much about our anthem.

Francis Scott Key, a Washington, DC lawyer, sailed into the Chesapeake Bay to board a British ship with the purpose of securing the release of an acquaintance who had been captured by the British during the War of 1812. The release was secured, but the British would not allow Key to return to Baltimore as an assault was about to begin on Fort McHenry, which defended the harbor. So Key was sent to an American ship where he watched the bombardment of Fort McHenry throughout the day and night of September 13, 1814.

At dawn on the 14th, through the haze and early morning sun, Key and his shipmates sought to determine if the fort had fallen by seeing if the American flag was still flying. To their amazement - and pride - the fort had survived the brutal attack, as indicated by the Stars and Stripes billowing above.

Key wrote his observations into a poem called "The Defense of Fort McHenry", and was later put to music in the mid-1800s. It became our national anthem in 1931.

The first verse of his poem has become the words of our national anthem, but so few people ever listen to the words anymore. The first verse is tense and hopeful as evidenced below:

O say can you see, by the dawn's early light,What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,

It is the morning's first light - is the flag there as it was at sunset last night?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight O'er the ramparts we watch'd were so gallantly streaming?And the rocket's red glare, the bomb bursting in air,Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,

We could see the flag during the illuminations of the night-time battle, but...

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Is it still there? Did we, and what we stand for, survive the battle?

Notice that last sentence - which is often sung triumphantly - is a question! People forget that part.

The second and third verses deal with the details of the battle, but I learned the fourth verse as a child, and it is this verse I think America needs to be reminded of as we stand toe-to-toe with the forces of evil in the war against terror:

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation!

Blest with vict'ry and peace may the heav'n rescued land Praise the power that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,And this be our motto - "In God is our trust,"

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. (emphasis mine)

That, friends, is what we really should be singing every day.

No Matter What

I came across two wholly unrelated things in the past few days that put the War on Terror in perspective for me.

First, I saw the campy 1996 movie Mars Attacks, in which the Martians keep destroying things on Earth while the bumbling government blames it on "cultural misunderstandings" and seeks to play an alien invasion for political gain. In the end, we finally figure out that the Martians are, in fact, attempting to destroy the Earth and all our weapons are useless until it is discovered that the sound of Slim Whitman yodeling makes their heads explode.

The other thing I stumbled upon was Charles Krauthammer's excellent column from last week, in which he notes that Israel has pretty much given its Arab neighbors everything they have asked for at the bargaining table, and yet the Arabs keep coming back to attack Israel.

What is the relationship between these two things? Well, the reaction of our government and media has been much along that of the government in Mars Attacks, while Krauthammer nails the underlying motivations of Islamic and Arab fundamentalism.

In the movie, when the aliens are discovered, it is assumed that since their civilization was more advanced, that it would therefore be peaceful. Similarly, assumptions are made about the Islamofascists every day - such as "they are rational", or "if we give them what they want, they will leave us alone."

Krauthammer points out that Israel has withdrawn from both South Lebanon and Gaza in the past six years, yet Arabs have used these very places as launching points to continue armed conflict against Israel.

Moreover, he notes that the issue for Israel's Arab neighbors is the very existence of the State of Israel itself. The Islamic radicals will not rest until Israel is wiped off the face of the planet. And no amount of negotiating, or brokering cease-fires, is going to change that.

Israel knows that it is literally fighting for its existence as a nation every day. It also knows that the only way to stop a fanatic is by being even more crazy. Israel lives by the motto of, "when fired upon, return the fire." Why? Because to not respond is to allow those who would see Israel destroyed to gain traction. For Israel, who has been under near-constant attack for the 60 years of its existence, proportioned responses are out the window. The opposition must go down and they must go down hard.

The lesson to be learned here is that al-Qaeda and the Iraqi "insurgency" go by the same playbook as Hamas and Hezbollah. There is little room for proportioned responses. These organizations fighting against the United States feel the same way about us that they do about Israel - they want us gone - not from their land, but from all existence. Couple that with the fact that we are seen as Israel's top ally, and we really are dog-meat to them.

So the point is this - it doesn't matter whether or not we kill women and children, it doesn't matter whether or not we build schools and infrastructure in Iraq, it doesn't matter what we do, the Islamofascists are going to hate us, no matter what. That's no cultural misunderstanding, either.

The only reason there has been an Israel since 1947 is that anytime they are attacked, they respond with a smackdown so intense that it sends the fanatic bugs back into the desert and under the rocks. A period of relative peace ensues until some guy grows enough hair on his sack to try it again, then Israel smacks this guy down. And they don't care who gets hurt because A) this is about their literal, not figurative, survival, and B) they know nothing they do is going to satisfy the Arabs, no matter what.

It's a lesson we could stand to learn in our dealings with al-Qaeda and the terrorists in Iraq.

American Independence

1. 
   Happy 230th birthday, America - you don't look a day over 205!
   
   I have so many things rolling around in my head today about Independence Day and what it means in the post-modern world.
   
   My good buddy K-Nine over at Dead Dog Walkin' is thinking along the same lines I am in many respects.
   
   But beyond that, where do we go with our young republic from here? and yes, it is a young republic - 230 years is not a huge amount of time, speaking in historical terms.
   
   The general view among the intelligentsia is that maybe America is an idea whose time has come and gone. That somehow the principles on which the country was founded are now bankrupt, in some way.
   
   Oh, everyone hates us, they say. We are just a big bully, a big baby of a nation-state, throwing temper tantrums in Afghanistan and Iraq.
   
   To many of the same intelligentsia, we are some kind of nouveau-riche, Beverly Hillbillies-esque crasher at the table of nations. We hit the Powerball of nation-building and now have decorated our million-dollar Palm Beach mansion with polyester curtains, redwood decks, and crystal Elvis replicas.
   
   Or more relevant to today's discussion, we are a sub-continent-sized Wal-Mart, bullying our way in where we aren't wanted and bringing short-term gains in exchange for selling our souls in the long term.
   
   Well, in the words of Col. Sherman T. Potter of M*A*S*H fame, "Horse Hockey!"
   
   Let's get a few things straight:
   
   1. This country is the greatest experiment in representational democracy ever attempted. Period.
   2. As mentioned before, we are a young republic; yet, in our short time on this Earth, our nation has, among many other things:
   * Ended slavery in the western hemisphere;
   * Fought tyranny on our own shores and abroad;
   * Stopped one of the most formidible forces of evil known to man in the form of Adolf Hitler;
   * Ended Japanese imperialism and oppression;
   * Salvaged war-torn Europe and Japan;
   * Outlasted genocidal Communist dictators;
   * Fed countless starving people in the third world;
   * Cured polio, transplanted hearts, and touched the moon and the stars.
   
   And we did all these things with our own blood and our own money. We walked the walk and takled the talk.
   
   Are we blameless? Certainly not. We have our issues; some solved, others not. But if you want to wear the crown, you have to bear the cross. Like it or not, we are the best game in town. Economically, socially, politically. Like the Clampetts, who may have been socially inept or bumbling, you know at the end of the day, they meant well.
   
   Someone mentioned how much the world hates us. Fine. So here's what we do: pull out of the world. Disengage. Iraq, you're on your own. Kenya, time to feed yourself. UN, find some place else to call home. India, Pakistan? Good luck with that nuclear thing. AIDS research? Well, we'll be doing it here, of course, but if we actually find something, well, you know, you all hate us.
   
   Let France and Germany start feeding the world. Let England and Canada take the lead in medical research. Let Russia broker the peace in the Middle East. We're out.
   
   No, we can't do that, can we. I guess that makes us like Wal-Mart: half the town can't wait for Wal-Mart to get there, the other half is fighting like hell to keep them out. When they get there, they'll cause some problems, but they'll also do a lot of good. And ultimately the people who fought to keep them out will realize that they can go into Wal-Mart at 3 AM and buy a pack of underwear for $10 that is available at a local store down the street for $15 but that store is only open from 10-6 Monday through Saturday. So while that person will gripe and complain about how we should be patronizing the little guy, ultimately the protestor will give in and realize that his little town is better for having Wal-Mart there.
   
   And so it goes with this little country we like to call America. Happy Birthday. Thanks John Hancock and the boys for their guts 230 years ago. Thanks to my great-grandfather, who fought in the War to End All Wars, and to my grandfather, who fought in the war after that, and to my father, who was in Da Nang for Tet, 1968. Thanks to them for ensuring I didn't have to go fight, and thanks to all who are continuing to ensure the best thing going keeps going.
   
   Happy Birthday, indeed.