Dear editor:
When I volunteered for duty in Southeast Asia, I did so in hopes that my meager actions might help the people of South Vietnam win their struggle to live as a free nation. Our country sent many troops to train and fight alongside the South Vietnamese military soldiers. But there were at least two obstacles which kept that conflict from being successful. One was what had been known and talked about among our troops who faced the enemy in many firefights -- that of the cowardice of the South Vietnamese soldiers who ran away from the battles leaving our boys to fight alone, thereby cutting in half the forces that were required. The second obstacle was the fact that we had a president who chose to fight the war from his desk in the White House instead of allowing our experienced military leaders to handle the conflict. It is no wonder that over 58,000 of our military lost their lives needlessly in a war that could not, nor had not been planned, as winnable.
We are now faced with a similar scenario with the growing global threat of ISIS! We have a commander in chief who has not grasped the seriousness of the terror in Iraq and Syria, and seems to be playing politics by waiting to order strikes against ISIS until the nearness of midterm elections. And a spineless Congress refused to commit themselves to enact legislation to declare war on eradicating the malignant cancer and, in fact, dismissed themselves from further meetings until after the elections.
While the president says that we stand united as a nation, the truth seems to be that average Americans say they don't care about the actions in the Middle East and they should be left alone to fight among themselves. But when we are attacked again, like 9/11, then many will realize that the terrorists have no boundaries as recruited citizens begin beheading one another!
On FOX News recently, Bill O'Reilly stated that we need a volunteer mercenary force, funded by those nations who have been threatened, to "put boots on the ground" in Iraq to methodically hit and wipe out the terrorists wherever they are. Now, I'm not a blood-thirsty warmonger, but when our nation has been threatened with harm, and some of our citizens have been recruited to carry out mass murder in our streets, I'm for any group who will work to protect me and mine.
If any of your readers have read their Bible -- specifically Deuteronomy and Joshua -- they would see that God had His contingency plan for a mercenary force from the Israelites to go into Canaan and kill all the kings, men, women, children, cattle, and destroy their idols (lest he led to worship them) and take their silver and gold for God's treasure house. Those villages outside the major cities who sued for peace would be spared and become the servants of the Hebrews. If we, as a nation, would truly put our motto -- "In God We Trust" -- to the test, we would quickly discover that God will be on the side of the right, and we would see the quick destruction of ISIS.
Donald Cunningham
Hot Springs
Editorial on 09/25/2014