A Defense of America
February 19, 2003

Pastor Chuck Roots has been called away from Ripon Free Methodist Church to active duty as a Navy chaplain to the U.S. Marines

I sat watching the report of UN Chief Inspector Hans Blix this morning before the UN Security Council (and the world!), followed by what could only be described as pre-scripted responses from nations who have already stated their opposition to any war against Iraq. Allow me to share some of the thoughts that were running through my mind. (Oh, by the way, I’m still at Camp Pendleton. I was scheduled to go across the Big Pond for the second time this past Wednesday. For reasons that would only bore you, I’m still here.)

Back to the thoughts I had while listening to the various members of the UN Security Council.

If it were not for the fact that the stakes are high and people will die in a war with Iraq, what took place today in the UN Security Council meeting would be laughable. UN Resolution 1441 simply says Iraq must disarm by proving they have gotten rid of their weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It is not about inspectors doing anything other than meeting with Iraqi officials to confirm that Iraq has done what the Security Council has demanded. Yet countries like France say we should give the inspectors more time.

I had a childhood flashback to the way my parents raised me. If my father told me to do something, I was expected to do it. It was not open for debate. There were no excuses given for not being able to do it. And I wasn’t given multiple opportunities to get it done. If I didn’t do what I was told, there were consequences. Many of you readers grew up this way. You know what I’m talking about!

So what is the Security Council thinking when they balk at following up on what they say? The United States has come to the rescue of the world on several occasions in our relatively short history. We have, in fact, bailed France out of two world wars. Yet there is this cry from certain quarters that we should have them in agreement with us before we proceed with military action against Iraq. Why? After all, the last time the French were any military threat was over one hundred and thirty years ago when the last of the Napoleons was on the throne.

At present I’m reading a book about the Marines in World War I. Had the United States not entered that war when we did, France and England would have been speaking German. As American soldiers and Marines were moving to the front lines, French soldiers were straggling back to safety, mumbling, “La guerre est finie.” (“The war is over.”) One Marine tried to lift their spirits by saying, “We are here!”

It was the American fighting man who defeated the Kaiser and his German Army in WWI. It was the American fighting man who defeated Hitler and the Third Reich in WWII. It was the American fighting man who defeated Hirohito and Imperialist Japan in WWII. It was the American fighting man who stopped the North Koreans and the Communist Chinese in the Korean War. It was the American fighting man who stopped the spread of Communism throughout Asia in the Vietnam War. And it will be the American fighting man and woman who will stop the next despotic ruler who threatens America or her friends.

This may sound like a diatribe, and I suppose, in part, it is. But I am an American and well proud of it. Thank God we’re here, or else chaos would reign supreme in the world.

God bless America!