"Myth No. 1: War doesn’t change anything." You'll hear this incredibly stupid, historically ignorant statement repeated by many people. War has of course been a huge agent of change, and still is.
"Myth No. 3: Insurgencies can never be defeated." Another incorrect assertion often parroted by anti-war types.
"Myth No. 4: There’s no military solution; only negotiations can solve our problems." As Peters points out
The only negotiations that produce lasting results are those conducted from positions of indisputable strength.Often military action is necessary before negotiations can succeed.
"Myth No. 6: Killing terrorists only turns them into martyrs." Dead martyrs don't kill anyone else.
"Myth No. 12: The Middle East’s problems are all America’s fault." This should be obvious, but surprisingly it isn't to some people.
The entire article is worth considering before reading any news coverage dealing with war or terrorism.
From Peters' article:
ReplyDeleteIvy League universities once produced heroes. Now they resist Reserve Officer Training Corps representation on their campuses.
ROTC will return to most of the Ivy League the second it stops discriminating against gays, which violates university anti-discrimination laws. Even then, in many cases it's an issue of demand - for example, one of the reasons Columbia has no ROTC is that there's so little demand in the New York area that the military's chosen to consolidate its program into a small number of campuses.
Second, we’ve stripped in-depth U.S. history classes out of our schools. Since the 1960s, one history course after another has been cut, while the content of those remaining focuses on social issues and our alleged misdeeds. Dumbed-down textbooks minimize the wars that kept us free.
"Alleged misdeeds" is what made me stop reading. American public schools teach about slavery and the abolitionist movement, and about segregation and the civil rights movement. MLK and Frederick Douglass were national heroes too, no less than Lincoln and FDR; why shouldn't US history classes teach about them, unless Peters sympathizes with the losing side, as many white Southerners do?
Another clue about Peters' agenda comes from what he writes in his book, Wars of Blood and Faith. In the book, he claims that women's rights will be a defining feature of the 21st century. In this article, he disparages the US education system for teaching people about the history of women's rights in the West. Like Christopher Hitchens and a host of other neocons, he seems to hate feminism, unless he can use it to bash Muslims.