I’m not a war historian scholar but I believe two of the most seminal events that turned the American public against the Vietnam War were the My Lai massacre and the filmed execution of a Vietcong assassin (wearing plain clothes) by South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. The uproar as a result of these two incidents was tremendous. It didn’t matter that My Lai was a tragic aberration or that the Vietcong assassin had just murdered a South Vietnamese Colonel, his wife, and their six children. To the American public it was disgraceful.
Whether it was Vietnam, the first Iraq war, or Ferguson, Missouri, the American public has a long history of being loud and boisterous when it perceives injustice. It organizes, puts pressure on elected leaders, and takes to the streets (sometimes lawfully and sometimes not).
Yet here we are today, ignoring reports that Christians in the Middle East are being persecuted, told to get out of the country, and even killed…in large numbers. Beheading videos by Muslim jihadists continue to populate the internet. The beheading of American journalist Steven Sotloff is the latest to make the rounds and the news. And virtually nothing from America! Crickets chirping. Where are the people in this country who run to line up at the gates of whichever prison is executing a convicted murderer waving signs and crying out against the injustice of capital punishment?
Where are the children of those who took to the streets in the late 60’s and early 70’s when the My Lai and street execution stories broke? Christians have lived in the Middle East since the birth of Christianity over 2,000 years ago and are now being driven out or beheaded. Everybody knows this…and life goes quietly on??
And let’s talk about what no one wants to talk about: beheading! Are you kidding me? We’re not talking about the swift mercy of a guillotine blade here. Or even one of those long curved swords used during the Middle Ages that would do the job with a single stroke. We’re talking about using fairly short and rusty knives to cut, hack, and saw through a person’s throat, neck, and bone. It is absolutely horrific. How the American President could be seen on the golf course high fiving and fist bumping his partners just minutes after recognizing that an American citizen (James Foley) had had his head sawed off by a rusty knife is beyond my comprehension.
There is no attempt by jihadists to execute their captives in a quick and humane way. Here we are in America whining about lethal cocktails being used for executing convicted murderers while Islamic jihadists are filming decapitations of innocent human beings in a method that hearkens back to the Stone Age. Where is the dismay and outrage the American public has a history of utilizing to bring about action and change?
Where is the voice of the outraged American? Oh, that’s right, I hear it. Screaming about prayers offered at City Hall meetings or at football games. Ranting about a teenager who says “bless you” to someone who sneezed in class. I hear it, demanding more rights and screaming for more privileges.
Keep on ignoring and pooh poohing the war against Christians. Keep insisting nothing is more important than self-gratification. Continue to keep quiet about it and one day, not too far down the road the Muslim jihadist will be scrawling the Arabic letter “n” (for Nazarene) on doors in your neighborhood wearing a black scarf around his face and holding a rusty pocket knife…waiting for you.
