Soap Box

I guess it's my earliest remembrances of Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, MacArthur and their ilk that formed my image of leaders.

Men with a solid dignity, a sense of intense national pride and a persona of easy confidence and trust that inspired a nation to fight and win a world war.

I remember Roosevelt addressing the nation after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, declaring war and instilling a fierce sense of patriotism and fanning the flames of anger the Americans were already feeling because of Japan's sneak attack.

I was only five years old but even so, the fatherly, authoritative voice of FDR moved something inside me and I knew deep down that no Swastika or Rising Sun would ever fly above our beloved United States of America.

America went to war with both barrels blazing, no holds barred, no quarter given, no doubt in anybody's mind about who our enemy was, and even a five-year-old kid considered Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini the most evil men on the face of the earth.

Bigger than life, charismatic military leaders like Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur planned the battles and lead the way, and General George S. Patton, Fleet Admiral William �Bull� Halsey, Eddie Rickenbacker were household names in World War II America.

And can you even imagine the guts it took for Harry S. Truman to drop the very first atomic bomb, knowing he was unleashing a weapon so devastating and so awful, that it basically ended the war in Japan in a matter of days and would forever change the face of warfare on Planet Earth?

And no, they weren't perfect; they made mistakes, exhibited bad judgment in their personal lives and certainly had their detractors.

But one thing they all had in common, they were leaders, decisive men who were willing to live with whatever successes or failures their decisions lead to. They didn't commission study groups or cater to polls, they surrounded themselves with the best and the brightest, considered the advice of those they trusted, but their decisions were their own and as Harry Truman so succinctly put it, �The buck stops here".

I simply cannot imagine any of these men being petulant or petty enough as to refuse to meet with the leader of an ally nation.

I cannot imagine any of them refusing to call Hitler a German for fear of offending the German people or allowing the beheading of Americans without doing whatever it takes to destroy the scumbags who did it.

Sometimes drastic measures have to be taken.

While Truman's decision to drop an atomic bomb on Japan caused immense loss of life and human suffering, it saved thousands of lives by ending a war that could have dragged on for years.

President Obama's refusal to identify who our enemy is only makes him a symbol of weakness in the violent Islamic world and his timid reticence to deal with the Isis situation with the force required to destroy them will not save lives, the longer the situation festers the more powerful Isis grows and a bigger danger they become to every human being on the planet.

Does President Obama actually believe that he can trust the Iranians to keep the terms of any agreement? Is he willing to trust the future of Israel to a regime that has told the world they want to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth, the same people who refer to America as the Big Satan?

Does he really believe these people can be allowed, now or at any time in the future to acquire a nuclear device and the rocketry to deliver it to any place in the world?

Because that is exactly what their intentions are.

Benjamin Netanyahu was telling the world exactly that and our president and some members of his political party didn't even have the decency to listen.

What do you think? 

Pray for our troops and the peace of Jerusalem

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels