America Needs You, Harry Truman

President Harry Truman (George Washington University) 

We need to have the clarity of one of the biggest mass murderers in American history, President Harry Truman. Truman, a Democrat, is a man revered by members of both political parties. Not so sure it was always moral clarity. But clarity it was.

It might seem odd that a mass murderer like that is admired to this day. And yet the more time passes, the more admired he gets.

Many might question my description of Truman as a mass murderer. But how can he NOT be? He murdered 100s of thousands of innocent people in Japan with 2 nuclear bombs, one dropped over Hiroshima and the other over Nagasaki. 

Imagine that! So many people murdered by order of the then Commander-in-Chief and no one sheds a tear. All he gets is praise for what he did.

One might answer that this act ended a war that might have dragged on for years and caused many American deaths at the hand of the enemy (Japan) whose soldiers were willing to die for their Emperor whom they believed was Divine. When it comes to religious fervor of an enemy as a motive, its hard to fight them with conventional warfare. 

Truman may have very well prevented the deaths of a many American soldiers in battle – perhaps even more than the number of innocent Japanese that were killed by those 2 nuclear bombs. Perhaps.

But that does not make Truman any less a mass murderer.  He ordered the certain deaths of innocent people based on the possibility that an equal number or more of Americans would die if he didn’t. He saved the potential deaths of American soldiers by ordering the certain death of innocent civilians.

I guess sometimes mass murder can be justified. At least as far as many American patriots on both sides of the political aisle are concerned.

Which brings me to Iran. Now before anyone jumps all over me by saying the two situations are very different, I agree that they are. I want to be clear. I am not advocating mass murder in Iran in any way, shape, or form. 

However, the question then becomes what will trigger the kind of response that will bring Iran to its knees the way Japan was which ended World War II? Iran is a country that continually shouts ‘Death to America’? They have sworn to wipe Israel - America’s closest ally in the Middle East - off the map. Killing millions of Jews in the process – if they ever get the chance. A chance they will surely have if they ever develop a nuclear weapon that could do that kind of damage in a literal flash!

Should we wait until they do that before we act? And what about Israel? Should they just sit around and wait?

There is little doubt in my mind that if Iran’s current fanatic religious leadership has the chance they will not hesitate. They consider it a religious obligation to rid the Middle East of the ‘infidel’ nation they believe is evil by definition. And like the Japanese emperor sending young Kamikaze pilots on suicide missions for their god, so too are the fanatic Islamists running Iran willing to send their own young on suicide missions for their God.  

That said (and as noted above) I do not advocate the kind of mass murder committed by Truman. Which we are currently more than capable of. There are plenty of innocent Iranians that would be killed. Among them Jewish Iranians. 

Which brings me to all this hand-wringing by the Left about how Trump has created this crisis by leaving the so-called nuclear deal with Iran. I strongly disagree. It is the deal itself that created this crisis. Had the US and Europe not made that deal Iran would have been much further along their decline than they are now. 

The only thing that deal did was slow down the inevitable. In the meantime Iran was able to rebuild itself by virtue of the elimination of those crippling sanctions. They could sell their oil to an oil thirsty Europe and enrich themselves in the process. Using that money to spread terror all over the world (albeit primarily in Middle Eastern Countries). As well as arm Israel’s neighbors with enough rockets to destroy the Jewish state many times over. Which they would do in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it. Not that that has stopped Hamas leaders in Gaza from sending hundreds of those rockets indiscriminately into Israel. (Which they in fact do get away with.)

Nevertheless, the pressure on Iran by the US reinstating its sanctions has made them desperate enough to respond with aggression against the commercial tankers of our allies and our own military drones. 

The President has decided that a military response to that would be ‘asymmetrical’. Meaning that the kind of military action that was about to be approved would have killed about 150 Iranians. And since not one American has died as a result of the above-mentioned aggression, he decided that for humanitarian reasons he wouldn’t do it. (Let us just say that Trump is no Harry Truman.) 

The President has instead decided to increase sanctions. Iran has responded by scoffing at them. Meanwhile our allies are so afraid of their economies tanking if their oil flow from Iran is disrupted, and commerce with Iran prevented - they will never re-establish their own sanctions. Just like America’s left flank they too blame Trump for all of this.

I wonder how they will feel about 7 years from now when that deal will more or less expire anyway and Iran restarts their nuclear program? All while continuing to spread terror with religious fervor all over the world during those seven years.

President Trump did the prudent thing here by not responding militarily. Based on the current European dependence on Iran for the well being of their economies they would have been more upset at us than they already are. But being prudent is not necessarily the same thing as being right.

I’m not sure what the next step should be. But I sure wish we had a man like Truman in the White House. So I will offer a little ‘prayer’:

America needs you
Harry Truman
Harry could you please come home
Things are looking bad

I know you would be mad
To see what kind of men
Prevail upon the land you love

America's wondering
How we got here
Harry all we get is lies
We're gettin' safer cars
Rocket ships to mars
From men who'd sell us out
To get themselves a piece of power

We'd love to hear you speak your mind
In plain and simple ways
Call a spade a spade
Like you did back in the day
You would play piano
Each morning walk a mile
Speak of what was going down
Each honesty and style

America's calling
Harry Truman
Harry you know what to do
The world is turnin' round and losin' lots of ground
Oh Harry is there something we can do to save the land we love
Oh woah… 

Like many prayers of our own that were set to music by popular entertainers, so to was this ‘prayer’ performed by Chicago. It  can be heard here.