Today the world celebrates victory in the Cold War, signified 20 years ago by the Berlin Wall being torn down by the power of people yearning to breathe free.
That historic event never would have occurred without the moral clarity and bold leadership provided by western leaders, most notably President Ronald Reagan.
After four years of President Carter’s policies of appeasement, the Soviets and other totalitarian regimes were on the march. Iran held American diplomats hostage.
It began to turn when President Reagan had the courage to speak with clarity about the nature of the Soviet Union – a nation that subjugated hundreds of millions, occupied most of Eastern Europe, starved and killed its own citizens, violated their rights to free speech, religion and association, and kept them prisoners behind walls of barbed wire – by declaring the world’s other superpower to be an “evil empire.”
It continued when President Reagan said the goal of the Cold War was simple: “We win, they lose.” It culminated in his speech at the Brandenburg Gate, challenging the supposedly reform-minded Gorbachev to “tear down this wall!”
Following the attacks on America on 9/11, President Bush demonstrated a similar clarity by declaring terrorists who promoted Islamic extremism as “evildoers”, and by noting that an “axis of evil” made up of Iraq, Iran and North Korea threatened the peace and stability of our world.
Sadly, that clarity is gone today, the victim of an appeasement mindset among our national leaders combined with a heavy dose of politically correct multiculturalism.
So an Islamic extremist in our military attends a radical mosque, makes sympathetic statements and tries to contact Al Qaeda and our enemies during a time of war, and instead of being arrested is told to “lock it down.” But rather than locking it down he kills and injures dozens of American soldiers on a military base, an act of Islamic terror described mildly as a “tragedy” by our President. The media seems mystified about what could have caused this to occur — was he bullied? Did we hurt his feelings?
The Secretary of Homeland Security — having just suffered a horrific breach in security in our “homeland” that cost multiple American lives — is mostly concerned about a possible “backlash” against Islam in America. (Now Arizona’s 9/11 Memorial makes sense, with its emphasis not on terrorists murdering thousands of Americans but on the occasional and regrettable acts of violence from vigilantes.) You have to wonder — are these people for real?
Sadly, not only are these folks for real, they are our national leaders – until we elect a new group of leaders who have the ability to once again speak with clarity against the forces of evil in our dangerous world.