Why did George Bush kill my son and what did he die for asks the mother of Specialist Casey Sheehan who was recently killed in Iraq. Not surprisingly, the link will take you to a CNN story about Ms. Sheehan protesting outside the Presidents Crawford, TX ranch and demanding the President answer her questions.

Considering that Ms. Sheehan arrived in Crawford aboard a bus painted red, white and blue and emblazoned with the words, "Impeachment Tour." I doubt she really wants to hear the answer.

Nevertheless, an answer to Ms. Sheehan is eloquently provided by SFC CJ Grisham on his blog, “A Soldiers Perspective.”

CJ almost gets it right. He covers the first part wonderfully. But he falls into the trap of altruism as he tries to explain for what Ms. Sheehan’s son died. It is so easy to do, particularly when the SecDef and President do so regularly. An answer rooted in altruism is exactly the kind of response someone with Ms. Sheenan’s political leanings might understand, but it is still wrong.

Here is what I would have written Ms. Sheehan. It is a message I know she will refuse to hear. But I am confident her son would have agreed.

We fight for a cause that has not been as right or as just, since WWII, our last true war in defense of our country. It is a war of free men and ideas against a darkness that seeks to remake the world in a tyranny unheralded in history. For that, your son chose to defend freedom, you and me. No soldier can do more.

We are not in Iraq for the Iraqis. We are in Iraq, attempting to foster the growth of a new nation because of our national interests. It is us, not for the people of Iraq, although they too will benefit. Only our self-interest is a justifiable reason to remain in Iraq. Any other reason is an insult to those who serve our country. Nowhere in that oath sworn to support and defend the constitution was bringing “good stuff” to other countries mentioned, nor should it have been.

Today, we only speak of acting in our own selfish interest in hushed tones as if it is somehow dirty. The concept of altruism has poisoned much of our intellectual honesty. Self-interest is rarely articulated in today’s politically correct world. No politician dare say it. Consider it a “third rail” of intellectual honesty. Few dare touch it for fear of being pummeled by the press and philosophical and religious altruists. But our own rational self-interest is the only justifiable reason for our presence in Iraq.

Iraq is but the most visible and immediate battleground for the future of our nation. If we achieve a free and tolerant Iraq in the center of Islam, we drive a wooden stake into the heart of a religion perverted by vampires of hate. If we fail in Iraq, all the freedom and liberty we have known is doomed. The radical Islamists, who attacked America again on 9/11, know this. The freedom you exercised to picket outside the President’s ranch will end. It is a gift from your son and all the soldiers who went before him. It was for his and your freedom and liberty your son chose to fight. He knew that failure would mean the future will include only the choice to submit to the will of the Imam/Mullah or be killed as an apostate. You son fought for himself and for you to continue to have the freedom you exercised in Texas the other day.

You son did not sacrifice himself for us or the Iraqi people either. A sacrifice assumes giving up one’s life for others, such as the people of Iraq. It comes down to this. Soldiers choose to fight for their comrades in the near term “little picture.” They choose to fight (and die), in the “big picture,” because they believe their fight will insure that they and the people of the US do not live under the thumb of radical Islamists who kill those who do not believe as they do.

Ayn Rand explained this idea of sacrifice best in the following two quotes. Think about the concepts Ms. Sheehan, because I know the ideas are alien to you.

"Any action that a man undertakes for the benefit of those he loves is not a sacrifice if, in the hierarchy of his values, in the total context of the choices open to him, it achieves that which is the greater personal (and rational) importance to him." (Rand, Virtue of Selfishness, p.49)

"If you wish to save the last of your dignity, do not call the best of your actions a “sacrifice”” that term brands you as immoral…If a man dies fighting for his own freedom, it is not a sacrifice: he is not willing to live as a slave’ but it is a sacrifice to the kind of man who’s willing. If a man refused to sell his convictions, it is not a sacrifice, unless he is the sort of man who has no convictions." (Rand, For the New Intellectual, p. 161)

You see, Ms. Sheehan, only free men can make these choices. It is that same “freedom” most liberals think is trite when someone tells them to “thank a soldier,” for it.

Never forget Ms. Sheehan, we fight not for the people of Iraq, but for the people of America. There is no other reason to justify a war. You son understood that. He fought for his right to choose his life, free of religious despots and free from a society where free men are enslaved by altruism and statism. He fought for what he believed was right. It is why free men become soldiers and why some die fighting for their freedom... and ours.

Hat tip - My View

Open Post Thanks - Mudville Gazette