HAPPY NEW YEAR

By DELL ARTHUR

            As it so swiftly passed the year 2015 will soon be history. During the past 12 months so much has happened that it seems almost impossible to focus on one event that could be considered the most important news maker. As the result the memory of all of the past year’s events that changed our lives one way or another merely lingers on.

This time last year everyone was buoyant about the future and wishing each other “Happy New Year.” But as it turned out, like preceding years, it seemed almost daily another news story was reporting a shooting somewhere in our nation taking the life of an undefended victim, or another terrorist attack—the last one at San Bernardino, California, where a ISIS affiliated Muslim wife and husband teamed together to kill 15 innocent people, or some natural disaster. Nothing too different it seemed, from what happened from the preceding year.

Just a few weeks before San Bernardino there was the attack on Paris, France where another group of ISIS killers murdered some 115 people. While this senseless war in the name of “Allah “continues to rage throughout the Middle East there seems no end in sight. Now with the dawn of another New Year the possibility of another attack seems almost certain. It’s only a question of where and when.

            The old adage “…Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it,” seems to be a fulfillment of prophesy.

            Looking back a 100 years ago the United States was on the verge of entering the First World War. President Woodrow Wilson, who promised that America would not participate in the European conflict, nevertheless sent troops to France to die and bleed in the mud saturated poppy fields. This was to be the war to end all wars.

            It was scarcely 25 years later that the world was again in a war that would prove to be the most horrific conflict in the history of mankind. In Europe country after country fell into the hands of Germany’s tyrant Adolph Hitler who saw to it that millions of civilians—primarily Jews—would find themselves enslaved in death camps and end their lives in ovens.

            But it mattered little. Everyone who opposed this madman was subject to elimination. Hitler promised his Third Reich would last 1000 years. As it turned out it lasted less than 15. Millions upon millions died in the few years the war lasted. Not only members of armies—German, Italian and Japanese, but the allies of all nations fighting for their freedom and future also entered eternity. This did not count the numbers of innocent civilians, men women and children who also brutally died as a result of this insane folly.

            And the beautiful cities that had come down through the magnificent days of history and architecture once at the end of the fighting were left nothing but rubble. Buildings that were considered works of art appeared as lonely standing walls, windowless, broken, and demolished beyond repair. It took months of excavation following the signing of surrender to recover bodies buried under the pile of bricks and mortar.

            But the most horrific result of World War II was the opening of Pandora’s Box when a lone B-29 flew over Hiroshima, Japan and unleased the first atomic bomb in history on an unsuspecting population. Shortly after the first bomb exploded killing over 70,000 people a second atomic bomb was unleashed over the town of Nagasaki. The morality of such an action is debated even to present time.

            But this was war and that is what war is all about.

            Not five years passed when again an unwanted conflict started when North Korea attacked their neighbor South Korea and American soldiers and airmen and navy were nearly pushed back to the sea. This war, or better known as a United Nations “police action,” lasted nearly three years after the Chinese became involved and an armistice was agreed to. As far as the “war” is concerned, it never ended and only a fragile “peace” accord keeps both sides on their own side of the border. How long it will last is anyone’s guess.

            And then there was Vietnam. This was a politician’s war.

            Men who served in all branches of the military were greeted home by the “hippy” generation who spat on them and called them “baby killers,” and much more wherever these brave men wore their uniforms in public. It mattered little to those who did not serve or ran to Canada to avoid the draft that the misery of battle left so many of those who did serve with scars that would never heal. Some came home without legs or arms or paralyzed or burned or in a casket. None of them wanted to leave their homes and families to fight “an Asian war,” but they went when called and paid the price.

            At the end of this conflict there was hope of peace in the world. Yet even during this interlude small wars continued to break out throughout the world. And then the Middle East erupted when Saddam Hussein decided to take over his small neighbor Kuwait for their oil fields. This ignited a brief battle when American forces were called in and ran over Iraq in less than three days.

 This “victory” lasted only a short time when a second “Desert Storm” erupted and the politicians decided that a change of the government of Iraq was needed. The result was the occupation of Iraq and the execution of Saddam.

            But that wasn’t to be the end of it.

            When the current President of the United States, Barack Obama ascended to the presidency of the United States he implemented policies that started a spiral downward for America and its security. He pulled troops out of Iraq that has left a vacuum of power which opened the door to the fanatics. Today we see the results of his foolish foreign policy decisions.

            All that can be said is “so much for a community organizer.”

            With 2016 only hours away the world can only hope. What is in store for the next 12 months is anyone’s guess. Only He who is the creator of all knows the answer.

HAPPY NEW YEAR.