The Good That Lies Within

I read Donald Sensing’s post this morning about bringing home our dead from France. The gall of the French is beyond comprehension and their vandalism of the British cemetery is absolutely unacceptable behavior for citizens of a “civilized” nation – especially one that owes so much to the men whose memory they desecrated.

But I don’t think that we should bring the men home. Those men died in France fighting tyranny and oppression. They died fighting intolerance and hatred. They died to promote and protect freedom, virtue, and life. To remove them en masse at this point in history would be to admit defeat to the evils of intolerance and hatred.

What is needed here is diplomacy. Yes, diplomacy.

(Note: From here on, when I refer to America or American, I actually mean to include the British, the Canadians, the Australians, and anyone else who joined the Allies in WWII in making the liberation of France – and then the rest of Europe – a possibility. This is in no way meant to marginalize the incredible contributions of everyone with us during that time.)

But not the kind of diplomacy that we normally think of. This is not the diplomacy of give and take. This is not the diplomacy of sitting around a large wooden table negotiating. This is the diplomacy that Colin Powell is perfect for. This is a time for the diplomacy of take and give. As in take Chirac and de Villepin out to the cemeteries and give them a piece of our national mind. This is take them to a memorial and give them a history lesson. This is take them to each individual grave and give, no make, them understand the debt that France will most likely never repay.

Powell needs to take Chirac out to the cemeteries of Normandy and have a discussion about “American Imperialism;” they need to have to Powell discussion - about asking for the land in which to bury our dead.

There needs to be a discussion about what the American people have asked for in return for the lives of our men.

We haven’t asked the French government to maintain the cemetery at their expenses – we hire Frenchmen to do so at our expense.

We didn’t ask for compensation for having helped to liberate their nation – we asked to give money to help rebuild it.

And we never asked the French to do anything but be French – with all the good and bad that that entails.

France couldn’t repay America’s sacrifice in a thousand years. And we don’t expect them to – it is too much to ask of any people. Our willingness to sacrifice our youth for the freedom of others is our most pure virtue as a nation; we seek not to keep liberty for ourselves, but instead seek to give the gift to anyone who wants it.

We should not take our dead out of their final resting place. It should be just that final. In a sea of French hatred and intolerance towards America, those rows of crosses and stars are a symbol of all that is good and right with America. They represent a standard that the current French government will never aspire to, much less ever reach.

Powell needs to make a demand of the French, in the midst of all those silent heroes. He needs to demand that the French government recognize the special debt it owes to America and to ensure that our men get to spend their long slumber in peace in their little piece of holy land.

God blessed France to exist in a time and era where other men would be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice while asking nothing in return. There are thousands upon thousands of Guardian Angels for the French resting in their soil. To desecrate a memorial like was done is to desecrate the evidence of God’s purest love.

Chirac will have a lot of explaining to do about how this was allowed to happen. Before he has to answer to a higher power, he should probably start with either Powell or Jack Straw.

The men should stay. Even in death they fight a silent battle against the same forces they died to defeat over half a century ago. And as they did in 1945, they will be victorious again, because their cause is pure.