Israel: From the Heart of a Marine Corps General

From the heart of Major General, USMC (Ret) Richard Cooke

I often mention in my posts a little Mexican restaurant that I frequent here in San Diego that goes by the name of Las Quatro Milpas, which serves the best authentic Mexican food in San Diego. I mention it today, because of what has changed when I stand in that long line in the heat down on Logan Avenue waiting for those 5 dear Mexican women to serve the hundreds of us who show up before I melt in the hot sun.

The line outside of Quatro Milpas is a place to meet new friends, reunite with people you have not seen in weeks or months, but happen to get that same desire for that Chorizo at the same time! you did, so that every time you show up again, you can restart your friendship as if it never stopped. Everyone has a story about how long they have been coming to Quatro Milpas or how they discovered it, or how long was the longest line they have stood in waiting to get to their food.

What has changed, is that this week, instead of the jovial mood in the line, I was struck with the thought of what would happen to this place if someone were to walk into the line, and get into the restaurant, around say 1300 hours, at the height of the lunch rush and blow about 100 people to hell in the name of Allah.

As I thought about this, I wondered what it must be like for the people of Israel, who no matter where they go, have to consider the possibility of terrorism, and that their next steps out into society might be their last. I thought about what it must be like for a little Israeli schoolchild on a bus heading from school when someone gets on the bus in the middle of summer wearing a large overcoat.

I have an anger that will not go away this morning, as I watch the media try to tell me that Israel is the aggressor, that they are wantonly killing civilians, and that they must agree to a cease-fire with people who have sworn to kill them.

I wish I could say I cannot imagine how we got to this point in society, where a portion of our society would side with the very monsters that have killed both Israelis and Americans, because of a fear of violence, but the reason is all too clear.

The free world has been too tolerant of the non-free world. We have allowed them to be portrayed as victims, and to assume the moral high ground at the same time that they cut the heads off innocent people and film it for worldwide consumption.

Okay, that is the nice way to put it. The honest way to put it is that we have lost our nerve. When a society of radicals can drag a dead American through the streets of their towns, and hang their bodies from a bridge as a collective finger flashed at America, and our response is "patience" we have lost not only our nerves, but our balls as well.

I get a sense from the older veteran friends of mine in this city that our problem is that we have it too good, and do not remember what was done on our behalf to make things this good.


Have we forgotten that for every time we can leave our homes,
go stand in line at our favorite restaurant, and NOT think about the possibility of someone bombing the place, which someone many years ago gave their very life for that freedom we enjoy?

I think of the young people in line at Quatro Milpas and wonder how many of them would have volunteered to fly along side Doolittle on his way to Tokyo, knowing they had not the gas to get home?

Omaha Beach, anyone?

I understand that these days, in Marine Corps boot camp, a recruit can call a "time out" if he is feeling too much stress. Is our State Dept. running the Marines now? This, I find disgusting.

But no more disgusting then those who seek a cease-fire in Lebanon this morning after civilians were killed after their building collapsed from the concussion of a bomb dropped near them that was targeting the site of where rockets were launched into Israel resulting in the deaths of 18 Israeli civilians.


It is as though these Israeli deaths do not matter at all.

Especially when you stop to consider that this conflict began with Hezbollah coming across the Israeli border, ambushing and killing 8 Israeli soldiers and kidnapping two more.

Cease-fire, my ass!

To every person who believes that you can reason with these animals, I must ask you where your mind went. It is the weakness of the free-world's NON-response that has allowed the terrorist threat to grow into a movement that threatens our very existence.

When a U.S. soldier can be dragged through the streets of Somalia and our response is to LEAVE, when 280 Marines can be bombed in their sleep and our response is to LEAVE, when after terrorists kill Spanish civilians on a train, and their nation's response is to elect capitulating socialists who order the immediate retreat of their soldiers from Iraq, and so on, and so on, what are the terrorists to think, but that the free world has become a pussy?

The fact that a majority of Americans think this nation needs AN EXCUSE for going after terrorism after 911 scares the hell out of me. It suggests that we as a nation will eventually fail to produce the men and women who every day, stand between freedom and tyranny.

We are at war!

I want Israel to continue, even escalate their attacks on Lebanon. I want them to ignore the media, ignore the pundits, and ignore even the weak among them who want to find a peaceful way out of this current conflict.

History teaches us that until a bully is beaten, the bully keeps coming. The free world paid for our freedom in blood, and if blood is what it will take to! keep it, then lets just have at it now, shall we?

Let Iran and Syria attempt to aid Hezbollah. Let Israel attack them. Let it escalate until we are forced to fight at Israel's side. Then, can we for the last time, just kick some ass until it is over? Every generation must pay this price, as long as there are those who seek to force us to follow a dictatorial ideology. Radical Islam says, "Agree or die." In response, we should stop asking them, if there is a middle ground to be reached. We should be saying, "Fine, but it is YOU that will die."

Israel, I see you fighting not just for your freedoms, but also for the world's. I trust that if you continue, the free world will be forced to side with you, even if it means that a few of us die in the process. The time is now. It is time for THIS generation to prove itself worthy of those that came before us. It is time for us to say NO MORE to the terrorist threat, to find them and kill them.

Do not stop fighting, Israel. Make the free world help you put an end to this madness. In doing so, you might help us find the courage and moral convictions that made us free to begin with, so that one day, little Jewish children, and old lovers of Mexican food in America can go about our daily lives with the freedom that others died to give us.

Richard Cooke
Major General, USMC (Ret)