Tuesday, Dec. 7, marks the 80th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, a date that will live in infamy, as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt characterized the same in his famous speech that reads in part:
“The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American lives have been lost. Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya … Hong Kong …. Guam … the Philippine Islands …Wake Island. … and this morning Midway Island.
“Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the United States … well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.”
FDR continued, “Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.”
“This form of treachery shall never endanger us again.” These words are worth repeating, reminiscent of the phrase “never again,” used to recall and vow that the Jewish holocaust would never be repeated.
Winston Churchill said about the war with the Nazis, “You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs — victory in spite of all terrors; victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival. Let that be realized. No survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for …”
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan named the Soviet Union the Evil Empire, stating the Soviets “must be made to understand we will never compromise our principles and standards nor ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire.”
After 9/11, President George W. Bush pledged something similar, that, “Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”
Thus, America and the world has faced off with the Empire of Japan, the Third Reich, the Soviet Empire and the Nation of Islam. When any empire aspires to global dominance, it always ends badly.
Unfortunately, all the promises and intents to withstand treachery and aggressive impulses of evil empires rings hollow with respect to China, which no longer bothers to hide its multi-decade plan to gain hegemonic control of the world. This, by way of its belts-and-roads initiative, which seeks to invest, indebt and incapacitate much of the world while gaining control of world-wide assets and infrastructure, the development of weapons including space war capacity that would leave our military (both offensively and defensively) deaf, dumb and blind, along with their development of cyberweapons and artificial intelligence that can cripple our critical infrastructure while robbing our technology, industry and health sectors of precious minerals and both raw and finished materials.
Taken together, all this will in short time spell doom for the free world without the Chinese communists having to fire a shot.
Meanwhile, let’s keep marketing the NBA in China, purchasing materials from their slave labor camps, turning a blind eye to their genocidal tendencies and aspirations, abstain from calling their bioweapon the China virus, while continuing to declare that global warming is the biggest threat facing humanity.
After all, it seems to be a tradition among mankind to ignore the peril of vicious emerging empires until after they attack.
Andy Caldwell is the COLAB executive director and host of “The Andy Caldwell Show,” airing 3 to 5 p.m. weekdays on KZSB AM 1290, the News-Press radio station.
