Editor’s note: Trump issued this statement on the removal of the Lee monument in Richmond, Virginia on September 8, 2021. He has publicly supported reversing the work of the “Naming Commission”, has offered a real reconciliationist assessment of the War and Reconstruction, and could, by executive order, mandate that the Arlington Confederate Monument be restored to its original position.
Just watched as a massive crane took down the magnificent and very famous statue of “Robert E. Lee On His Horse” in Richmond, Virginia. It has long been recognized as a beautiful piece of bronze sculpture. To add insult to injury,those who support this “taking” now plan to cut it into three pieces, and throw this work of art into storage prior to its complete desecration.
Robert E. Lee is considered by many Generals to be the greatest strategist of them all. President Lincoln wanted him to command the North, in which case the war would have been over in one day. Robert E. Lee instead chose the other side because of his great love of Virginia, and except for Gettysburg,would have won the war. He should be remembered as perhaps the greatest unifying force after the war was over, ardent in his resolve to bring the North and South together through many means of reconciliation and imploring his soldiers to do their duty in becoming good citizens of this Country.
Our culture is being destroyed and our history and heritage, both good and bad, are being extinguished by the Radical Left, and we can’t let that happen! If only we had Robert E. Lee to command our troops in Afghanistan, that disaster would have ended in a complete and total victory many years ago. What an embarrassment we are suffering because we don’t have the genius of a Robert E. Lee!
We’ll see.
I can’t say what would happen if General Robert E. Lee was in command of U.S. forces in this day… but I know what would happen if the counsel of Robert Lee of Virginia, Colonel in the United States Army, were heeded. It would, rather, be things not happening, in his own paraphrased words – despotism at home and aggression abroad. If examples of Lee’s moral strength prevailed, his martial abilities would be confined to preparedness, now as then.
“If only we had Robert E. Lee to command our troops in Afghanistan, that disaster would have ended in a complete and total victory many years ago.”
That ‘disaster’ could have been avoided completely if this country’s military was used for self-defense instead of imperial aggression. But your right that Lee probably would have served in the invasion; as he did in the equally evil one of Mexico. He was an admirable and honorable man but like all soldiers, he instinctively obeys orders irrespective of their justice or wisdom.
“But the safety of the people of America against dangers from foreign force depends not only on their forbearing to give just causes of war to other nations, but also on their placing and continuing themselves in such a situation as not to invite hostility or insult; for it need not be observed, that there are pretended as well as just causes for war.”
—-John Jay, Federalist No. 4 [November 7, 1787]
To R R Schoettker (and relevant to some statements made by Gordon H)
I suppose by picking from American history a quote that can be boiled down to “the safety of the people of America ….[depends on not behaving in such a way as]…. to invite hostility” means that to you, the murder of three thousand American Civilians by jihadist terrorists on 9-11 is justified, ‘since we invited it’.
Invited it how, I ask? The common excuse that we support Israel. Please, if we supported Israel as a country facing Genocidal imperialist jihadists ought to be supported, the present war would be over by now.
As a matter of fact, Islamist terrorists ethnically cleansed the Christian Lebanese out of their own country, for one reason and one alone: they were Infidels who committed the high crime of exercising their sovereignty. They, incidentally, hated the Jews and Israel as much as the Islamist invaders did. (See “Because they Hate” by Brigitte Gabriel)
Here’s an example of what Islamist terrorists did to Lebanon’s Indigenous Christians:
“the Palestinians… massacred some fifty people in the one night. Father Labaky heard screaming… An entire family had been killed, the Can’an family, four children all dead, and the mother, the father, and the grandfather. The mother was still hugging one of the children. And she was pregnant. The eyes of the children were gone and their limbs were cut off. … on 9 January the Palestinians cut off food and water supplies and refused to allow the Red Cross to take out the wounded. Infants and children died of dehydration. … 23 January… [in Damur] The attack took place from the mountain behind. It was an apocalypse. They were coming, thousands and thousands, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar! God is great! Let us attack them for the Arabs, let us offer a holocaust to Mohammad ‘ And they were slaughtering everyone in their path, men, women and children… Whole families were killed in their homes. Many women were gang-raped, and few of them left alive afterwards… the invaders themselves took photographs.”
Nor do Islamists need an excuse to abuse and terrorise ‘infidels’ elsewhere. Did the Pakistani Christian woman Aasiya Noreen invade Muslim lands to be sentenced to death? no, she merely drank water from a public well. Something Infidel ‘inferiors’ aren’t allowed to do in truly Islamic societies.
The real question is why can you wrap your mind around the idea that George Bush can attack a foreign nation without provocation, for imperialism alone, but you refuse to countenance the fact that Osama binLaden can be guilty of the same crime, that of imperialism and unprovoked aggression.
Is this woke-era acceptable racism? the Caucasian Christian has to be the imperialist aggressor because the Arab Muslim must be the innocent victim?
The Islamist Al-Quaeda terrorists hosted by the extremist infidel-killing woman-hating Afghan Taliban attached us FIRST. We only defended ourselves. Those are the facts.
As for historical quotes, you would be better served to consider the words of the brilliant American Founding Father Patrick Henry who said:
“”It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts… For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it….
Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation?….
The war is inevitable and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come…..
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
Islamists seek to destroy all non-Islamic civilization merely because it exists. If you can countenance the Imperialist American bogeyman you should face the Islamist Imperialist reality. Instead of indulging in the illusions of hope.
There were no threats to Mohammed’s kingdom when he issued the mandates of global conquest and eternal war to his followers:
“Allah drew the ends of the world near one another for my sake, and I have seen its eastern and western ends. The dominion of my nation would reach those ends that have been drawn near me” -Hadith Sahih Muslim 2889a
“9.29 Fight against those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt Islām, from those who were given the Scripture – fight until they give the jizyah, being utterly brought low.
9.30 The Jews say, “Ezra is the son of Allah”; and the Christians say, “The Christ is the son of Allah.” That is their statement from their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved before. May Allah destroy them. How perverse they are!–Quran
“Conquer where you will. By Allah you have not conquered, and to the resurrection day you will not conquer a city whose keys Allah has not given beforehand to Muhammad” [Sira of Mohammed, by Ibn Ishaaq]
“at the end of time, he will judge according to this Shari`ah at that time, and will kill the pigs [How Islam sees Jews] and break the cross [destroy Christianity] and abolish the Jizyah [the fines Infidels must pay in Islamic societies to not be killed]. He will accept nothing except Islam or the sword.” – Tafsir Ibn Kathir on Quran 30:41
“it is a severe warning to the Christians who claim to be the followers of ‘Iesa (Jesus) and he will break the cross and kill the pigs, and he will abolish the Jizyah and all mankind will be required to embrace Islam with no other alternative ” -explanation by Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan, Islamic University Al-Madina Al-Munawwara Riyad Saudi Arabia 1997, the mainstream Islamic scholar and linguist who produced THE definitive English translation of the Sahih Al Bukhari Hadith collection
The Prophet was an omnicidal Imperialist. Hiding from the cruel reality is exactly what Patrick Henry warned his fellow Americans about.
Recommended reading: “The Life of Muhammad: Propaganda and Truth” by Ahmad Shameem
There were no American ‘imperialists’ to blame when Islamist raiders, then called Saracens exterminated whole coastal populations along the shores of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East for centuries, and Occupied Spain, Portugal, Greece, the Balkan and Baltic States, Israel, Lebanon, Christian Assyria, etc, with a rule so bloody that whole peoples vanished from the face of the earth.
Recommended reading: “The Decline of Eastern Christianity” by Bat Ye’or, “Islamic Imperialism: A History” by Efraim Karsh, and “The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise” by Dario Fernandez Morera.
Nor was the ‘imperialist’ America around to be blamed when said jihadists our or Islamized parts of the Middle East and North Africa dragged over a million Europeans (mostly women to be repetitively raped) off as slaves – and did it by slaughtering whole coastal cities and enslaving the survivors.
See “Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800” by Robert Davis.
The reality is that Islam has a global mandate to eradicate all religions and social structures that differ from it, and that (while ignored by many merely born into it and merely wanting to live a good wholesome life) breeds in people like Bin Laden Expansionist Imperialist and Terrorist doctrines.
The mandate of global conquest is NOT a secret in the Islamic world. The only ostriches are here. Right here.
Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi in his book “Islamic Education and Hassan al-Banna”, explained that al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood (that is widespread and here we call it CAIR) taught the Muslim Brotherhood to engage in Da’awa, which is a combination of Islamic outreach and propaganda to convert the masses of infidels, to be followed by a massive armed jihad against those who refuse to convert or submit, to create a new Islamic Caliphate under Sharia law to rule all the peoples of the globe.
Hassan al-Banna himself writes in his foundational (to the MB) tract “Toward the Light” that:
“The Islamic fatherland should be regarded in stages as:
(1) the particular Muslim country in which an individual Muslim might find himself living;
(2) all the other Muslim countries
3) all the lands that used to be ruled by the Islamic Empires of the past
(4) Then the fatherland of the Muslim expands to encompass the entire world. Do you not hear the words of Allah (…): ‘And fight them till resistance is no more, and all worship is Allah’s alone!’”
Thus when invading and slaughtering other Peoples, Islamists always claim to be liberating “their land” since it is part of fhe ever expanding Islamic Fatherland.
From this blatantly imperialist concept we get both the widespread idea in the Islamic world that Spain and Portugal are illegal occupations of Muslim land, and a general rejectionism that any resistance to Islamic Imperialism (the cause de’etre of Islam) is legitimate.
For example, mainstream Muslim historians (like Mawlana Sulayman al-Kindi, who translated al-Waquidi’s “Conquest of Greater Syria”) use such florid prose as this (see Futuhusham by al-Waquidi):
“One of the saddest events in the history of Islam is the loss of al-Andalus (now Spain and Portugal). This was an Islamic land with a majority Muslim population. The Muslims were defeated and Islam banished until not a single Muslim remained in the land. Five hundred mosques were converted into churches…”
Reading this one would think that there were no indigenous Spaniards and Portuguese before the islamic invasions that began in 711 AD and stayed as an occupation until the Spaniards finally expelled the invaders after centuries of occupation by Muslims. And yet there were. No mention is made of these indigenous peoples or their churches that the Muslims destroyed. The history of a people before Islamic conquest is ignored by Muslim historians. The indigenous peoples have no rights and the clock of history for Islam, begins only after Muslims have invaded a place. Thus, they can act as if they are the rightful occupants of the land, and the only population with rights.
Similarly Hamas, of our poor innocent Palestinians, declares in its very own charter that:
“Article 11. Hamas believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf (Trust) upon all Muslim generations till the day of Resurrection… This is the legislation in the Islamic Shari’a (Jurisprudence), and the same goes for all the lands conquered (and thus consecrated for Muslims) at the time of conquering by Muslims, for all Muslim generations till the day of Resurrection… the Islamic trust is permanent as long as the heavens and the earth last. Any action taken in contradiction to the Islamic Sharia … is unacceptable action, to be taken back by its Islamic claimants ”
Aside from the fact that Hamas admits it’ is an imperial invader, the more important reality for us is that to Islamists, invading Infidel lands is legitimate for the sole reason of “consecrating” them for the followers of the ‘true religion” and if any Infidel nation dares revolt from under the boot of this imperialism as did Portugal, Spaim, Greece, Israel, Bulgaria, etc, or even just peacefully band together for protection as did the Lebanese, and declares their autonomy, THIS act of self-determination is a crime against Islamic holy imperialism and is punished (by ethnic cleansing at least and genocide if ‘needed’ – for example what the Turks did to Anatolian Christians for daring to ask for a few more civil righys. See “The Burning Tigris” by Peter Balakian, “The Thirty Year Genocide” by Benny Morris, and “Not Even My Name” by Thea Halo)
“Any land that combats the spread of Islam or …..does not apply Islamic Law [sharia], becomes ipso facto part of the Dar-al-Harb [Realm of War]. It should be combated even if one’s own kith and kin, national group, capital and commerce are to be found there.”
Sayyid Qutb, , Muslim Brotherhood, 1966 Egypt
“It has been determined by Islamic law that the blood and property of people of Dar-al-Harb [all nations that do not bow to the process of Islamicization] …. is not forbidden [to be taken by Muslims]”.
Yusuf Quaradawi, Muslim Brotherhood, 2003 Islamic Conference in Sweden
Moving into the modern era, Islamic Imperialist thought -with a global target- is alive and well:
“Our goal is to spread the religion of Allah …..We constitute an offensive army….We did not set out from Medina to fight the Persian and Byzantine [empires] because they occupied and plundered our land. Rather, we did this in order to conquer their lands…… In the days of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, the Islamic Caliphate, the Abode of Islam spanned six million square kilometers…..
In the days of the Abbasid state, it spanned 33 million square kilometers. Then, under the Ottoman Caliphate, it spanned 10 million square kilometers.
The Second caliphate, which will rise soon – in our own days, inshallah – will reach 510 million square kilometers, which covers the entire globe.”– “moderate” PA sponsored Dr. Muhammad Afeef Shadid on August 17, 2022
“When we speak about the Army of Jerusalem and the Battle of the Promise of the Hereafter…. we believe in what our Prophet Muhammad said: ‘Allah drew the ends of the world near one another for my sake, and I have seen its eastern and western ends. The dominion of my nation would reach those ends that have been drawn near me.’….The entire 510 million square kilometers of Planet Earth will come under [a system] where there is …no Zionism, no treacherous Christianity” – Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Zahar, on December 12, 2022
We [Muslims] have ruled the world [in the past] and a day will come, by Allah, when we shall rule the world [again]. The day will come and we shall rule America, Britain, we shall rule the entire world, except the Jews. The Jews will not live under our rule agreeably … Listen to your Beloved [Muhammad], who tells you about the most dire end awaiting the Jews…to bring every Jew to his end.” – senior PA cleric Ibrahim Mudayris Friday Sermon, PA TV, 13 May 2005
Recommended reading: “The Political Language of Islam” by Bernard Lewis, “God’s Rule” by Patricia Crone, “The Flight of the Intellectuals” by Paul Berman, “To Hell in a Handbasket” by Ruthie Blum, and the controversial but well documented “Muslim Mafia” by investigative journalist Paul Sperry and military intelligence David Gaubatz
And not to leave out the other poor saints who unlike us ‘evil imperialist Americans’ never want to conquer or murder without reason, the Iranian Constitution (easily found on official Iranian websites) openly declares its Imperialist jihadist agenda:
The Constitution of The IslamicRepublic of Iran General Text (Approved on 1979, Amended on 1989):
“….With due attention to the Islamic content of the Iranian Revolution, the Constitution provides the necessary basis for ensuring the continuation of the Revolution at home and abroad….. will strive with other Islamic and Leftist movements to prepare the way for the formation of a single world community (in accordance with the Koranic verse “This your community is a single community, and I am your Lord, so worship Me” [21:92]),
An Ideological Army
…. the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps … will be responsible not only for guarding and preserving the frontiers of the country, but also for fulfilling the ideological mission of jihad in Allah’s way; that is, extending the sovereignty of Sharia throughout the world (this is in accordance with the Koranic verse “Prepare against them all the force you are able to muster, and strings of horses, striking terror into the enemy of God and your enemy, and others besides them” [8:60]).”
CONSTITUTION OF THE
REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS
15’6’1361 [September 7, 1982]
Article 1: The Revolutionary Guards is an institution under the Leader’s supreme command. Its goal is to protect Iran’s Islamic Revolution and its achievements and persistently struggle to achieve the divine aims, spread the rule of the Sharia in accordance with the Islamic Republic of Iran’s charter…
Article 34: The Conditions of the Revolutionary Guard. Someone is called a Revolutionary Guard who has entered the Revolutionary Guards, and considers an all-sided jihad for the sake of God and to strengthen the Islamic Revolution and its achievements as a duty under the sharia”
Iranian mainstream thinkers openly tout their ambitions of ruling a global empire:
For example:
“Iran is a country that is proud of its history and more importantly, it is proud of its future. According to the tradition, after the appearance [of the Hidden Imam], the rulers of the entire world will be the Iranians. We do not conceal this…. the Iranians will be the masters of the world. The Yemenis love the Iranians. The Iraqis, the Syrians, the Lebanese – they are all proud of Iran……. It is only natural that the wanning Western civilization will make any futile effort to confront us. It is only natural. It is only natural that this civilization will try to postpone its demise. When confronting us, they have no choice but to be annihilated.” -Iranian scholar and strategist Alireza Panahian, co-founder of the Ammar think tank, on Iranian Government sponsored October 6, 2022 public address, aired on Channel 3 (Iran).
The war has already begun. They are massimg their armies to subjugate us. Our hands are tied by those who prefer the comfort of their illusions to painful truth.
As for the Mexican-American war, let’s review the facts, shall we.
A Mexico unable to drive off endless Commanche raids founded Texas and filled it with Americans exclusively to serve as a human shield and absorb the bloody raids -complete with mutilations and savage gang-rapes- inflicted by Commanche raiders on Texans who Mexico refused to defend (since the point of the human shield named Texas was to keep Mexican troops from having to fight the Commanche raiders).
It was this atrocious abuse that made Texas declare and fight for her independence – a war in which Mexico comitted no shortage of heinous acts. And only after this did Texas join the United States.
Suddenly Mexico, which had no interest in the boundaries of Texas when crossed by Commanche gang rapists and sadists
(see “Empire of the Summer Moon” by S. C. Gwynne for the ugly facts) decided that is had an interest. And rights greater than those of the Texans who knew exactly how much ground was marked by their blood as they fought and died to defend their families in areas where the Mexican troops would not go.
Mexico started that war by using Americans as human shields, denying them their independence and then trying to reduce the size of Texas after she legitimately won her ground. To call America the ‘invader’ in that affair is as revisionist as to call the Confederacy the agressor. I thought here at least we were aiming for little more study than soundbites.
So yes, it was right, and righteous, for General Lee to participate in that war, and it would have been even more right and Righteous for him to lead the fight against the implacable jihadists who are sworn to the destruction of ‘infidel’ culture from the seventh century AD.
As for your statement that General Lee ”
like all soldiers, he instinctively obeys orders irrespective of their justice or wisdom” this merely betrays how little you actually know about General Lee.
After all, despite being told to by his own commanding officer, and despite the great glory and opportunities, he REFUSED to participate in, mich less lead, an invasive force in an unjust war, which was exactly why he refused command of the Union army in Lincoln’s coercive invasion of the Confederacy, declaring tha instead of leading the Invading Union army, “I shall return to my native state and share the miseries of my people [by refusing to furnish troops for Lincoln’s war now also Lincoln’s targets] and, save in defense, will draw my sword on none.”
Or as he wrote to his son:
“I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union….. Still, a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love and kindness, has no charm for me.”
The Union was meant to ba a voluntary alliance, which makes Lincoln’s war that much more egregious. But collectives made of conquest (that is empires) are pinned together by swords and bayonets and General Lee would have nothing to do with that.
I hope you take Patrick Henry’s words to heart.
“…to invite hostility” means that to you, the murder of three thousand American Civilians by jihadist terrorists on 9-11 is justified,…”
You put a whole lot of words into my mouth that never came out of it. I hope your rather prolix reply at least made you feel better.
Well, you say that our war in Afghanistan was “imperial aggression” rather than “self defense”. Since it was launched by the September 11th terrorist attacks and not imperial aggression (attacks you seem to have willfully ignored along with the extremist ideology behind them), the words may not have been said but the mindset is apparent.
No Afghan State agents or citizens were involved in the 9/11 attacks and no attempt was made by the US to extradite any Saudi nationals present there who claimed responsibility for it. The US just invaded and occupied the country for a decade and only left because they failed to hold and control what they had taken. Justice had no part whatsoever in either the attack against civilians in the World Trade Center or the response by the US government to that attack but the latter is explained by imperial aggression. There is no justification for violence against innocents and calling such a response self-defense is better described as terrorism and is indefensible irrespective of which party commits it. Your attempts to discern my mindset are a failure.
The Mexicans could have just started shelling the Texans and gotten the CIA involved…we could have had the Ghost of Cozumel…
As for myself, I won’t attempt to divine what Robert E. Lee, Commanding General of the Army of Northern Virginia, CSA, would do in a hypothetical engagement, no matter the century. Even his biographer Douglas S. Freeman restricted study of Lee’s campaigns to Fog of War as unknown variables make impossible any knowable conclusion. In those campaigns, besides, Lee was Commander of the ANV, a soldier, not a policy maker of the civil government. To be sure, Lee never expressed desire for making government policy.
Regarding the issue posed by Donald Trump, the Afghanistan debacle, whether or not the U.S. should have been there for fifteen years I only have opinion. There’s not a doubt, though, the withdrawal would have been orderly under General Robert E. Lee. There is extensive evidence in the study of his Army’s retreat from Sharpsburg and Gettysburg, respectively, both of which were conducted courageously and with near arrogance, as if daring his adversary to attack. Maybe the two campaigns are Mr. Trump’s reference.
It is a certainty that Robert Lee of Virginia would never “counsel” invasion of a non-adversarial country – or state. Lee, a veritable Jeffersonian, would oppose aggression but would have nothing to do with nation building, something about which he had firsthand knowledge.
I hope he does what he says he’ll do. But, without a doubt….he’s probably the only one in Washington – or one of a very few – speaking up against these atrocities.
He’ll take a huge beating from media if he does reverse some of the stupidity that has taken place, but Trump is used to it.
I’m cautiously optimistic, but I need to see action.
Agreed. His best trait is when he sticks to what he knows is right instead of pandering to the ill-educated masses. I just hope he realizes this is worth fighting for. As goes the South so will go all America. Sure wish we had an advocacy group.
That ANYTHING good(ish) was said by ANY person in office (or aspiring to office or whatever) is a miracle worthy of acknowledgement, even if he can find his way around what the country is and what it should be as per the constitution as ratified.
Even the most learned amongst us fall into the proposition nation trap if they are not extremely conscious of what they say or write. It’s a paradigm we must encounter on a daily basis whether we like it or not.
Personally, I don’t care what any of them think. I just want to be free to pursue the truth, lobby for peace, and live to see the South prosper and thrive without being harassed and vilified every step of the way by our “fellow countrymen.” Trump doesn’t hate us, as far as I can tell, and that’s “not-nuthin’.”