Civilization vs. savagery: Gaza is latest chapter

The war in Gaza is part of a struggle between civilization and savagery that dates back to the dawn of history.

Some want to work, and others want to loot, often in the name of a high-sounding ideal, such as abolishing poverty or ending the occupation.

If you’re lucky, they ride through your village, taking the chickens and pigs. If you’re not, they force you onto a collective farm or collectivize your health care.

Some want to choose their own path; others proselytize at gunpoint. Some strive for decency; others believe anything is justified to attain their goals.

The first city walls were built to keep out barbarian hordes. That’s why the Romans built Hadrian’s Wall across their province of Britannia and why the Ming Dynasty built the Great Wall of China. Before her convenient conversion to border security, Vice President Kamala Harris would have called them racists.

If we had a wall, savages – the kind who rape and kill 12-year-old girls – wouldn’t be inside our gates.

Eventually, the Romans got tired of guarding their borders. Duty gave way to indolence for the upper class and bread and circuses for the lower class.

Fewer and fewer citizens were willing to man the ramparts, so barbarians were recruited. Eventually, they took over, civilization collapsed and a thousand years of darkness followed.

Under President Biden, Democrats discovered it was politically advantageous to open the floodgates along our southern border.

Sept. 2 marked the 79th anniversary of the end of World War II. More than 330,000 Americans died to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

After each war, skeptics ask if it was worth it. Toward the end of the HBO dramatic miniseries “Band of Brothers,” set during WWII, the men of Easy company moved into Germany. Exhausted and disheartened, they asked that question.

Then they liberated a death camp and saw the Third Reich’s vision for humanity, and the doubts disappeared.

As many as 800,000 died in the Civil War to maintain the unity of the United States and end slavery. After it was over, doubters asked if it was worth the death and destruction. But without it, America would have become two or three smaller nations whose impact on history would have been negligible.

Americans now expect our wars to have strict time limits. That’s why Vietnam and Afghanistan were lost.

Savages can usually count on civilized people becoming bored or impatient.

The day after the World Trade Center was destroyed, I was working in a newsroom when an anxious intern asked me when I thought it would all be over. I replied, “Never.”

I’d recently read Samuel P. Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations,” which helped me put 9/11 and Islam’s war on the West in perspective.

World War I was supposed to be the “war to end all wars.” Since it ended 106 years ago this November, we’ve had World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Six-Day War and military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other conflicts. Not a year has gone by without fighting somewhere in the world.

Civilized men must always walk the ramparts or surrender to the next dark age. The choice is stark – freedom of thought and labor (private property) versus Nazism, communism and the new axis of evil: Iran, Russia and China. Each of them views us as a decadent democracy and thinks their way of life is vastly superior.

The struggle to defend civilization is a forever war. Only strength and determination ensure survival.

Democrats are selling a dangerous delusion: that peace can be bought with negotiations and bribes. From Munich to the Iran nuclear deal, that strategy has failed miserably.

Still, even in the wake of the cold-blooded murder of six hostages, Ms. Harris whined about the death toll in Gaza, as if Hamas terrorists didn’t start the war by slaughtering close to 1,200 people last Oct. 7.

Former President Donald Trump tells jihadis: You mess with us or our allies and we’ll Soleimani you. It’s the only language savages understand.

We should not look for trouble, and we should conserve our resources for a time when our survival is at stake. But we must understand that peace is always temporary, a respite bought with the blood of patriots.

If the ayatollahs, Chinese communists and Russian oligarchs disappeared tomorrow, others would take their place.

Peace on earth will come with the end of history. Until then, keep your gaze steady and keep walking the ramparts. It’s all that keeps the barbarians at bay.

This column was first published at the Washington Times.