Was Pearl Harbor just a crime that should have been sent to a court?

This article was published in the June 23, 2010, issue of The News-Sentinel.

By Donna Volmerding
Dean Frantz’s June 9th guest column in The News-Sentinel deeply saddened me but also angered me. Frantz said, “The terrible tragedy of 9/11 was not an act of war, but a horrible crime. It was the act of a handful of crazy fanatics who wanted to strike at America’s symbols of power and military might.”
This statement is not just ludicrous; it displays a profound ignorance of freedom and its cost.
Was Pearl Harbor “a horrible crime” perpetrated by a handful of people in Japan? Were Hitler’s aggressive acts of war merely “a horrible crime” that a few demented Nazis committed?
Frantz added that “The planners and executors of this crime should have been tracked down, convicted and punished like other criminals, but their crime should not have become the excuse for gearing up to a war on terror.”
Should we have declared war against Japan? Should we have gotten into World War I, even though there was no act of war committed against America? Should we have gotten into World War II, even though Hitler did not commit “a horrible crime” against us?
Frantz says that those who died in Iraq didn’t die for their country; “they died for … Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.”
Perhaps Frantz has forgotten that a Democrat got us into World War I (Wilson), a Democrat got us into World War II (Roosevelt) and a Democrat (Truman) dropped two atomic bombs on the Japanese, killing about 70,000 innocents immediately and another 70,000 from radiation within five years.
Does Frantz discount all of these war dead? Did they die for Democrats?
Frantz rightly decries the death of innocent civilians in Afghanistan, by his account numbering more than 3,000. Does he understand, however, that the Taliban and insurgents use children and civilians as cover? That they purposely hide near homes, schools and mosques so that they can hypocritically accuse American forces of terrorism when civilians are killed?
In an astonishing display of double-think, Frantz says that if you “see bombs falling on you … that looks like terrorism.” Do airplanes flying into buildings look like terrorism? How about explosives detonated in our cities and on our aircraft?
“Let us be clear,” Frantz says, “our government is not the same as our country. There is a vast difference …” He adds, “I love my country, but I am ashamed of many things our government has done and continues to do.”
On this, we can agree. I love my country, too, but I am alarmed by the direction it is taking. This administration has offended our allies, such as Israel and England, and apologized to those who wish us harm. It has spent excessive taxpayer money on bailouts, payoffs and union corruption, putting our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in great economic peril. It is constructing a central government so tentacled and so powerful that we may not be able to return to the constitutional republic our Founding Fathers gave us.
The election this November may be the most important election in my lifetime. My prayer is that voters will not be deluded by smooth talk and glib speeches.