White House Claims ‘Ending War in Iraq’ As Major Accomplishment

:: By: Larry Walker II ::

Borrowing from the Lonely Conservative, this week terrorists have taken over the cities of Mosul and Tikrit in Iraq. They had already taken control of Fallujah and the entire region is spiraling out of control. But, that didn’t stop White House spokesman Josh Earnest from proclaiming that ending the Iraq war is one of the administration’s major accomplishments.

The only problem with this unsound proclamation is that a war isn’t over until someone surrenders. Where’s the peace treaty? Have Al-Qaeda and its affiliates surrendered? Has the Taliban laid down arms? Well, then who in the hell surrendered? Oh, I see. It seems we did.

Hmmm, let’s think of it this way. If a band of terrorists parachuted onto the White House grounds, summarily executed Potus, then declared that the war was over and returned to their milk and honey farms, I suppose we could just accept this and go back to our busy lives, and perhaps some of us would want to, but I suspect most of us would be ready for war. For us, this would be more like the beginning, or a new beginning, rather than the end. But perhaps I stand alone.

Apparently we’ve forgotten about Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese soldier who continued fighting World War II a full 29 years after Japan surrendered. He continued to fight because he didn’t know the war was over. Despite numerous attempts to inform him and a few remaining cells of soldiers, by dropping leaflets with orders to surrender from General Yamashita, followed by more leaflets with newspapers from Japan, photographs, and letters from the soldier’s families, and despite sending delegates from Japan begging over loudspeakers to give themselves up, Onoda refused to believe the war was over. Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945 and signed the instrument of surrender aboard the USS Missouri on September 2, 1945, officially ending the war. Hiroo Onoda didn’t surrender until March 10, 1975.

His orders from his commanding officer, Major Yoshimi Taniguchi, were simple:

You are absolutely forbidden to die by your own hand. It may take three years, it may take five, but whatever happens, we’ll come back for you. Until then, so long as you have one soldier, you are to continue to lead him. You may have to live on coconuts. If that’s the case, live on coconuts! Under no circumstances are you [to] give up your life voluntarily.

It’s too bad we can’t just solve problems by declaring them fixed, and hoping and wishing the rest of the world conforms. No, it doesn’t work like that. Were it that simple, we could declare our Southern border secure, our immigration problem solved, and it would be so.

If the war in Iraq is over, I hope to God the enemy knows. Please tell me we at least dropped a C-130 full of leaflets indicating such before we left. If the war on terror is over, please tell me it was Al-Qaeda and its affiliates who surrendered. And as for those top level Taliban Commanders we just released from Guantanamo Bay, somebody please, please tell me they signed a peace treaty before we dropped them in Qatar.

“Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.” ~ Exodus 33:3 (NIV)

Reference: A Japanese Soldier Who Continued Fighting WWII 29 Years after the Japanese Surrendered, Because He Didn’t Know