“Observations”
by: Donald S. Conkey
Date: December 3, 2009 - # 9949b – Peace is still elusive, very elusive (820)
Monday
will be the 68th anniversary of December 7, 1941, a day of infamy President Roosevelt called it, a day that changed
not only my life but the lives of all Americans then living. The generations that followed my generation know little about
this war, and most could care less about it. But it was real, and it changed America.
This will be my eleventh column on Pearl Harbor. I write each year about Pearl Harbor, and the beginning of World War
II, a war that killed or maimed over 50 million people worldwide, because I lived through that war, not as a soldier but as
a teenager in high school who was prepared to serve my country in that war, even give my life if necessary, to protect the
precious freedoms that America had stood for – for 155 years.
My generation said World War
II was the war to end all wars, and that peace would prevail, yet today, 68 years later, war continues, and people’s
lives and homes are continually being destroyed. Peace is still elusive. Man’s inhumanity to man continues. The United
Nations, organized to bring peace to a war-shattered world, created Israel as a homeland for the world’s displaced Jews
and initiated a war that is still looking for a solution. This is the war of terrorism that affects this generation’s
lives today, like at Fort Hood just this year.
The “cold war” against communism followed
World War II, a war that spawned the Korean War, the war that changed my life forever. It took me off the farm to serve my
country. I never returned to the farm. The Vietnam War followed. More millions suffered. But this was the war that also brought
serious internal conflict to America’s homeland, a conflict that has yet to heal as witnessed by the recent election
and this new administrations determination to radically ‘change’ America.
When the “Berlin
wall” came down in 1989 the “cold war” thawed a little. But another war, Desert Storm, soon followed, which
was followed by the Iraqi war, and now the “world war” on terrorism and the radical Islamic challenge to America’s
freedoms deeply embedded in America’s foundational documents by the Founders.
People of all ages
have asked “why war?” A reasonable question for reasonable people to ask but is there an answer? I believe it
is about our personal freedoms and the desire of the elite to control the masses, those few who think they “know better
the needs and dreams of the masses then the people themselves.” Others answer this question by suggesting that today’s
wars are only a continuation of that “war in heaven” (Rev 12) where “Michael and his angels fought against
the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not, …. And the great dragon was cast out, that old
serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceived the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels [a third
part of the stars of heaven (vs 4)] were cast out with him.”
Is Satan the source of our wars?
Moses thought so. He recorded “Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of
man, which I the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only
Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down; and he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive
and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice.” Satan’s
role: to oppose peace. A definitive role!
