NP - The making of a hawk

[David Morris]

>From Kuwait to Kosovo to Kabul, American firepower has been on the right 
side of history. The odyssey of a former dove.

http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2002/01/03/hawk/index.html

[...]
And it's true, any liberal who came of age during the Vietnam War, as I did, 
feels some kinship with these implacable critics of American policy, even a 
lingering sense of alienation from our own country's world-straddling power. 
But most of us, at some point during the last two decades, made a 
fundamental break from this pacifistic legacy. For me, it came during the 
savage bombing of Sarajevo, whose blissfully multi-ethnic cosmopolitanism 
was, like New York would later become, an insult to the forces of zealous 
purity. Most liberals of my generation, however, feel deeply uneasy about 
labeling themselves hawks -- to do so conjures images for them of Gen. 
Curtis "Bombs Away" LeMay, it suggests a break from civilization itself, a 
heavy-footed step backwards, toward the bogs of our ancestors. What I have 
come to believe, however, is that America's unmatched power to reduce 
tyranny and terror to dust is actually what often makes civilization in 
today's world possible. I want to retrace my journey here, for those who 
might be wrestling with similar thoughts these days.



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