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The question of "Love it or leave it" is not new to the United States, or indeed the world. I first heard the chant to love my country or leave it during the ill-fated Vietnam War. We did not leave, and eventually ended a terrible foreign policy mistake that cost the lives of 58,000 American soldiers and as many as 2 million Vietnamese civilians, 1.1 million North Vietnamese soldiers and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers. I wish we could have done more to end the killing, heal our nation and bring our soldiers home unharmed mentally and physically.
As WWII overtook the European continent, the French writer Albert Camus and a German friend who believed in the war began to correspond. The correspondence was collected and published as "Letters to a German Friend." They were written and published clandestinely during the occupation of France.
In the first letter, written in July 1943, Camus writes, "I cannot believe that everything must be subordinated to a single end. There are means that cannot be excused. And I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don't want just any greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive by keeping justice alive." The friend retorted: "Well, you just don't love your country."
Camus' friend was wrong, and WWII and the Holocaust were the result. What is waiting for us when we "Send her back"?
Tom Blackburn-Rodriguez
Kihei