Veteran’s Day has come and gone, with many of us remembering the heroic struggles our soldiers have had to endure throughout the history of our country in the various wars that America has participated. So, Campus Reform’s Eduardo Neret went to Howard University in Washington D.C. to ask various students if they could think of any war the U.S. has participated in that could be considered a “just” war or a war that we could find justifiable reasons for entering and fighting (video below).
 
Not one student could come up with any war that they viewed as justified of their own merit. And even when asked if they thought WWII was a justified war for the U.S. to get involved, some students still believed there was no justifiable reason for having entered the conflict.
 
One student argued: “I don’t believe America fought [WWII] for the just reasons.” Another student said: “I don’t think [WWII] was necessary.”
 
Although a few students recognized World War II and the Civil War as being justified wars (once they were mentioned after previously having argued that there were no wars that were justified), many still held their ground and argued that no war was justified.
 
However, I know exactly why it is that many think this way: ignorance.
 
Now, I’m not trying to insult these kids. I’m not calling them dumb. But they are lacking in knowledge, which is what ignorance is. Why do I think this way? Well, one of the students who actually came around to the idea that World War II was justified gave the following response to having changed her mind:
 
“[WWII] [was] a good cause for the greater good because at the end of the day we got our freedom, and we are no longer under Great Britain.”
 
The poor girl is confusing World War II with the Revolutionary War. Either that or she thinks that Great Britain was in Nazi Germany’s place in World War II and we were under their control at the time, but I think the former is more likely.
 
The ones that continued arguing that WWII was not a justified war, when Pearl Harbor was brought up, said that that was a reason for having entered the war, but not a justified one. Again, I gotta blame ignorance here.
 
During the early 1940s, the general sentiment regarding World War II was that we shouldn’t enter the war. We had no reason to. Hitler was not a direct threat to us and we were supplying Great Britain with weapons and equipment.
 
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has in their records public opinion in the U.S. about joining the war. When World War II began on September 1st, 1939, Gallup asked the following question: “If it looks within the next few months as if England and France might be defeated, should the United States declare war on Germany and send our troops abroad?” 42% said “yes”, 48% said “no” and 10% said they didn’t have an opinion.
 
The poll was close between the two answers, but the more popular idea was to stay out of the war, even if England and France were defeated over the next few months. I think the reason for it to have been this close is because if Germany had defeated both so quickly, it might’ve sent people in the U.S. into a panic, considering we were at least friendly towards those two countries, so the next target could’ve either been us or the Soviet Union.
 
On October 6th, 1939, when Poland was conquered by the Nazis and divided between them and the Soviets, Gallup asked the same question: if Germany defeats England and France, should we declare war on Germany? This time around, we found that only 29% of those surveyed said “yes” and 71% said “no.” We didn’t want to get ourselves involved in what was mostly seen as a European conflict.
 
On May 10th, 1940, when Germany invaded the Netherlands, Belgium and France, Gallup asked if we should declare war on Germany. This time, only 7% said “yes” and 93% said “no”. It should be noted that our military wasn’t exactly in tip-top shape before we entered the war. We only had a little more than 450,000 total military personnel in 1940. In 1941, with the draft having been passed by Congress in late 1940, that number jumped to 1.8 million, then to 3.9m in 1942, 9.1m in 1943, 11.6m in 1944 and 12.2m by the end of the war in 1945.
 
Our military was in poor shape but once drafting and more spending was implemented, we created the most powerful military the world had ever seen by that point.
 
By June of 1940, when France surrendered to Germany, public sentiment was still largely against going to war, but those who wished to enter the war and help became more numerous. 35% said they wanted to help England win against Germany, even at the cost of entering the war, and 61% said they should stay out of the conflict altogether.
 
By the time the draft was implemented in September of 1940, more people wanted to help (52%) than not do anything (44%). By November of 1940, when FDR was elected to his third term as POTUS, 60% wanted to help England and 40% wanted to keep out. In March of 1941, when Congress passed the Lend-Lease Act which authorized Roosevelt to provide Britain with weapons, vehicles and equipment, 67% wanted to help England and 33% wanted to keep out.
 
On June 22nd, 1941, when Hitler decided to turn his armies towards the Soviet Union, 62% said they wanted to help England and 33% said they wanted to keep out. Even on September 4th, 1941, when a German U-boat submarine attacked an American destroyer, the USS Greer, prompting FDR to authorize US ships to attack German vessels on sight, 64% wanted to help England and 30% wanted to keep out.
 
By November of 1941, when relations between the U.S. and Japan were at some of their most tense (pre-war, of course) and it looked as though we would fight them, 68% said they wanted to defeat Germany and 28% said they wanted to stay out of the war.
 
However, on December 7th, 1941, when the Japanese orchestrated a surprise attack on the U.S. naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where 2403 people died, mostly military personnel and 68 civilians, this served to ignite the spark of war in the American engine. Gallup asked: “Should President Roosevelt have declared war on Germany, as well as on Japan?”, 91% said “yes”, only 7% said “no” and 3% said they didn’t have any opinion.
 
This was the 9/11 of 1940s America (and the only attack of this scale on American soil until 9/11) and our country cried for war, cried for justice against Japan. And so, we officially declared war on Japan, which prompted Germany to declare war on the U.S., leading us to join World War II against the Axis powers.
 
No, we didn’t enter the war out of the kindness of our hearts to help Great Britain to defeat Hitler. Why would we have, when FDR’s New Deal was so similar to Mussolini’s fascism, wherein the welfare state was created and capitalism was put into the hands of the state, instead of the private sector? FDR was every bit the Leftist that Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin were and sought to socialize our economy. The eventual matchups of FDR-Stalin vs. Hitler-Mussolini (and Hirohito) were matchups of convenience for the time being. They were all Leftist, “government is God” type of leaders. Mussolini praised FDR’s book titled “Looking Forward” and the official Nazi newspaper, “Volkischer Beobachter” praised the New Deal.
 
We entered World War II not because FDR saw much or any threat in the fascists and Nazis in Europe infecting the rest of the world (he had his own brand of fascism that he was already implementing) but because we were attacked and over 2000 of our servicemen died at the hands of an Imperial Japan that we weren’t exactly getting along with.
 
When you are attacked, you have to respond. And that’s what we did. Those who would argue that we entered WWII without justifiable reasons are ignorant of history. For the most part, Americans wanted nothing to do with World War II, or to at most help out England without getting involved in the fighting if at all possible. But once it appeared war was imminent, and especially once it was brought to our shores, sentiment changed and we wanted to join and win the war.
 
Now, don’t get me wrong. Generally speaking, I’m anti-war. If it can be avoided, I would like to not get ourselves involved in wars, particularly in endless wars, which is why I hate that pro-war Republicans and Democrats are in Congress.
 
However, there are wars that we simply cannot avoid and wars that can be easily justified. The Revolutionary War was a war in which we sought our independence from a tyrannical monarch in Europe. That was justified. The Civil War was a war in which the North sought to both free all slaves in the country and reunite the Union after Southern Democrat States seceded following Lincoln’s election. That was very much justified.
 
And World War II most certainly can be justified considering both the threat that Hitler posed on the world and the attack that we suffered in Pearl Harbor.
 
Again, there are wars that are not justified and simply make no sense. But there are those that are essential and there are justifiable reasons for entering. I couldn’t imagine telling Poland that they weren’t justified in fighting Germany when they were being invaded by them.
 
These children, the ones that said no war was justified and stuck to it after being reminded of World War II, should be educated regarding history. But it’s a sad state of affairs when they are attending a college and have such minimal knowledge of the history of this country.
 
Ignorance is the real problem here. I would like to mention that every single one of the students asked were African-American, so you would think at the very least, they would’ve brought up the Civil War, since if the North had not done anything about the South, most black people in the country would be slaves (or at least would’ve been for a longer period of time).
 
But nope. Not one instance could they think of a just war. These kids aren’t being educated; they are being indoctrinated. They were taught that war is generally bad and that America is at fault for most of the conflicts we see today and the world has seen for some time. That no war America gets involved with is justified because we are the bad guys.
 
This is the sort of nonsensical and untruthful garbage being taught in our education systems today. How is it that these kids, or at least one of them, thinks that World War II was a war where we gained our independence from Britain?! The fact that there even is one person who thinks this is a damning statement about our education system.
 
James 1:5
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.

One particular quirk about the fake news media that I seriously dislike but sometimes find deliciously ironic and hypocritical is the fact that they will always attack Trump no matter what he does. And late last week, they did that again, regardless of what Trump had been planning on doing or what he actually ended up doing when it came to the situation surrounding Iran.
 
As I suspect many of you know, late last week, President Donald Trump had originally ordered a strike on multiple different Iranian targets like radar stations and missile batteries, but ultimately decided to pull out of that strike 10 minutes before it was scheduled to begin.
 
Despite the fact that he decided AGAINST bombing Iran, the fake news media and (perhaps rather predictably) the war-hawks of the NeverTrump movement berated the President for his inaction, with many trying to compare him with Obama and his “red-line” comments regarding Syria and overall inaction against a terrorist group the former POTUS called a "JV team". However, this is, obviously, a very dumb comparison.
 
Regarding ISIS, Trump was FAR stronger in dealing with them, considering they basically hold no territory anymore compared to the entire caliphate they owned while Obama was President. Trump DESTROYED ISIS, not that you would know if you were watching the fake news media. Even with Syria, Trump actually DID SOMETHING. Remember the missile strikes back in April of 2017? That's what Obama SHOULD have done, but Trump ultimately did.
 
But attacking Iran would definitely launch us into yet another costly and unnecessary war in the Middle East, which, considering Iran’s alliance with Russia, could also have the potential to escalate into World War III. And for what? Some oil tankers and a drone getting destroyed? No actual casualties in any of the situations?
 
Like Trump said on Twitter, such a strike against Iran would’ve been disproportionate to the next to harmless acts of Iran. It’d be like beating someone up because they shoved you a little.
 
Here’s what Trump said following the reporting of his decision to not attack Iran:
 
“President Obama made a desperate and terrible deal with Iran – gave them 150 billion dollars plus 1.8 billion dollars in CASH! Iran was in big trouble and he bailed them out. Gave them a free path to nuclear weapons, and SOON. Instead of saying thank you, Iran yelled Death to America. I terminated deal, which was not even ratified by Congress, and imposed strong sanctions. They are a much weakened nation today than at the beginning of my presidency, when they were causing major problems throughout the Middle East. Now they are bust! On Monday they shot down an unmanned drone flying in International Waters. We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. I am in no hurry, our Military is rebuilt, new, and ready to go, by far the best in the world. Sanctions are biting & more added last night. Iran can NEVER have Nuclear Weapons, not against the USA, and not against the WORLD!”
 
So what is it we are looking at here? Well, first, the President is rightly pointing out the fact that Iran is very much in the position they are today because Obama basically bailed them out and let them have a path to nuclear weapons (which I’m certain they currently have) in a deal that was not constitutional but everyone was too afraid to actually fight Obama on this terrible deal.
 
This is important to note because one of the arguments being made by the Left and the MSM is that Iran destroyed the oil tankers and the drone because we pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. Obviously, that’s asinine. If that were the reason, they would’ve attacked shortly after the deal was terminated, not over a year later. If the reason for those attacks were because the Iranians are mad that Trump actually stood up to them and did not let them have their nuclear deal anymore, then this is one hell of a slow reaction to that.
 
The second thing we are looking at here is the very reason for not striking Iran: 150 people would’ve died in comparison to not a single one on our side. That’s not to say we should wait until someone gets killed by the Iranians to act. But that is to say the actions we partake shouldn’t be rash. Let’s not bomb Iran just because they destroyed a couple of oil tankers and an unmanned drone. Sanctions against Iran have been working pretty well, haven’t they? Like Trump said, Iran is far weaker today than a few years ago. That’s because the U.S. is applying the most sanctions it ever has on a country. And now, they are desperate.
 
But notice how the media is portraying this: they are comparing him to Obama’s inaction against ISIS, Syria and Russia. Again, it’s nothing like that. But what do you think the media portrayal would’ve been had Trump not called off the strike? Would they have said that he was tougher than Obama because he didn’t pull out of the strike? OF COURSE NOT! They would’ve compared him to Bush and ran the same tired stories about how we were bombing innocent children and families in Afghanistan and comparing this to that. They are convinced Trump is a war-hawk, despite all the evidence to the contrary, and the fact he did not actually strike Iran goes against their narrative.
 
Trump promised we would not enter a war while he was President. So far, he’s the only president to actually stick to such a promise. Remember when Obama promised he would pull us out of Iraq and Afghanistan? Remember how he did not do that and almost pulled us into a war with Syria on top of the other two wars we were already having? Trump, unlike Obama, doesn’t really care for the military industrial complex if it means that war is necessary. War is not necessary, for the most part. There are times, yes, when war is necessary. The Revolutionary War, for example. But war is usually unnecessary, especially if the reason for it is a couple of ships and a drone being destroyed but no casualties actually being tallied.
 
Now, another argument Leftists make is that Trump was a buffoon for waiting until there were ten minutes left to ask how many casualties there would be or he was a buffoon for waiting until there were ten minutes left until the strike to actually call it off. Both are arguments being made right now and both are equally dumb.
 
Regarding the first argument, we don’t know if he waited until there were only 10 minutes left to ask how many casualties there would’ve been. We only know that he asked how many there would be and that he called it off 10 minutes before the strike, citing those reasons. My guess is that he asked prior to those ten minutes how many casualties there’d be and he mulled it over, ultimately concluding such casualties would be an overreaction on our part, calling it off as a result.
 
Now, I know what the Leftists in the audience (if there even are any) are saying: “Well, that’s even worse! He considered killing 150 people but only ultimately decided not to because he has no idea what he’s doing!” To which I say: that’s insanely idiotic. I do think Trump was mulling it over, but likely only because he has war-hawks advising him as to what they ought to do. For as much as I love John Bolton and Mike Pompeo, they are both war-hawks. Sometimes, it’s good to have such people advising you, because they’re likely to offer the best advice if you are looking to be strong in a war. But such people are not very interested in ending one.
 
Killing 150 Iranians would’ve been an overreaction considering what little Iran did by comparison. When it comes to Iran, we hold all the cards. Getting pulled into a war would dilute that advantage. And while I have no doubt we would win a war against Iran, it’s entirely unnecessary to get into one in the first place.
 
President Trump isn’t “weak” because he pulled out of striking Iran. Again, he was plenty strong against ISIS and the results show. And he launched strikes against Syrian targets when the Syrian government gassed their OWN PEOPLE. He’s not weak. He’s just a rational person who knows that killing 150 people just because they destroyed two oil tankers and a drone, which can all be replaced, would be a gross overreaction. And even the MSM would’ve said so, had Trump not called off the strike.
 
Trust me, we are all better off not having attacked Iran over this. If Iran truly wants a war, then they’ll have to throw the first punch. Destroying oil tankers and a drone, and then waiting on forensic evidence to be done to determine who attacked the tankers, not claiming responsibility for it after it happened and claiming they had the right to destroy the drone as it was “over Iranian airspace” is not indicative of a country that really wants a war. If they did, they would’ve claimed responsibility for the oil tankers and would’ve said “so what if we destroyed a drone over international air space? Fight me”. Beyond that, they would’ve done far worse damage than that.
 
Iran doesn’t want a war. They want to talk to Trump to remove the sanctions and believe attacking U.S. property will give them some leverage in negotiations.
 
But we’ll see what happens as things progress, of course. I could be totally wrong here and things could escalate to an actual war, but I don’t think I’m wrong here.
 
Romans 12:18
“If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”
 
And please make sure to check out our free weekly newsletter. As the name suggests, it is a newsletter that comes completely free of charge. What you get is a compilation of the week’s articles sent right into your inbox. So make sure to check it out today!
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.

Going through conservative media sources to find inspiration for an article, I found a piece on the Daily Wire talking about a study that shows about a quarter of Millennials (sample size less than 800) reportedly show symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Let me tell you, I can count on one hand the amount of times I found immediate inspiration by an article.
 
I will explain what I mean by that in a moment. First, I will give you the context of the situation.
 
A recent psychological study from San Francisco State University suggests that 25% of Millennials attending Arizona State University “reported experiencing ‘clinically significant’ levels of stress, along with other symptoms of PTSD,” according to the Daily Wire.
 
According to the Daily Wire, the students “were evaluated using an ‘Impact of Event’ scale, which measures stress levels at various times following a major traumatic event…”
 
It’s used for events such as a shooting, a terrorist attack, etc. So we already see some indication of the overreaction that is coming from these millennial students, having to use a scale that is typically used for tragic events to evaluate someone’s level of stress after an ELECTION.
 
Melissa Hagan, the lead researcher, said in a statement accompanying the release of the study: “The scale is used to gauge the extent to which individuals have been impacted by an event in such a way that it might lead to diagnosable post-traumatic stress disorder. What we were interested in seeing was, did the election for some people constitute a traumatic experience? And we found that it did for 25 percent of young adults.”
 
The study found that those who identify as a minority, are female, are Democrat, and/or are non-Christian reported having the highest stress levels.
 
The study says: “Black and nonwhite Hispanic students scored higher on the assessment than their white classmates, for instance. Gender, political affiliation and religion all played even larger roles. Females scored about 45 percent higher than males on the assessment, and Democrats scored more than two and a half times higher than Republicans.”
 
Now, I can understand (to an extent) Democrats being stressed about that. When Barack Obama was reelected President of the United States in 2012, the first election I actually payed attention to, I was sad, depressed and even stressed and worried for the future of the country.
 
At the time, I was a Mitt Romney supporter (the first and last time I will support an establishment Republican), and I was confident that he would win. But given that he was pretty soft with Obama after the first debate, even calling him a “good guy”, that gave little reason for Republicans to vote for the guy. I was disappointed at the time, and definitely sad and stressed out over Obama’s victory. But I would never, in a million years, even pretend to believe I suffered from PTSD because of that.
 
Earlier in the article, I mentioned that there have been few times when an article inspired me this easily. This is why. Because no one suffers from PTSD BECAUSE OF AN ELECTION!
 
Here’s a quick list of people who justifiably suffer from PTSD:

• Military veterans
• Rape/sexual assault victims
• Victims of an abusive relationship (boyfriend/girlfriend, mother/father, etc.)
• Survivors of a shooting
• Survivors of a devastating natural disaster (earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.)​

 
Nowhere on that list will you find “snowflakes who don’t like the guy who became President.”
 
To say that these children, and I mean that in every sense of the word, suffer from PTSD, even a little, because of the results of an election is asinine and is making a mockery of those who actually suffer from PTSD.
 
A hundred years ago, kids my age would be fighting in trenches during WWI. Nearly 80 years ago, kids my age would be fighting Nazis and Japs. 40 years ago, kids my age would be fighting Vietcong.
 
By comparison, my generation is pathetic, and that’s putting it lightly. The people who fought in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc. all were not much older than us, and all went through things we could not even imagine.
 
When I was in high school, one of my teachers told the story of his dad speaking at my teacher’s school when my teacher was a kid. My teacher’s dad was there to tell the children stories of what he did while in Vietnam. However, my teacher’s dad insisted and ensured my teacher would not hear those stories. Obviously, this made my teacher curious and asked his dad why he wouldn’t tell him those stories.
 
His dad replied: “Because I don’t have to look those kids in the eyes every day.” And that was the end of that. My teacher never again asked him about that.
 
The reason I tell you this is because that made me think “what horrors did his dad go through to not be able to look his son in the eyes if he told him?” Just hearing the story from my teacher’s side reached me to my core. I felt sorry for my teacher’s father and made me a bit more aware of the unspeakable horrors that can be found in this world if we look for them.
 
What my teacher’s dad did in Vietnam was probably horrendous. What he saw was probably horrendous.
 
But seeing the results of this study, I can’t help but laugh in disdain, thinking about these millennials: “You fools. You have no idea how good you have it if THIS is stressing you out.”
 
I could spend another article talking about how I’m not surprised that Democrat students feel this way (again, to an extent) but that I find it incredulous, and a bit suspicious, that only the white, Christian, Republicans were not stressed out about it, but I felt the need to bring some perspective to the mix, rather than argue smaller things like “Hispanics shouldn’t be stressed out over this” or “black people/women/leprechauns should not be stressed out over this”.
 
I wanted to focus mostly on the fact that it’s soldiers and those who fought and saw unspeakable horrors, maybe even committed some unspeakable horrors, who actually and justifiably suffer from PTSD.
 
I can’t imagine the kind of thing war veterans have gone through. The things they’ve seen and done. So for these kids to take PTSD so lightly that they think they can get it from being upset over an election that did not go their way honestly pisses me off.
 
And I do not mean to swear like that; I typically try to say “tick off” rather than that word, but that’s just how angry this sort of thing makes me. I truly meant that earlier thought of “these kids have no idea how good they have it.”
 
They would not survive a war. And I do not mean that they would get killed. That’s a probability, yes, but I mostly mean they would not have the character necessary to withstand the hardships that come with war. Even I probably could not. I have lived a fairly privileged life. The most stressful thing that I’ve had to deal with this week is writing a 750-1000 word essay where I needed to use 5 scholarly sources instead of the usual 2-3.
 
That tells me I do not have the mental fortitude to withstand what people in the military go/have gone through. What people in war have gone through. But at least I do not pretend that I have PTSD over that assignment. And at least I understand the fact that veterans have gone through things I could not even imagine and would have to personally experience to understand.
 
I’m not trying to say I’m better than these snowflakes, but I am stressing the point that we have a lot to thank our military, past and present, for.
 
Now, I will relegate to feeling sorry over my pathetic generation, who are now earning the antithesis of the nickname given to the generation that went through the Great Depression and fought in WWII. If that generation is called “the greatest generation”, then mine is “the worst generation”. And it’s completely earned given the results of this study.
 
Romans 15:13
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”
 
And please make sure to check out our free weekly newsletter. What you get is a compilation of the week’s articles delivered right into your inbox. And since you are not a millennial (or at least one that gets easily triggered by the dumbest things) you won’t get PTSD from reading my articles, which are full of conservative, Christian, pro-Trump and pro-America messages. And the best part is that it comes completely free of charge. So make sure to check it out today!
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.

I’ve often times said that the Left is simply no fun. They are utterly incapable of taking a joke for what it is, but this goes a step even beyond that. This is flat out dumb, and you’ll see why right here.
 
Recently, Rolling Stone published an article with one of the most ridiculous headlines I’ve ever seen, and that’s honestly saying something.
 
The title: “Video Games Are ’90 times’ More Violent Than Actual War, Here’s How To Change That”.
 
I’m honestly stupefied by that title. And so was this Twitter user: “Actually, Rolling Stone, I crunched the numbers. Turns out video games are 0% as violent as ‘actual war.’”
 
Couldn’t have said it better myself. How could you possibly think that a VIDEO GAME is more violent than ACTUAL WAR?!
 
Rolling Stone eventually changed the title to this: “GDC Panel: Video Games Depictions’ ’90 Times’ More Violent Than Actual War.” Which is interesting because it changes literally nothing about how stupid that title is.
 
The article was about a man named Andrew Barron, who is the director of design for Bohemia Interactive Simulations, and who served in Afghanistan in 2010 for 7 months.
 
Barron said: “In general, I’d say people have a deep appreciation for the military, but a very shallow understanding of what the military does and war itself.”
 
According to the Daily Wire, Barron “asserted that video games that focused on combat, excluding the routine jobs the military undertakes, are similar to writing a movie about relationships solely about sex. He said that focusing on ‘hero s**t’ ignores the routine jobs of the military involving ‘hundreds of tasks – not just shooting.’ Thus he posited that games about war need ‘less killing… more war,’ adding, ‘I think in general, video games are much, much more violent than military operations or military simulations. And I mean, orders of magnitudes more violent.’”
 
Barron also mentioned that a typical scenario in a war video game depicts a lone soldier wiping out entire groups of enemies, and saying that in a real-life scenario, the military uses three times the number of attackers.
 
Ok, knowing all of this, it’s clear to me that I need to make a distinction on what constitutes violence in this case.
 
When Barron mentions games like these, I think of games like the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises (of which I’ve played both extensively). And he does make one important point: it’s all “hero s**t”. In the single player mode of the games, you, as the main character, wipe out entire battlefields of enemies, moving from one level to another. In that regard, of course it’s more violent than real life. All you’re doing is wiping out entire battalions of enemies, which is not something that anyone in real life ever does.
 
But in a more real sense, it’s illogical to say that video games such as that are more violent than real life. Why? Because games are nothing more than a simulation; nothing more than 1’s and 0’s. The enemies we wipe out are nothing more than AI; nothing more than pixels. It’s as violent as reading a book about a fictional war, particularly since most games today focus on entirely fictional wars.
 
Early Call of Duty games were WWII shooters. Then, they moved on to modern warfare (literally, with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare), which depicted a war more similar to the one in Afghanistan. But even then, the game developers take some serious liberties with what they actually have you doing.
 
The stories don’t really mimic real life that much. For example, the very game I mentioned in the paragraph above has the players fighting Russian enemies. Its sequels, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3, go further with that fictional conflict with the Russians, at one point having Russia invading the U.S. and depicting soldiers fighting in urban and suburban areas to defend the homeland.
 
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (not related to the Modern Warfare series) starts with the U.S. military fighting a North Korean invasion of Seoul.
 
What I’m trying to say is that these games are nothing more than simulations and “what ifs” that take extreme liberties with their plots. Yes, it’s mostly the fighting aspect of war. Of course it is! It’s the most heart-racing part of being in a war! It’s the most VIOLENT part of being in a war!
 
But you can’t credibly say that any of the games I’ve mentioned above are more violent than an actual war. Video games like these offer blood and gore that is entirely designed by a developer. I’d be more psychologically wounded by killing a person in real life than killing a person in a video game. As I said, I’ve played Call of Duty and Battlefield a whole lot. I’ve racked up tens of thousands of kills in each, as well as tens of thousands of deaths on each.
 
I’ve called in airstrikes, attack helicopters, AC130s, attack dogs and tactical nukes on my opponents plenty of times. But none of them could possibly be considered as being more violent than a real war.
 
Why? Because there’s a clear suspension of reality in a video game. Soldiers aren’t afforded that luxury in a war. Everything is real to them. Some of them suffer from PTSD as a result of traumatic experiences in war. Not a single person that plays Call of Duty claims they got PTSD from anything that happens there.
 
Yes, there’s more to war than just shooting. But there’s also more to video games than shooting as well. While I can’t say that’s the case for Call of Duty or Battlefield, there are military simulation video games like the Arma series that aren’t about full-on combat 24/7. No, it doesn’t fully simulate what being in war is like in terms of the tasks, but you spend a good amount of the game planning things like raids, assaults and other things and then getting to the actual shooting.
 
But you can’t credibly say that video games are more violent than real war just because video games focus on the more violent parts of war. Nothing you do in a video game could possibly prepare you for what you would have to do in real life. You can’t get used to the trauma and violence of actual war by constantly playing a video game.
 
And that’s my biggest argument against that claim. If video games were really more violent than war, soldiers would be far more prepared for war (in the beginning, that is) than they actually are.
 
Now, that being said, I’ve never been to war myself. I’m speaking strictly with the mindset of “what makes the most sense”. I’m looking at things through logical means and speaking in that manner, having no experience in actual combat.
 
But I do have experience in video game combat, and let me tell you, I could not possibly do what our brave men and women do every single day. I’ve put up countless numbers of kills in games but I don’t think I have the mettle to actually end the life of another human being. With as much hate as I have for ISIS, Al-Qaeda and terrorists, I don’t think I could possibly bear to actually, physically and through my own means take the life of another person unless it was absolutely necessary to protect me, my friends or my family.
 
Taking the life of a pixel is easy. Taking the life of another person, despite how evil and repugnant they are, is not.
 
I’ve read a book by Navy SEAL Chris Kyle and his life as a SEAL sniper. I mention this because I remember one particular part of the book where he detailed what it felt like when he had to kill a Muslim woman who had a grenade in hand and was going to kill his comrades. About how he felt having to take her out, knowing that she was forced by cowardly terrorists to sacrifice her own life for their horrendous cause.
 
About how it felt to pull the trigger and see the woman lying dead because of him.
 
In a video game, such a task is easy. Wait for the cut-scene to end, man the sniper and take the shot, no questions asked. But I can’t imagine exactly how such an act feels, whether it’s doing it with a sniper, an assault rifle, a pistol or what have you.
 
Real war is far more violent than video games, and there’s no real argument against that. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to go through war. I played a game that was set during the Vietnam War, but I couldn’t possibly imagine what it’d be like to actually be there.
 
When a soldier dies in real life, we weep. When a soldier dies in a video game, we blame “bad internet connections”.
 
We salute and offer respect to those who have gone to war. We don’t salute and offer respect to those who reached the max level in a war video game.
 
1 Thessalonians 5:18
“Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.

On August 21st, 2017, President Trump announced that we’d be sending more troops (roughly 4000 more) to Afghanistan. Unfortunately, this new plan wasn’t well received by some pro-Trump news sources.
 
Laura Ingraham, a big Trump supporter, tweeted: “Who’s going to pay for it? What is our measure of success? We didn’t win with 100k troops. How will we win with 4000 more?” and “I thought we were going to drain the swamp in Washington, not clear the desert in Afghanistan”.
 
Brian Darling from Breitbart wrote: “I voted for Donald J. Trump because he promoted a foreign policy of restraint… I voted for Donald J. Trump because he promised change. I may have made a mistake.”
 
Tucker Carlson of Fox News also disapproved of Trump’s plan: “If the goal is to keep Islamic extremism from our shores, why is a war more effective than a vigorously enforced travel ban?”
 
They’re all wrong in what they say. Let’s begin with Laura. “Who’s going to pay for it?” The President had asked in the same speech that the U.S. would “ask NATO allies and global partners to support our new strategy, with additional troop and funding increases in line of our own.” Now, I’m not gonna trust that NATO will ever support Trump, but he has said that we will ask them to help us out in sending troops and funding them to fight.
 
“What is our measure of success?” Ultimate defeat of our enemies. That is our measure. “Our troops will fight to win. We will fight to win. From now on, victory will have a clear definition – attacking our enemies, obliterating ISIS, crushing al-Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan and stopping mass terror attacks against America before they emerge.”
 
“We didn’t win with 100k troops. How will we win with 4000 more?” It’s not about the number of troops we send. It’s about the strategy we employ. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, a former French Foreign Affairs Minister famously said: “I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.” Up until now, our strategy was a timetable-based one.
 
In his speech, Trump said: “As a result of our comprehensive review, American strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia will change dramatically in the following ways: A core pillar of our new strategy is a shift from a time-based approach to one based on conditions… Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables, will guide our strategy from now on. America’s enemies must never know our plans or believe they can wait us out. I will not say when we are going to attack, but attack we will.”
 
Obama would tell our enemies when attacks would be carried out. That literally goes against The Art of War by Sun Tzu: “All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”
 
So we will be employing a new strategy that will keep our enemies guessing as to when we will attack, knowing that an attack (and most likely, multiple attacks) is coming. And for that last part of Ingraham’s tweet? “I thought we were going to drain the swamp in Washington, not clear the desert in Afghanistan.” Who says we can’t do both?
 
Obama has been purposefully incompetent when it came to fighting ISIS and radical Islamic extremists. Trump inherited Obama’s mess with ISIS and, at the moment, ISIS is debilitated. With their relatively recent end to their caliphate, they have to regroup and establish a new caliphate somewhere else. We can’t let them catch a breath. They’ve gotten more chances to breathe than people in China. We can’t allow them to regroup and rethink their strategy. Part of the reason we’re going to Afghanistan is so that THEY CAN’T regroup, at least there.
 
Next is the guy from Breitbart. In short, I just think he’s exaggerating. Yes, Trump said a few years ago that it was a waste of time and money to send people to Afghanistan. But he’s also recognized that you think differently when you seat at the desk in the Oval Office. Even Trump in his speech recognized that his way of thinking was different.
 
“My original instinct was to pull out… But all my life, I have heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office. In other words, when you are President of the United States.” People change their minds all the time. Let’s just be grateful that he hasn’t changed his mind when it comes to the Wall or Climate Change. This war in Afghanistan should continue, as long as the President has a plan for ultimate victory, which I believe he does.
 
But to say that you “may have made a mistake” in voting for Trump because “he promoted a foreign policy of restraint… and promised change” and hasn’t done that in your mind is ridiculous. He promised a foreign policy in which America would come first and would ultimately be victorious. He promised to “blow the **** out of ISIS”. That’s not restraint. That’s ensuring American victory, as he is doing with this new plan in Afghanistan.
 
And finally, Tucker Carlson. “If the goal is to keep Islamic extremism from our shores, why is a war more effective than a vigorously enforced travel ban?” Last time I checked, we’re doing both. The Supreme Court approved of a travel ban in June. But that travel ban didn’t include Afghanistan. And Afghanistan is still very much a part of the Islamic world, and therefore, is more than capable of producing al-Qaeda or ISIS terrorists.
 
Not to mention that a travel ban, as effective as it can be, doesn’t solve the problem of Islamic terrorism. War won’t either, but it will go a lot farther than a few travel bans here and there. Not to mention that there will definitely not be any travel bans on Islamic countries with a Democrat in the White House, which is bound to happen eventually (hopefully, not any time soon). So Trump’s strategy will work longer-term than travel bans will.
 
All in all, ensuring the ultimate success and safety of America should be, and is, the President’s biggest priority. That’s why I think Trump’s plan is great, because he will work to ensure that we are both safe and victorious against these evil forces. And part of that is NOT TELLING THE ENEMY WHAT WE’RE GONNA DO AND WHEN WE’RE GONNA DO IT!
 
War is never pretty and I wish it never had to happen. But in reality, there will always be people that are evil to the core. For as long as Man is on Earth, there will be evil in the world. And evil will never cease fighting until good is defeated. Islamists will never stop fighting until they are all either dead or rulers of Earth. The Left will never stop trying to destroy Trump. Even after he leaves office (hopefully in 8 years), they won’t stop destroying him. They will try to destroy his reputation and legacy like they have been doing with Reagan.
 
And it doesn’t help when Trump supporters disagree with the President’s actions this way. Yes, they can disagree all they want, but it only helps give the Left ammunition to take down Trump. Is Trump always right? No. He’s human, after all. But to tweet or write articles that are very obviously short-sighted is not gonna help Trump or our conservative cause.
 
2 Peter 3:7
“But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the Day of Judgment and destruction of ungodly men.”
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.

Most certainly not! Generally speaking, we would want to avoid having any sort of war with any nation in the world. War rarely is necessary and always brings largely unnecessary death and destruction. The only time war is a necessity is when there’s a clear evil threat to the world and good people leading good and powerful countries should do their best to save the world from the forces of evil. 
 
But with North Korea threatening to strike Guam, a U.S. territory, we might be forced into a confrontation in the near future. Like I said in the previous article, we could convince China to convince Kim Jong Un’s generals to take out the radical leader to avoid the generals' ultimate deaths. So war doesn’t even have to happen in this scenario. All that would have to happen is Kim Jong Un’s assassination by the Chinese and replacement with a Chinese puppet - and that's assuming Kim Jong Un doesn't come to his senses first.
 
Should that not happen and Kim Jong Un strikes, as he promised, then we would obviously be forced to retaliate and engage in war with North Korea. Trump isn’t like Obama. He’s not gonna beg Kim Jong Un to cut it out. You can shove Obama around and he won’t do anything. But if you try to shove Trump around, you won’t get a shove back. You get a punch to the nose.
 
Throughout the campaign, Trump faced opponents that wanted to take him down. When those opponents would attack him, he’d attack back harder. The same can be said when given a threat such as the one Kim is giving. If North Korea does launch a missile, even if it’s not a nuke, at Guam, we will hit them back… harder.
 
And we’re not afraid to go to war with them. Why? No one will back up North Korea. China has always been a friend to North Korea (of course they are, they’re both communist states that massacre whoever they want), but even they know that Kim Jong Un is a lunatic. If North Korea goes to war with the U.S. and China gets involved, the U.S. will cease all trade with China, which will really hurt their economy. The Chinese have a good thing going with us in the market, they won’t sacrifice that just to back up the crazy chubby guy.
 
And Russia really has no reason to get itself involved in this. They’re still recovering from the dissolution of the Soviet Union. And while they are a strong military force, I highly doubt they would start World War III with us to help a nation that could be destroyed so insanely easy. So North Korea really has no allies in this… other than maybe radical Muslims. But they’re already trying to destroy us and kill us, not to mention ISIS has been heavily debilitated since the recent destruction of the Mosul caliphate, so they’re in no position to back up the Norks.
 
So let’s focus on the head to head match-up between the U.S. and North Korea. Like I said in the previous article, it’d be like a high school basketball team facing the Golden State Warriors or a high school football team facing the Patriots. North Korea, on their own, can’t possibly stand up against the U.S.
 
Let’s look at some numbers. According to Wikipedia, the number of active personnel in the United States military is 1.2 million people (ranked 3rd). North Korea’s number of active personnel is 1.1 million (ranked 4th). They obviously have a lot of people in their military (but considering it’s either that or live in utter destitution, it makes sense that so many people would want to 'serve'). So the numbers are fairly even. In the event of a war, those numbers would obviously go up.
 
But while having people fighting is necessary, you also have to have the ability to pay for them and the weapons they use. The U.S. military budget is about $600 Billion, with 3.3% of the country’s GDP being used to fund that budget. Of course, this was during the Obama years. Now that Trump is President, I imagine that number will go up. Not to mention the fact that, during the event of a war, that number will DEFINITELY go up.
 
So we can clearly see that the United States is very rich and doesn’t eat up much of its GDP in its military… Then there’s North Korea. North Korea’s budget is roughly $10 Billion, with it taking up roughly 25% of the country’s GDP. So they use up a quarter of their country’s wealth and they have a budget that's only 1.7% of America's budget. Now, we’ve known for a long time that they were poor, but looking at the numbers… HOLY MOTHER OF GOD THEY’RE POOR!  
 
So as you can see, North Korea most certainly loses the war of finances. In a normal war, they’d easily get destroyed. In a nuclear war, same thing. The United States has a total area of 3.7 million square miles. North Korea has a total area of 46,540 square miles. Not that we would, but if we were to launch nukes at North Korea, given that we most certainly have the weaponry and technology to do that, they’d easily be wiped out. North Korea could easily stop existing in less than a day. But since the U.S. is far bigger, it’d take A LOT of nukes to completely wipe the continental U.S. off the face of the Earth. North Korea doesn’t have that kind of power.
 
The reason we’re even talking about this is because JUST NOW they’re able to reach us. Knowing that, I can’t imagine North Korea has a lot of missiles, at the moment, that can reach us. Meanwhile, we have all the power in the world to wipe them out. Again, we won’t be doing that. We don’t want to kill innocent civilians. All we want to do is resolve this issue diplomatically, but if not possible, we would resolve it with the destruction of the North Korean government and military. We won’t use nukes on North Korea, knowing the human cost that would ensue.
 
Even Mattis agrees with the President and myself. In an interview with CBN, Mattis said: “The DPRK should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people.” He knows we don't want to attack North Korean civilians, but he doesn’t want Kim Jong Un to think that we won't. He wants Kim to think we’ll go to any extent to ensure the safety of the world, even at the cost of an entire nation and its people. But the U.S., being the good guys, won’t simply attack civilian targets unless it's absolutely necessary.
 
Even the attacks on Japan during World War II were to destroy Japanese military installations and workshops or factories. We even WARNED Japanese civilians in targeted cities with the LeMay leaflets. The leaflets were dropped on dozens of Japanese cities during 1945 to warn civilians to evacuate the cities before they are destroyed. Granted, the leaflets didn’t mention atomic bombs, but that would be a given. YOU DON’T REVEAL YOUR MOST POWERFUL WEAPONS TO YOUR ENEMIES! We used atomic bombs to get the Japanese to surrender. And we were prepared to attack more than just Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We were prepared to destroy far many more cities if the Japs didn’t surrender. And thank God they did.
 
So we won’t be using nukes on the entirety of North Korea unless we have to. We likely won’t even launch a single one if unprovoked. We will, however, ensure Kim Jong Un either comes to his senses or is overthrown - a regime change that would lead to a unified Korea. The last time I checked, the Chinese didn't want a unified Korea...so they better step up to the plate.
 
2 Thessalonians 3:3
“But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one.”
 
Author: Freddie Marinelli.