People who know me know that I am anything but a pacifist. I wholeheartedly support the right and duty of America to defend itself. I further support the right and duty of individuals to defend themselves, which is why I am such a strong proponent of the Second Amendment.

Accordingly, I fully supported Ronald Reagan's "Peace Through Strength" initiative. Without a doubt, it was Reagan's resolve in this matter which ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and solidified America's military superiority. Obviously, I am not "anti-war." Anything but.

With that said, however, neither do I believe that America has the right to unilaterally attack other nations without first having been attacked or seriously threatened (which includes the ability and intention to follow through with the threat) with attack. In other words, not being "anti-war" does not make me "pro-war." A better moniker might be "pro-defense."

For example, I don't believe that I have the right to shoot my neighbor because he called me names or because he verbally threatened me. If, however, he decided to follow up his threats by invading my home with the intention of doing bodily harm to me or my family, I believe I have every right, and even the duty, to shoot him right between the eyes! But the right of self defense would not justify me if I then decided to hunt down his family and friends and also shoot them. The reason? They pose no imminent threat to me or my family. Therefore, believing in the right to self- defense does not mean that I am "pro-killing."

By the same token, neither am I "pro-war" when I say I believe America has the right to defend itself. When it comes to war, General Douglas MacArthur summarized my feelings when he said, "War is a scourge." Indeed it is.

The problem today is that the neo-cons who run Washington, D.C., are not "pro-defense," they are "pro-war." And there is a huge difference.

People who are pro-war use war to advance their personal political or economic agendas. To them, war has little to do with self defense and everything to do with self aggrandizement. However, this can only work if the people who are reaping the benefits from war are not actually experiencing war!

To those who are engaged in war, the consequences can be nightmarish! Arms and legs cut off. Eyes put out. Flesh burned. Intestines ripped out. Backs broken. Skulls crushed. Lives lost. Families torn apart. Homes destroyed. Children left without parents. Parents never able to see their children again. Wives without husbands. Husbands without wives. Souls snuffed into eternity. Emotional scars that never heal. These are the realities of war. And this is what the neo-cons who profit from war never have to see up close and personal.

Instead, pro-war neo-cons sit in their comfortable, air-conditioned offices and send other husbands, other wives, other parents, other children, other people to incur the "scourge" of war. But the neo- cons who trumpet war, who promote war, and who finance war never actually experience war.

The surest way to extinguish the bloodlust of the neo-cons who are sending our young people to fight and die is to insist that they themselves join the war! Until then, or until the American people wake up to the fact that war profiteers are merely manipulating and using them, our military personnel will continue to be used, not as defenders of America, but as expendable commodities in the relentless pursuit by internationalists to establish a global economy.