Today (Sept 17th, 2007) is the 145th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam. The battle was the single bloodiest day of the Civil War leaving some 23,000 Union and Confederate soldiers dead or wounded. It cost George McClellan his command of the Union Army and lead to the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln.
The Battle of Antietam is relevant now as a point of discussion when considering the current Global War on Terror. We often hear the cliché “freedom isn’t free” but never really stop to consider what it means in the context of the history of freedom. What price has been paid? What price will be paid now and in the future?
As the debate about our mission in Iraq rages across the country and in the halls of Congress I think a little perspective is in order. The seminal issues of the Civil War; slavery, states rights and the preservation of the Union cost 620,000 American lives. It would have been very easy for President Lincoln to let the issue of slavery lie and allow the South to secede but he didn’t and we are better for it. We as a country and we as a people could not allow the institution of slavery to continue.
The price for democracy in Iraq, the overthrow of a brutal dictator and the security of its oil resources has been 3,000 plus American lives over the last 4 years. Freedom still isn’t free. If history is an indicator of probable events in the future, freedom never will be free!
