WHEN PENGUINS FLEW AND WATER BURNED This is the true memoir of one US Air Force navigator’s journey from the schoolhouses of Air Training Command to the nuclear alerts of the Cold War to combat in a 35-year-old anachronism called the B-52. It is a first-hand account of life during the last days of Strategic Air Command, the early days of Air Combat Command and the ensuing military drawdown of the 1990s. From peacetime training exercises across the globe to combat operations in Desert Storm, Jim Clonts takes the reader inside the cockpit where life and death are seconds apart. Often comical, sometimes heart-pounding, other times tragic, WHEN PENGUINS FLEW AND WATER BURNED takes you into the world of military aviation, a crucible where warriors learn the true nature of character, conscience and mortality.

A New Kind of Enemy?
by Jim Clonts, 2006

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT MILITARY.COM, August 14, 2006

We constantly hear militant Islam described as a new kind of enemy, but aside from their fondness for improvised explosive devices, there is little new about them. We’ve seen this enemy before. Many in talk radio have compared the rise of militant Islam to the rise of the National Socialist Party of 1930s Germany. There are stunning similarities to be found, but not just to Nazi Germany. Militant Islam holds nearly as many similarities with Imperial Japan of the same period. We are fighting an age old enemy and we can learn from history.

When Paul von Hindenburg named Adolph Hitler Chancellor, the Nazi Party represented less than 33% of the elected Bundestag. Although outnumbered in the legislature, Hindenburg nevertheless chose Hitler due to the troublesome nature of his party. The Nazis were almost religious in their beliefs of racial purity, national pride and hatred of the Jews. They were willing to kill for their cause. Newspaper editors who were critical of the Party were found dead in their homes. Atrocities from arson, to kidnappings to murder were committed by Nazi party members. Naming Hitler chancellor was an attempt by Hindenburg to appease the Nazis, to temper their violent nature by giving them a taste of power. The assumption was that once the Nazis began participating in the political process, they would be absorbed by the machine and the process would turn them from an insurgent movement to a legitimate political party. Hindenburg would not live to see that taste of power turn into the horror of the Twentieth Century. Today the Palestinians have duly elected large numbers of the terrorist group Hamas into their ruling body, potentially repeating the mistake of Hindenburg.

The Imperial Japanese Empire was also on the rise in the early 1930s. Once again they were fueled by racial purity and national pride. The Japanese of World War II grew up in an era where the young were taught from an early age they were the only “true” human beings, the Chinese and others little more than cattle. The Land of the Rising Sun was the center of the world and they the chosen people. The Japanese killed millions of Chinese during World War II. They slaughtered the men and set up comfort stations, a euphemistic term for rape camps, using the Chinese woman for their soldiers delights. This behavior was expected and condoned by the Japanese leadership and participation was often mandatory. The slaughter was not restrained to the battlefield. It is telling that more Chinese were executed with the Samurai sword than Japanese who died under the atomic bombs of the United States.

The rise of militant Islam began not in the 1970s, but over a millennia before. Like the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese, militant Islam has thematic roots in ridding the world of impurity, in this case religious. They believe they are the true children of God and regard the rest of the world as Infidels to be subjugated or slaughtered, very similar to the views of the WWII Japanese. They believe the Jew is a major source of the world’s impurity, as did the Nazis. The militant Islamics represent a very small percentage of all Muslims, but although small in number, they are willing to use violence and intimidation to subjugate the masses. Wielding the power of Islam like a sword, they have cowed their populations into acceptance. Who in Iran or Syria speaks out against Hezzbollah or Hamas? Who of the Muslims in this country will come forward and condemn the militants who have high-jacked their religion? Who has the guts to condemn the killing of innocents in the name of Islam? No one. And we can't blame them. The people of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were just as fearful sixty years ago and their inaction eventually cost them dearly.

The Japanese were also staunchly devout in their religion. They believed in the divinity of Emperor Hirohito and, with defeat looming on the horizon, resorted to suicide-attacks, the Kamikaze, or Divine Wind. They were willing to die for their god and take as many Americans as they could with them. They even believed the enemy they killed would be their servants in the afterlife. Just before the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese had a plan to defend their islands with a human wave of twenty million women, children and elderly citizens, wielding rocks and clubs. They felt it better to die honorably under a hail of American gunfire than to submit to the enemy. The entire Japanese population was ready to become the Divine Wind. Many believe the atomic bomb alone stopped the bloodshed and it did play a role, however, Emperor Hirohito was the true savior of his people. Although he was responsible for millions of deaths, in the end he saw the folly of sacrificing his people under the mushroom clouds of American bombs. He issued a decree that the Japanese lay down their weapons and surrender. To a population willing to die for its god, stopping the bloodshed only required his words. In one generation, Japan went from a tyrannical, invading oppressor to a successful, peace-loving, industrial republic.

This war with militant Islam is not new. The United States has defeated enemies wielding vastly superior weaponry, who have harbored deeply religious ideals, who have felt they were the master race or the chosen people, who have been willing to sacrifice themselves for their god. We’ve seen this before. The enemy of militant Islam is an amalgam of many enemies we’ve faced before. Defeating the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese cost a half-million US lives and tens of millions of others around the globe. We will eventually prevail, but there will be a price to pay and there is no Hirohito to stop the bloodshed this time.

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