Can anyone make an intelligent, educated counter argument to this?
Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe
and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat, and had
sunk more than four hundred British ships in their convoys between
England and America for food and war materials.
Bushido Japan had overrun most of Asia, beginning in 1928, killing
millions of civilians throughout China, and impressing millions more
as slave labor.
The US was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most Americans and
Congress wanted nothing to do with the European war or the Asian war.
Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and in outrage
Congress unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on
Germany, which had not attacked us. It was a dicey thing. We had few
allies.
France was not an ally (Are they ever? General Patton once said, “I’d
rather have a battalion of Germans in front of me, than a battalion of
French behind me!”) the Vichy government of France aligned with its
German occupiers. Germany was not an ally, it was an enemy, and Hitler
intended to set up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an
ally, it was intent on owning and controlling all of Asia. Japan and
Germany had long-term ideas of invading Canada and Mexico, and then
the United States over the north and south borders, after they had
settled control of Asia and Europe.
America’s allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada,
Australia, and Russia, and that was about it. There were no other
countries of any size or military significance with the will and
ability to contribute much or anything to the effort to defeat
Hitler’s Germany and Japan, and prevent the global dominance of
Nazism. And we had to send millions of tons of arms, munitions, and
war supplies to Russia, England, and the Canadians, Aussie’s, Irish,
and Scots, because none of them could produce all they needed for
themselves.
All of Europe, from Norway to Italy, except Russia in the east, was
already under the Nazi heel.
America was not prepared for war. America had stood down most of its
military after WWI and throughout the depression, at the outbreak of
WWII there were army units training with broomsticks over their
shoulders because they didn’t have guns, and cars with “tank” painted
on the doors because they didn’t have tanks. And a big chunk of our
navy had just been sunk and damaged at Pearl Harbor.
Britain had already gone bankrupt, saved only by the donation of $600
million in gold bullion in the Bank of England that was the property
of Belgium and was given by Belgium to England to carry on the war
when Belgium was overrun by Hitler. (Actually, Belgium surrendered in
one day, because it was unable to oppose the German invasion, and the
Germans bombed Brussels into rubble the next day anyway just to prove
they could.) Britain had been holding out for two years already in the
face of staggering shipping losses and the near-decimation of its air
force in the Battle of Britain, and was saved from being overrun by
Germany only because Hitler made the mistake of thinking the Brit’s
were a relatively minor threat that could be dealt with later and
turning his attention to Russia, at a time when England was on the
verge of collapse in the late summer of 1940.
Russia SAVED America’s ass by putting up a desperate fight for two
years until the US got geared up to begin hammering away at Germany.
Russia lost something like 24 million people (24 MILLION) in the
sieges of Stalingrad and Moscow, 90% of them from cold and starvation,
mostly civilians, but also more than a million soldiers. More than a
million. Had Russia surrendered then, Hitler would have been able to
focus his entire campaign against the Brit’s, then America, and the
Nazis would have won that war.
Had Hitler not made that mistake and invaded England in 1940 or 1941,
instead, there would have been no England for the US and the Brit’s to
use as a staging ground to prepare an assault on Nazi Europe, England
would not have been able to run its North African campaign to help
take a little pressure off Russia while America geared up for battle,
and today Europe would very probably be run by the Nazis, the Third
Reich. Isolated and without any allies (not even the Brit’s), the US
would very probably have had to cede Asia to the Japanese, who were
basically Nazis by another name and the world we live in today would
be very different and much worse. I say this to illustrate that
turning points in history are often dicey things. AND we are at
another one.
There is a very dangerous minority in Islam that either has, or wants
and may soon have, the ability to deliver small nuclear, biological,
or chemical weapons, almost anywhere in the world, unless they are
prevented from doing so.
France, Germany, and Russia, have been selling them weapons technology
as recently as 2002, as have North Korea, Syria, and Pakistan, paid
for with billions of dollars Saddam Hussein skimmed from the “Oil For
Food” program administered by the UN with the complicity of Kofi Annan
and his son.
The Jihadi’s, the militant Muslims, are basically Nazis in Kaffiyahs -
they believe that Islam, a radically conservative (definitely not
liberal!) form of Wahhabi Islam, should own and control the Middle
East first, then Europe, then the world, and that all who do not bow
to Allah should be killed, enslaved, or subjugated. They want to
finish the Holocaust, destroy Israel and purge the world of Jews. This
is what they say.
There is also a civil war raging in the Middle East – for the most
part not a hot war, but a war of ideas. Islam is having its
Inquisition and its Reformation today, but it is not yet known which
will win – the Inquisition, or the Reformation.
If the Inquisition wins, then the Wahhabis, the Jihadi’s, will control
the Middle East, and the OPEC oil, and the US, European, and Asian
economies, the techno-industrial economies, will be at the mercy of
OPEC – not an OPEC dominated by the well-educated and rational Saudis
of today, but an OPEC dominated by the Jihadi’s.
You want gas in your car? You want heating oil next winter? You want
jobs? You want the dollar to be worth anything? You better hope the
Jihad, the Muslim Inquisition, loses, and the Islamic Reformation
wins.
If the Reformation movement wins, that is, the moderate Muslims who
believe that Islam can respect and tolerate other religions, and live
in peace with the rest of the world, and move out of the 10th century
into the 21st, then the troubles in the Middle East will eventually
fade away, and a moderate and prosperous Middle East will emerge.
We have to help the Reformation win, and to do that we have to fight
the Inquisition, i.e., the Wahhabi movement, Al Qaeda and other
Islamic terrorist movements. We have to do it somewhere. We cannot do
it everywhere at once so we have created a focal point for the battle
now, at the time and place of our choosing, in Iraq. Not in New York,
not in London, or Paris, or Berlin, but in Iraq, where we did and are
doing two very important things.
(1) We deposed Saddam Hussein. Whether Saddam Hussein was directly
involved in 9/11 or not, it is undisputed that Saddam has been
actively supporting the terrorist movement for decades. Saddam is or
was a terrorist, a weapon of mass destruction, who is responsible for
the deaths of probably more than a million Iraqis and two million
Iranians.
(2) We created a battle, a confrontation, a flash point, with Islamic
terrorism in Iraq. We have focused the battle. We are killing bad guys
there and the ones we get there we won’t have to get here, or
somewhere else. We also have a good shot at creating a democratic,
peaceful Iraq, which will be a catalyst for democratic change in the
rest of the Middle East, and an outpost for a stabilizing American
military presence in the Middle East for as long as it is needed.
The Europeans could have done this, but they didn’t, and they won’t.
We now know that rather than opposing the rise of the Jihadist, the
French, Germans, and Russians were selling them arms – we have found
more than a million tons of weapons and munitions in Iraq. If Iraq was
not a threat to anyone, why did Saddam need a million tons of weapons?
And Iraq was paying for much of these French, German, and Russian arms
with money skimmed from the UN Oil For Food Program that was supposed
to pay for food, medicine, and education, for Iraqi children.
World War II, the war with the German and the Japanese Nazis, really
began with a “whimper” in 1928. It did not begin with Pearl Harbor. It
began with the Japanese invasion of China. It was a war for fourteen
years before America joined it. It officially ended in 1945 – a 17
year war – and was followed by another decade of US occupation in
Germany and Japan to get those countries reconstructed and running on
their own again . . a 27 year war.
World War II cost the United States an amount equal to approximately a
full year’s GDP – adjusted for inflation, equal to about $12 trillion
dollars, WWII cost America more than 400,000 killed in action, and
nearly 100,000 still missing in action.
The Iraq war has, so far, cost the US about $180 billion, which is
roughly what 9/11 cost New York. (What will the next hit cost in $ &
lives if we wait until the Jahadist have nuclear weapons???) It has
also cost over 2,000 American lives, which is roughly 2/3 of the lives
that the Jihadist snuffed on 9/11.
But the cost of not fighting and winning WWII would have been
unimaginably greater – a world now dominated by German and Japanese
Nazism.
Americans have a short attention span, conditioned I suppose by 60
minute TV shows and 2-hour movies in which everything comes out okay.
The real world is not like that. It is messy, uncertain, and sometimes
bloody and ugly. Always has been, and probably always will be.
If we do this thing in Iraq successfully, it is probable that the
Reformation will ultimately prevail. Many Muslims in the Middle East
hope it will. We will be there to support it. It has begun in some
countries, e. g. Libya, Dubai and Saudi Arabia. If we fail, the
Inquisition will probably prevail, and terrorism from Islam will be
with us for all the foreseeable future, because the Inquisition, the
Jihadist, believe they are called by Allah to kill all the Infidels,
and that death in Jihad is glorious.
The bottom line here is that we will have to deal with Islamic
terrorism until we defeat it (or are defeated by it), whenever that
is. It will not go away on its own. It WILL NOT go away if we ignore
it.
If the US can create a reasonably democratic and stable Iraq, then we
have an “England” in the Middle East, a platform, from which we can
work to help modernize and moderate the Middle East. The history of
the world is the clash between the forces of relative civility and
civilization, and the barbarians clamoring at the gates. The Iraq war
is merely another battle in this ancient and never-ending war. Now,
for the first time ever, the barbarians are about to get nuclear
weapons unless WE prevent them.
The Iraq war is expensive, and uncertain, yes. But the consequences of
not fighting and winning it will be horrifically greater. We have four
options:
1. We can defeat the Jihad now, before it gets nuclear weapons.
2. We can fight the Jihad later, after it gets nuclear weapons (which
may be as early as next year, if Iran’s progress on nuclear weapons is
what Iran claims it is).
3. We can surrender to the Jihad and accept its dominance in the
Middle East, now, in Europe in the next few years or decades, and
ultimately in America.
4. Or we can stand down now, and pick up the fight later when the
Jihad is more widespread and better armed, perhaps after the Jihad has
dominated France and Germany, which is well underway, and maybe most
of the rest of Europe. It will be more dangerous, more expensive, and
much bloodier then.
Yes, the Jihadist say that they look forward to an Islamic America. If
you oppose this war, I hope you like the idea that your children, or
grandchildren, may live in an Islamic America under the Mullahs and
the Sharia (Islamic law as dictated by the Qur’an), an America that
resembles Iran today.
We can be defeatist peace-activists as anti-war types seem to be, and
concede, surrender, to Jihad, or we can do whatever it takes to win
this war against it.
The history of the world is the history of civilizational clashes
-cultural clashes. All wars are about ideas, ideas about what society
and civilization should be like (usually dominated by religious
dogma), and the most determined always win.
Those who are willing to be the most ruthless win. The pacifists
always lose, because the anti-pacifists kill them.
In the 20th century, it was Western democracy vs. communism, and
before that Western democracy vs. Nazism, and before that Western
democracy vs. German Imperialism. Western democracy won, three times,
but it wasn’t cheap, fun, nice, easy, or quick. Indeed, the wars
against German imperialism (WWI), Nazi imperialism (WWII), and
communist imperialism (the 40-year Cold War that included the Vietnam
War, itself a major battle in a larger war) covered almost the entire
century.
The first major war of the 21st Century is the war between Western
Judeo/Christian Civilization and Wahhabi Islam. It may last a few more
years, or most of this century. It will last until the Wahhabi branch
of Islam fades away, or gives up its ambitions for regional and global
dominance through Jihad, or until Western Civilization gives in to the
Jihad.
Some say we went to Iraq without the needed troop numbers. Indeed, one
senior general was forcibly retired because he claimed we needed more
troops. We went with the troop levels General Tommy Franks asked for.
We deposed Saddam in 30 days with light casualties, much lighter than
we expected.
The real problem in Iraq is that we are trying to be nice – we are
trying to fight a minority of the population that is Jihadi, and
trying to avoid killing the large majority that is not. We could
flatten Fallujah in minutes with a flight of B52s, or seconds with one
nuclear cruise missile – but we don’t. We’re trying to do brain
surgery, not amputate the patient’s head. The Jihadis amputate heads.
That we went to Iraq with too little planning is a specious argument.
It supposes that if we had just had the right plan the war would have
been easy, cheap, quick and clean.
That is not an option. It is a guerrilla war against a determined
enemy and no such war ever has been or ever will be easy, cheap,
quick, and clean. This is not TV.
That we proved ourselves incapable of governing and providing security
is also a specious argument. It was never our intention to govern and
provide security. It was our intention from the beginning to do just
enough to enable the Iraqis to develop a representative government and
their own military and police forces to provide their own security,
and that is happening. The US and the Brit’s and other countries there
have trained over 100,000 Iraqi police and military, now, and will
have trained more than 200,000 by the end of next year. We are in the
process of transitioning operational control for security back to
Iraq.
It will take time. It will not go with no hitches. Again, this is not
TV.
Remember, perspective is everything, and America’s schools teach too
little history for perspective to be clear, especially in the young
American mind.
The Cold war lasted from about 1947 at least until the Berlin Wall
came down in 1989. Forty-two years. Europe spent the first half of the
19th century fighting Napoleon, and from 1870 to 1945 fighting Germany.
World War II began in 1928, lasted 17 years, plus a ten year
occupation, and the US still has troops in Germany and Japan. World
War II resulted in the death of more than 50 million people, maybe
more than 100 million people, depending on which estimates you accept.
The US has taken a little more than 2,000 KIA in Iraq. The US took
more than 4,000 killed in action on the morning of June 6, 1944, the
first day of the Normandy Invasion to rid Europe of Nazi Imperialism.
In WWII the US averaged 2,000 KIA a week for four years. Most of the
individual battles of WWII lost more Americans than the entire Iraq
war has done so far.
But the stakes are at least as high . . . a world dominated by
representative governments with civil rights, human rights, and
personal freedoms . . . or a world dominated by the radical Islamic
Wahhabi movement, by the Jihadist under the Mullahs and the Sharia.
I do not understand why America does not grasp this.
They favor human rights, civil rights, liberty and freedom, but
evidently not for Iraqis. In America, absolutely, but nowhere else.
300,000 Iraqi bodies in mass graves in Iraq are not our problem. The
U.S. population is about twelve times that of Iraq, so let’s multiply
300,000 by twelve. What would you think if there were 3,600,000
American bodies in mass graves in America because of George Bush?
Would you hope for another country to help liberate America?
“Peace Activists” always seem to demonstrate where it’s safe – in
America. For this privilege, they should thank U.S. veterans.
Why don’t we see Peace Activists demonstrating in Iran, Syria, Iraq,
Sudan, North Korea, in the places in the world that really need peace
activism the most?
The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights,
democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., but if the Jihad wins,
wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights,
democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc. Americans who oppose the
liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst
enemy.
If the Jihad wins, it will be the death of Liberalism.
HEY ESKIMO…I DID ENLIST, US ARMY 2002, WHERE HAVE YOU SERVED???
March 29th, 2009 at 6:12 am
who do you think is gonna read your novel?
March 30th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Dude…this is way too long to read.
had it have been shorter and had a point, I may have argued it.
March 30th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
no you said it all and a little more than
April 2nd, 2009 at 6:33 am
Not me…too long to read it. I just want two points! Thanks
April 4th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
I started to read it, then got bored.
If you could cull it down to something readable, maybe an answer will be forthcoming.
April 6th, 2009 at 9:45 am
“sleeping soundly”
April 8th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
You got lost in your own Book.
April 10th, 2009 at 1:24 am
So what is your point Neo Nazi? You have all of the experience, and the knowledge. America is sick of your racism and bigotry to Americans. You will be gone in 178 days after the Democrats take back the Congress.
April 13th, 2009 at 5:54 am
No one will win.
April 13th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
.. I got about half way through, and realizing that I know the history of WWII already, gave up… I read a bit of the last though… why don’t you care about the 800,000 dead in darfur, or the estimated million dead in Korea?… where is your “freedom” for them?
Your argument is fundamentally flawed because you clearly have no care for atrocities that are much greater than those you cry about…
And let us not forget about the God only knows how many have died in China… the government Bush is very friendly with…
April 16th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Well Dude, I got extremely bored trying to read your book, but I’ll say this you should go into politics. I personally agreed with some of what you said but I’m not sure you have your facts exactly straight on a lot of it. The war in Iraq is slowly but surely dragging us down in this country just like the Vietnam War. I believe we should have knocked Hussein out of power and then declared victory and left Iraq and informed them to straighten out their own country. We need to become like we used to be and take care of the United States and our people instead of sending all our money overseas to countries who don’t even appreciate it.We have the power to defeat the Arabs without even going to war. We just need to create our own sources of energy and lessen our dependence on Arab oil. If we were to stop buying their oil they would more than likely see the light and stop all this jihad nonsense.
April 20th, 2009 at 5:17 am
1) America was never an isolationist nation as they sent the Marines in Haiti, The Dominican Republic, Panama (an earlier creation of the U.S. by the way), Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Cuba (just between the two world wars!) These interventions weren’t to spread freedom, in case you’d like to make that claim.
For someone who is so concerned with civil rights and the ideas of (new) liberalism, you are quite quick to suggest we snuff out other people’s rights.
2) Iran is not violating any treaty and the IAEA is still allowed in, as per agreements so they aren’t doing anything illegal. India was violating the NPT, yet we went over and struck a trade deal with them and offered to give them nuclear technology.
3) Iran has a government and a people that are not some crazy idiots (but they all look the same to you, don’t they?) You are fearful of a beligerant, semi-religious nutcase with nuclear weapons who has attacked others? Look at our own government. Last time I checked, Iran hasn’t started any wars recently. Our guy thinks he’s on a mission from God and has thousands of nukes behind him but you’re scared of the second or third best military in the Middle East?
4) Of course, you’re doing the appeaser tirade. What/who are we appeasing? A country that has done nothing to us, and a country that had a democratically elected leader that the U.S. overthrew in the 1970′s?
5) Since WWII, every leader that conservatives don’t like is put into the framework of Hitler. Saddam was Hitler, Noreaga was Hitler, Bin Laden is Hitler, Ahmadinejad is now Hitler. Funny how Batista (dictator in Cuba), and Pinochet (dictator in Chile), Saddam or Noreaga weren’t Hitlers when we were supporting them. Ever see the photograph with Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam?
6) By your appeasement logic, if we don’t automatically (right now!!!) attack anyone, anywhere that has the possibility of hurting the U.S. in some way at any point in time, then we are appeasers. So we should have nuked the USSR in 1947, and China afterwards, and India, then Britain, then Brazil, and then Austrailia. Then ourselves, because one day we might be dangrous to ourselves.
7) Comparing the numbers of soldiers dead in Iraq and in World War II is silly as they are vastly different in terms of tactics, territory, technology…everything. Hence, the comparison is brittle at best.
9) Why don’t you enlist? Oh yeah, if you’re young, you can’t or you’re not able or you’re in school or they don’t really need anyone but if they did then you’d go! If you’re old, boy you really wish you could, huh? Well, then go as a volunteer for the Red Cross, or just get a gun and start freeing Iraqi’s with “freedom bullets.”
10) You must be a soldier in the 101st Fighting Keyboarders.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:58 pm
I happen to agree with most of what you say. Unfortunately, most of the people on here have no attention span. Just look at the answers. This issue is too involved for most to comprehend, and that is the sad truth. Eskimo, I can understand your point of view. But if you think this country will ever be completely snow white in regards to our decisions, policies, etc. towards every country in the world your crazy. Sure we’ve made mistakes, are making mistakes, and will make more. But please don’t discount the threat of militant Islamic fundamentalism. And underestimate how much a tragedy it will be to leave it unchecked. Your “what have they done to us” argument doesn’t work. Read what these militants believe. Are Bin Laden, Zarqawi, Al Zawahiri, and the rest just blowing smoke? Do you discount what the leaders of Iran have publicly stated on a number of occasion? They want an Islamic Empire, and our way of life doesn’t fit in it. Iran has sponsored, helped plan, or assisted in every major act of islamic terrorism against the U.S. What will they carry out with nukes? i don’t want to find out.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:56 am
I hope you feel better after posting all that.
I admire you posting it here, and EVERYONE here needed to read that. But most will take one look and say, “Whoa- too long” or you’ll get a response along the lines of “I farted.” There are better forums for this. Or maybe not- as I said, everyone should read that. Up until now, I thought Wahhabi was the green mustard that came with my sushi. But no, this isn’t the time for jokes.
You are right about nearly everything. A couple of minor points:
Claiming the Jihadi will “fade away” or that Iraq will ever be a “stable, peaceful, democratic” anything is pretty much at odds with the rest of your thesis. The extremists (and all extremists aren’t terrorists) will always be around in one form or another to cause one kind of trouble or other.
What you’re proposing, in shorthand, is genocide. We have to wipe out all the terrorists everywhere permanently, because if just one of them gets nuclear capability, then their beliefs pretty much require them to gloriously suicide and take as many of their enemies as they can with them. I can understand this point of view. But America has never been good with genocide. We care too much about what others think, about having allies. Even if you can get everyone on board with war, genocide is a pretty hard sell.
There are those who figured that’s what Bush had in mind all along- that Afghanistan & Iraq were supposed to be the first stops in a military world tour that was to include Syria, Iran, and North Korea. Do you think it’s coincidence that Libya surrendered while we had troops parked down the block from them?
And, in a way, that’s the right thinking. Because as long as Iran, North Korea, WHOEVER still has nuke capabilities and doesn’t play by the “Safe Sane Consensual” rules that civilized nations use (and no one can convince me that Iran’s leadership or Kim Jong Il is anything but nuts) then you have to take them out, or its only a matter of time before they want to play nuclear russian roulette. Peace demands an end to hostility, and the end of enemies requires conquest.
But then, here we are, sending our bad-ass military all over the world to..um…conquer it. And who does that sound like? (hint: you mentioned it only a thousand times in your thesis).
In the Art of War, Sun Tzu said never to trap your enemy, surrounded and with no way out. He will fight with the strength of desperation, making a last stand and inflicting grueling casualties. Always leave the appearance of one way open, and you can continue to chase, harass, and engage as your enemy is moved along that path.
If we start on conquest, we pretty much have to finish it, or else enemies will appear from nowhere, alarmed at our actions & attacking in “self-defense”. So you are talking genocide in the long run. And genocide is a tough sell.
Because Americans, God bless ‘em, are given to compassion.
We are a Christian nation, and forgiveness is woven right into our souls. Genocide is a necessity, compassion is a luxury. You’re eventually going to try to pit our basic survival instinct against our higher ideals. One protects the body, but the other nourishes the soul. Who can look into the mirror and say, “we survived- but what did we have to do to accomplish that?” The Jihadi have no trouble with this. Their strength doesn’t lie in compassion. That’s why THEY”RE THE BAD GUYS. And it’s why they’re going to lose.
We’re trying to set up democracy in Iraq. Eventually everywhere, but right now, Iraq. And we aren’t going to get customers at the democracy shop if we’re no better than the Jihadi we’re fighting. But to wipe them out, we’d have to be.
The peace-nik protesting hippie scum you’re down on right now? That’s freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly. It’s part of the democracy package upgrade we’re trying to install in Iraq.
And you know what? It’s good for us. Seriously. Follow:
By showing Iraq that not everyone in America agrees, but everyone STILL HAS A VOICE, we’re showing how much better we are than Saddam. Don’t like the war? Think 2000+ in American blood is too high a price? In America- YOU CAN SAY THAT. In Saddam’s Iraq, it was the anonymous grave or Abu-Ghraib. We’re better. America rocks.
I personally always thought that our big win in Iraq wasn’t going to be in amassing a huge kill-list of bad guys. What’s going to change Iraq is them seeing our women in uniform, serving in the military along with the men.
In America- we treat our women as EQUALS, not as property. Pretty cool, huh? And of course, the Iraqi men might not think so. But the Iraqi women just might. The win here isn’t the body count. It’s the spread of ideas. It’s them getting to see real Americans close up (and trying to kill them) and seeing them as PEOPLE, not as a faceless enemy stitched together by rumors and propaganda.
Our compassion. Our freedoms. Our sense of humor. Pants on women. These are our strengths.
You know what won’t win this for us? Pessimism.
You have given the BEST WRITTEN essay against optimism I have read in a long time. Everything you said was unmistakably true. There are people who want us dead.
People I’ve never met want me dead. Just for being American. Just for being a woman who doesn’t cover her hair or avert her gaze or whatever the heck I’m supposed to do.
That’s a pretty good case for pessimism.
It’s a solid argument for “Kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out” strategy (shorthand- Genocide).
It’s a check in the box marked “paranoia”. Definitely.
There’s a different way. Optimism. Compassion. Sharing, caring, peaceful tree-hugging hippie crap.
So, which do we go with? Well, both.
The BEST THING about America, is even though no one here can agree with anyone else here, WE DON’T HAVE TO to get along, to function as a country. We have enough people- AND enough freedom- that some can go do the pessimism thing and kill bad guys, and some can go do the optimism thing and try to spread ideas and ideals and promote understanding, and some can stay at home on their safe couches and debate who’s “right” on the internet.
We’re BOTH right. And we have to try it both ways. Because as you pointed out, the pivotal moments are dicey things.
And not all of them make the papers. Sometimes the most pivotal moments take place in a person’s mind or a change of heart. So, where do you want to aim? And what ammo do you use? I know which way I’m going.
April 26th, 2009 at 10:04 am
The liberal mentality is supposed to favor human rights, civil rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc., but if the Jihad wins, wherever the Jihad wins, it is the end of civil rights, human rights, democracy, multiculturalism, diversity, etc. Americans who oppose the liberation of Iraq are coming down on the side of their own worst enemy.
If the Jihad wins, it will be the death of Liberalism.
You’re right.
April 27th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
I have mixed feelings about your numerous points (some I agree with, some I don’t some). You refer to history a lot, so you should probably try to get your facts right.
- First off, you constantly mention Ireland as fighting with the Allies during World War Two. IRELAND DID NOT FIGHT IN WORLD WAR TWO, it was officially neutral and sat the entire war out. It may not be central to your arguements, but it undermines your overall credibility.
- You may not like the French, but let’s be fair… the Vichy government was a puppet government setup and ran by the Nazi after they overran France. It was not elected by the French people and could hardly be said to represent them. Before France fell, its armies fought hard against the Nazi and many French citizens risked their lives with the resistance during occupation.
- You mention Japan invading China, but then fail to list China among those that fought the Axis. Also (as long as you are counting British Commonwealth countries separate from England itself) why no mention of India. Many Indians and Chinese fought and died in the war (far more then Irish
).
- Comparing Saddam’s Iraq to Nazi Germany in terms of its ability to take over the world is simply crazy. Nazi Germany was a large, first rate industrial nation whose army and technology was equal to (or better) than any other country in the world at the time. It was a Super Power. Iraq (even at its prime) was a relatively small poor third world country who had to import second rate equipment from other countries because it could not built any itself. Iraq was not even able to defeat Iran in the Iraq-Iran War despite Iran being disorganzied by revolution.
Iraq was a threat to its neighbors, but considering they did not even really have a Navy, do you honestly think they were going to invade and take over the United States? No Middle Eastern country has the numbers or technology to invade and take over the United States, end our freedoms, and put us all under the rule of Islam (that is just silly). Even if they got the bomb, we would not surrender and have their soldiers marching down our streets (if that were the case, the Soviet Union and/or China could have done so).
The only organization in the world right now with the numbers, economy, power and technology to limit the freedoms of American citizens is our own government. Other countries might hurt us, but none could realistically take over the US and put us all under their rule.
Of course, any country in the world has the power to cause hurt and kill American citizens. Protecting our lives and safety is very important and a valid reason for military action (freedom does not mean much if you are dead), but safety and SECURITY IS NOT THE SAME THING AS FREEDOM. Some of the most authoritarian and overbearing countries in recent history also had some of the lowest crime and murder rates in the world (usually lower than in the US). Freedom usually implies a certain amount of risk and safety and security usually implies a certain loss of freedom. I am not against fighting for security and safety, but let’s be clear about what we are fighting for in the War on Terrorism – it is safety and security, not freedom and liberty.
Lastly, without rehashing the debate about how much Saddam was or was not involved with international terrorism, it was obvious that whatever the involvement, it was much less than many other countries in the region. Most of the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia, Bin Ladin their leader was from Saudi Arabia, and the Wahhabi movement which you identify as one of the prime inspirations of terrorism was founded in Saudi Arabia. NO COUNTRY IN THE WORLD HAD MORE TIES TO 9/11 THAN SAUDI ARABIA AND YET THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION CONTINUES TO SWEEP IT UNDER THE RUG IN THE BIGGEST ACT OF APPEASMENT IN THIS COUNTRY’S HISTORY.
To use your World War comparison, what if on Dec 7, 1941 an aide and rushed into the President’s office and said “Japanese planes flown by Japanese pilots have just dropped Japanese bombs on Pearl Harbor!” and the President said, “We must do something! Let’s declare war on Bolivia!”. It would be considered crazy and yet that is what happened with Iraq.
After Saudi Arabia, the country that has supplied the most terrorist leaders and supporters is Egypt and we continue to give them billions in US tax dollars. We went after Iraq not because they supported terrorism, but because it was the easiest target in the region due to its political isolation from surrounding countries and the general disdain of many of its citizens.
Now I know (and agree) that it is a complicated situation. The official governments of these countries try to be friendly (or at least civil) with the US (though they are hardly nice democracies either). The governments of both Saudi and Egypt are sitting on a hostile population which contains many people who support terrorism. We can’t attack those terrorists directly without upseting the somewhat friendly goverments on top of them and risking a worse government replacing them (which is also why we are really in no hurry to see true democracies in those countries either). It is a difficult situation, but let’s not pretend that it does not exist.
We went into Iraq not becuase it was major supporter of anti-US terrorism (it was not compared to other countries in the area), but because we thought it was the easiest target to bump-off (weakened by sanctions, hated by its own people – and most importantly – isolated from other countries in the region because of the Iran and Kuwait Wars). The main goal (certainly now) of going into Iraq is to setup a successful democratic, safe, properous nation and hope that its appeal will cause those movements to spread to surrounding countries (like Western Europe did to eastern Europe during the Cold War). It is not the worst plan in the world and not without merit, but it is no slam-dunk (as we are learning).
As we debate this complex region with often hazy boundries between friends and foes, lets at least be honest about the complexity of the situation and get our facts straight.
May 1st, 2009 at 1:36 am
Where is you’re point where is you’re question?