If you want to do something big in the ME, then do something big peacefully.
Let me take you back to 1938-39, or thereabouts. Hitler was marching across Europe and it appeared that he might be unstoppable. Many in France and other Western countries, were advocating peace treaties with Hitler and believed that the hawks were just bloodthirsty lunatics. A few including Winston Churchill knew that the monster could not be appeased and tried to rally the rest of the world against Hitler to no avail. Why? Because many did not recognize evil when they saw it and felt that the path of least resistance would result in the fewest lives lost. How incredibly wrong they were!
You know, MM, its like all the hawks refer to the same special history book written just for them. First, Hitler was marching across Europe; Saddam was marching nowhere.......he was safely contained. Secondly, Hitler's had an expansionist possible that was not stopped in any way. Saddam's expansionist plans had been thwarted in 1991. We did not repeat past mistakes. When Saddam misbehaved, we slapped him hard.
There is no question that Hitler was evil and did not at all reflect his neighborhood. If Saddam was evil, it was a lesser evil.......more in keeping with the neighborhood in which he came of age.
Just for the record, the Turks have killed as many if not more Kurds as Saddam. Ditto for the Iranians. That kind of behavior is endemic to the ME as it stands today. Hitler's genocide against the Jews, Gypsies and gays was not typical of 1930's Europe.
If we don't learn the lessons of history, then we are doomed to repeat them. Hitler was a fascist monster. Muslim Fundamentalism is a resurgence of fascism in the form of a religion, which makes it even MORE dangerous given that there is no gov't to strike and we live in a world where PC taboos have made it difficult to fight a religion.
Which lesson do we need to learn? The one having to do with Hitler, or the one more current and more applicable IMO: Vietnam?
So when I see posts like the one in italics above, I see well-meaning Americans, who are hopelessly naive. This is a monster we are facing and there is no peaceful response to fundamental Islam that will result in minimizing the number of Americans or other innocent lives being lost. The best and only response to militant Islam is to fight it with all of our diplomatic, economic, and military power, allied with aid of all of our friends, and to do so relentlessly. I believe fighting through economics would have achieved longer lasting results. But I was never under the illusion that it would never come to a military response.
I am growing increasingly suspicious that the monster we face is ourselves. We talk a good game; give speeches that are heavily sprinkled with words like democracy, freedom for all, and God but some of our actions over the past 50 years suggest a different mindset.
If there is a monster in the ME, it is OBL. To confuse him with anyone esle is attempt to start needless trouble IMO.
That is where we differ. The use of our military against elements in the Middle East was inevitable the minute Osama bombed New York. If it wasn't Iraq, then it would have been at a time and place of Osama's choosing. I'm glad we chose the battlefield instead. I just wish we had more inspired leaders in place to handle the longer term elements of this struggle.
Use our military against our enemy, OBL, and not what we consider to be his facsimiles: Iran, Iraq, or the latest dictatorial flavor of the week.
Bottomline: Saddam, his attitudes and his behavior very much reflect Iraq and the ME. One of many mistakes the US has made in this war was thinking that Saddam was an aberration; that Iraqis, in reality, were middle class, well educated and most ready for democracy. Instead, we are learning that Saddam very much reflected his people and we are paying a dear price for not seeing that reflection before we attacked.
ted |
