You know the Cold War and the War on Terrorism are excellent comparisons. We won the Cold War for many reasons. We won the war of ideas. Our system of government and economics was superior to Communism, was less corrupt, and resulted in a society free from oppression that generated more wealth, which ennabled us to build up a fearsome military to counter Communist power.
In the War on Terror, we have several problems. We're not winning the war of ideas. Muslims are not convinced the Western freedom is superior to the confines of Islam. They hate despotism, yet they don't want to move to a secular society as well. I'd say they want to land somewhere between what they have now and what we have in the U.S. France and the like are completely secularist. The U.S. is actually closer to Muslim culture, in that the large majority of the U.S. believes in a society grounded in religious principles (the minority secularist movement notwithstanding). Shows you how much Bush has failed to bridge the gap between East and West.
Also, we're not winning the economic war. Muslim despots have an enormous supply of oil wealth, which they skim straight off of our hard labor. They are free to increase the tax on us if they wish. For all practical purposes, the West has done nothing more than enslaved ourselves through oil, as a new age kind of serf to our Oil Masters.
So this war on terror may be as long as the Cold War and ultimately, I think it may cost more lives. This truly is a clash of civilizations: East and West, old and new, religious and secular.
Hopefully, some Abraham Lincolns and Ghandis arise to steer the world forward through this mess. Out of the current batch of world leaders, only Tony Blair stands out as a true stateman to me. The rest (Bush, Chirac, Schroeder, Khameni, Assad, etc) are all buffoons. |
