"What's it going to take for people to realize that this is battle of good against evil, just as real as the one we waged against Japan, Germany, and the cold war against the USSR.... "
It would be nice if that were so. That is certainly the attempted characterization by Taleban and our honorable and eager warriors.
Unfortunately, the comparison doesn't fit.
This enemy is not sovereign. They do not need to be a large, well-funded group to cause the kind of damage we have seen, and more. They are millions of muggers, and thousands of suicide-oriented combatants, looking for heaven, learning from us, and being supported by us, through oil income and direct payments (such as $43 mill to the Taleban in May of this year).
Regardless of the war abroad, the action to be concerned about is here at home. "Rooting out" bad guys around the world is a fine ideal, but won't substitute for aggressive homeland defense. In fact, we can never be sure it has been done. There is no sovereign country to sign a "Peace Declaration", and declare peace. We will have to acknowledge this sooner or later. This is not a problem that will go away just because we've bombed some cities, or killed some presumed leaders.
Yes, Bin Laden declared war on us, and in spite of our ignorance and incompetence in recognizing that, we now need to reciprocate, both for our good and the good of other countries held hostage, to the extent we can. My point isn't that the fat is now in the fire. It is our involvement in the first place.
Your comparison does not hold. With WWII Japan and Germany, we did not support their initial combat by sending in troops, munitions, and support. They needed to be defeated, but not due to our involvement.
That is not the case here. We stuck our nose into various civil and holy wars, and they have now come home to roost.
Your argument is that it would have happened anyway. I don't think so. We have fed these disputes with funding, and, unlike WWII Germany, they would have petered out, and been unable to hold hostage other countries without the billions in support we provided. The funding they get from their "occupied" countries is off by an effective homeland defense, and worldwide financial monitoring. Unlike Japan and Germany they don't have a constituent homeland industry that feeds them, other than grants and gifts from us and our enemies.
If we pull out of Saudi Arabia and Israel, the only weapon those countries have to hold us hostage and force us to be their allies in their holy and civil wars is oil. That we can refuse, and act militarily only if we get attacked (like now). That is a vastly different policy than we have been taking.
Eventually, our cultural and financial influence will be ubiquitous, which, in fact, it is already. We don't need to get involved in every countries internal military affairs, if we can defend ourselves, and have the discipline and public common sense to avoid it. It is hard to resist the call to arms, and we shouldn't when attacked. We should, however, think twice about all of the foreign battles that have cost us dearly in the past, ostensibly for "their own good". Those are, in fact, mercenary wars, suitable for mercenaries, not our government. |
