The problem is that people, especially Americans, want simple answers to complex problems. We mouth clichĆ©s like ĀTax the RichĀ without understanding the economics of taxation and ĀExit StrategyĀ without understanding the intricacies of Middle Eastern politics while pretending these and similar catch phrases have some sort of mystical power to change reality. They donĀt.
The fact is this is not the time to ask if we belong in Iraq regardless of if you agree with our presence there or not. IĀm not saying this for jingoistic reasons as IĀm not prone to spouting platitudes like ĀAmerica: Love it or leave it.Ā In fact I loathe that kind of unthinking commitment to any cause. However due to the overwhelmingly complex nature of the Middle East and itĀs history the time to have asked this question was Ā before Ā we went in. At the time both sides of the aisle said, ĀyesĀ but now weĀre starting to second-guess ourselves. This is not a good idea in any situation but this is especially true in dealing with the Middle East. Not only that but it completely screws our global reputation. We donĀt want the rest of the world to say, ĀThe US will start something but when it gets tough theyĀll scomper off.Ā Vietnam did enough damage to our credibility we donĀt need to compound it by following it up with half-measures in Iraq. It is entirely inconceivable how bad it would be to leave at this point. Essentially weĀve committed ourselves to open heart surgery and half way through the procedure weĀre getting Ācold feetĀ and want to quit. This is bad for the doctor, bad for the patient, and bad for everyone involved. As much as I hate loosing soldiers the effects of leaving would result in far more deaths in a far shorter period of time. Remember weĀve lost around 2,000 men in the years since we invaded Iraq while we lost over 3,000 people in a single day on September 11, 2001. If loosing a couple hundred people a year trying to rehabilitate the Middle East saves thousands, hundreds-of-thousands, or even millions of lives in the long run then I think it is a cause that warrants our support.
The thing I love about this Iraq situation is that people in the US, much less around the world, are silly enough to think we had a choice once we got the intelligence that they were trying to build a nuke. Now I'm not a big fan of Baby Bush but you try playing president under the following circumstance:
1. 9/11/01 just happened
2. You get intelligence that Iraq is trying to purchase fissionable material that can be used in the construction of a nuclear device. (This turned out to be false but Bush didnĀt know this until after we invaded Ā he didnĀt lie Ā we were duped - to be honest IĀm not sure which is worse).
3. You know that Uncle Ronny and Daddy Bush (idiots) sold technology to make chemical and biological weapons to Iraq back in the 80Ās and Saddam used them in the Iran / Iraq war (we know they had WOMDĀs because Ā weĀre - the ones that gave them to them in the first place).
4. Iraqi reports to the UN demonstrate that even by their own estimates thousands of gallons of chemical and biological agents are unaccounted for (these likely ended up being accidentally / intentionally dumped into the local water supply via the Tigris / Euphrates rivers which explains elevated levels of birth defects found down stream from these depots).
5. Saddam is putting out speeches about (paraphrase) the "heroes of 9/11" that this is "Only the beginning" and other inflammatory rhetoric designed to stoke Islamic hatred.
6. UN weapons inspectors found hundreds of shells filled with mustard gas that Iraq denied having. Tests on these shells indicated the weapons were still over 90% effective even though they were vintage shells stockpiled since World War II.
7. How any of you can want such an evil man like Saddam in power to stop "anarchy" is beyond me. Saddam is the worst type of person, he killed close to a million people. He didn't just rule with an iron fist, he killed people who were innocent. His all-time favorite idol was Joseph Stalin, as if that is anything of a suprise.
Some of you say that there is a high amount of Iraq casuality in Iraq, but the truth is it doesn't come near to the amount of people Saddam killed and the many more people he would have killed if he was still in power.
He has been killing ever since he was a kid. He killed if first man when he 10 years old believe it or not. The more you study Saddam the more you see this guy was as worse as Hitler and Stalin! Yes he did not kill as much people, but that is because he did not have the area of land that the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany have. If he did he would have had as much killing IMHO. And unlike Stalin and Hitler, he actually witnessed many of the crimes he committed and almost enjoyed watching the death, sorrow, and destruction.
Right now the US is facing vile evil that is trying to threaten the peace of the Iraqis but when it is all set and done Iraq will live in peace as a democracy. It will take time but if we give up now or never tried at all many more people would have been killed under the radicals threatening or even worse, Saddam!
This is only a fraction of the situation but it will suffice. So with all this in mind and even more than IĀve outlined Bush is faced with two options:
1. Invade and make sure the WOMDĀs are secured and if they donĀt exist he gets egg on his face.
2. Not invade but if Baby Bush ignores all of this and Iraq walks a nuke across our exceedingly porous (essentially unpatrolled) Southern boarder and turns LA, Chicago, or some other city or cities into radioactive craters it would be what we in science call Ābad.Ā
So he didnĀt have a choice. I would have made the same call, as would anyone with a measurable IQ, so it didnĀt matter who was in the White House Ā it had to happen. Bush, Gore, Kerry, Hilary Clinton or even Teddy FĀing Kennedy would have had to do the exact same thing and gotten the exact same egg on their face. If weĀre going to kick Bush for something letĀs kick him for something he actually has some control over like his FĀd up domestic policies or that fact that he ignores the illegal immigration problem. Iraq is a nonsequitur.
In the scheme of things freeing the Iraqi people from Saddam is really unimportant. ĀOperation Iraqi FreedomĀ is nothing but an excuse after the fact in an attempt to reduce the size of the omelet cooking on Baby BushĀs face due to the lack of WOMDĀs. Now hereĀs the kicker. If Bush had advisors with two brain cells in their heads they would tell him to quit squirming around trying to minimize the blame and take a page out of TrumanĀs book by stepping up and saying, ĀThe Buck Stops Here.Ā Every time he opens his mouth about Iraq he sound like a kid making excuses for getting bad grades on his report card. He needs to get that stupid smirk off of his face and talk clearly, plainly, and sincerely about the Middle East as a whole and our future in that region. We Ā canĀt Ā get out of Iraq, much less the Middle East because Ā they wonĀt let us. Until someone points out this incredibly salient fact then the debate about Āgetting outĀ will continue as if it has some importance while in reality it is entirely pointless. We went in and now weĀre stuck. In fact, weĀve been stuck with this since the BrittĀs promised the Jews their own homeland in the Middle East after World War I and our debt has only grown since then because weĀve kept putting off the inevitable but no one has either the intelligence or intestinal fortitude to point this out so people think the superficial issues the talking heads keep yammering about are important when theyĀre simply a canard.
Before someone brings up ĀUS greed for OilĀ it has nothing to do with ĀUS greed for Oil.Ā We get around 10% of our oil from the Middle East and we could easily cover this loss using domestic sources (around 50% of US oil consumption) or with imports from Canada and Latin America (around 30% of US oil consumption). On the other hand Europe gets around 35% of its oil from the Middle East while Japan gets around 75% (maybe more) of itĀs oil from the Middle East. Now for those not keeping up on current events Japan and Germany make up the second and third largest economies on Earth. What happens if these economies loose access to oil on such a grand scale? HereĀs a clue: Global Economic Disaster. So it isnĀt just the US that benefits from stability in the Middle East. Is it ĀaltruismĀ that leads the US to take a stand? Nope. Just a healthy dose of self-interest since weĀre the ones that are going to have to pull everyoneĀs fat out of the fire after the fact if we allow things to fall into the crapper. It appears that World War II finally taught the US that it is better to take a proactive approach than a reactive one. Thank the Supreme Being, whoever he (she?) is. If Europe doesnĀt like it, screw them. The last intelligent idea that came out of Europe predates Constantine (with the notable exception of England electing Churchill Prime Minster Ā see they can make a good decision). This isnĀt a case of ĀManifest Destiny.Ā The US doesnĀt want Iraq we just want to send a message to the Islamic nutters that every time you F with us weĀre going to invade a Muslim nation and turn the Mosques into McDonalds. If they want to fight a cultural war weĀre going to win because our culture is more appealing and they know it, which is why they hate us so much. Give a kid the choice between a pair of loose fit Blue Jeans and a Burqua the answer is guaranteed 99.99% of the time with the other .01% representing the suicide bomber demographic. The war on terror isnĀt going to be won with weapons; it is going to be won by indoctrinating them into the global socioeconomic culture that is currently run by Europe and the US. Why do you think Osama chose the World Trade Center? Do you think heĀs is an idiot? He may be a fanatic but heĀs a damned smart fanatic. Never underestimate the enemy.
For those that want to pull out of Iraq the fact is that we canĀt without making the situation worse. All it will do is embolden the terrorist fringe by giving them a Āvictory.Ā The only way we can win in Iraq is to turn it into a paradise that other countries in the region aspire to duplicate while also sending a clear message to the region that when you kick the US weĀll cut off your head and maybe someone elseĀs while weĀre at it. Two Islamic centers of power were crushed after 9/11. What do you think OsamaĀs opinions are on the matter? Do you think he feels better or worse? Sure he dealt a blow to the ĀGreat SatanĀ but the ĀGreat SatanĀ evicted the Taliban from control of Afghanistan and installed a friendly government as well as getting rid of Saddam and enforcing our influence on Iraq while just about every other nation in the region is doing Olympic level political gymnastics to make us happy. He did far more to damage fundamentalist Islamic control in the Middle East by initiating 9/11 than he did to the US by blowing up a couple of buildings. Did anyone see Yasser Arafat on 9/12? He looked like someone had kicked him in the nads. HeĀs also one of the few Islamic leaders that admonished his people not to celebrate the attack. Guess why? Because he knew what was coming. He spent his entire life kicking the crap out of Israel while tying the hands of the US in a Gordian knot in the UN and Osama showed up and cut through all his work in a single stroke. The IsraeliĀs should build a shrine to him. As long as the Muslims were blowing up inside of Israel the US and the rest of the world really didnĀt care but once 9/11 happened it gave the US Carte Blanch to do whatever we damn well pleased. Yasser didnĀt want the Palestinians to be part of the collateral damage but it was too late. By removing US pressure on Israel not to retaliate in force when some Palestinian suicide bomber blew up it gave the IsraeliĀs an excuse to invade Palestine (which is why Yasser spent the last months of his life hiding under a desk with Israeli tanks surrounding his compound), build the ĀGreat Wall of JudeaĀ, and pretty much justify anything they want to do in the name of Āsecurity against terrorist action.Ā The ĀfunnyĀ thing will be if these Islamic nutters actually do manage to do something substantive such as setting off a nuke somewhere. At that point it will galvanize the world to such a point that just about any counter atrocity will be justified. What happens after that? IĀm thinking pretty much every flavor of bad there is.
As to World War II, Churchill was worried about the Germans until the US got into the war which is why he spent a great deal of time from 1939 to 1941 pestering Roosevelt to come up with an excuse Ā any excuse Ā to get into the war. As it was even Churchill said it was a near thing and he was happy to see Hitler attack Russia rather than crossing the channel. While you can point to many lucky breaks we got over the course of the war, one of the biggest was Hitler abandoning Sea Lion and initiating Barbarosa. If you donĀt agree all you need to do is come up with a source that would be considered better informed about the British situation than Winston Churchill. Strangely, I canĀt think of anyone that I would consider more authoritative in regard to that particular topic.
If the Russians had decided to put an end to the Allies in Western Europe things would have been bad. In the short term Russia likely could have overwhelmed Allied forces in Continental Europe but I donĀt think they could have taken out England since they didnĀt have a navy worth discussing and the allied air force was far superior to anything Russia could have mustered. Meanwhile the US was out producing the rest of the world combined and only had a fraction of the number of men under arms that we could have put on the field. I think we had something like 16 million men under arms by the end of the war (most of which never saw action) but under duress I see no reason that the US couldnĀt have conscripted multiples of this number if they were needed. By the time Russia became a problem we were already mopping up the Japanese so they wouldnĀt have been a concern. However the US supplying China with weapons would certainly have been very bad news for the Russians (IĀm also wondering what it would have done to the internal struggle against MaoĀs communists? Who knows what the world would look like if that had happened?). It seems likely to me that if the Russians had proven to be a serious threat rather than testing Little Boy on Hiroshima, Moscow would have been the preferred target. I leave it to you to decide what this would have done to Russian morale but IĀm thinking the loss of the capital along with Joey Stalin in addition to their inability to defend against such an attack while lacking such a devastating weapon in their own arsenal would have put an end to any expansionistic aspirations the Red Army might have held. It is quite possible that if Stalin had made this decision that it would have resulted in the defeat of Communism in the Soviet Union and / or the strengthening of the Democratic government in China thus preventing Mao from taking control. I wonder what the world would look like in such an alternate reality? One can only wonder.
