 |
What They've Thought
|
||||
|
|
||||
What They Thought July 23, 2006 Alan
Caruba Click here for columnist bios |
|||||
We are beginning to see the national debate about what to do in the Middle East shape up into fairly specific sides. I call them the “Do it now” crowd and the “Do it later” crowd. One can cite history to support either side. The “Do it now” crowd these days are called “neoconservatives” and they are led by people like Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, a respected forum that makes ordinary Republicans look like wimps. Arguing for “Do it later” is George Wills, a respected conservative Washington Post syndicated columnist. It should be noted that there is also a “Let’s not do anything” or a “Let’s run away” crowd who are called liberals and/or Democrats. Maybe it’s just a trick of my imagination, but I seem to recall Americans of all descriptions just loving those images on television after 9-11 of the U.S. bombing the hell out of Afghanistan’s Tora Bora region where Osama bin Laden was said to be hiding or, better still, driving our tanks into downtown Baghdad. Later we found Saddam Hussein hiding in a hole in the ground. Perhaps the most powerful argument for “Doing it now” is the fact that it’s been five years since 9/11 and the U.S. has not experienced another comparable attack. Keeping al Qaeda on the run, killing its leaders, and playing havoc with its funding was, in retrospect, probably a good idea. Now the images on television are of war in Israel and Lebanon. Israel has been the subject of attacks since the day it declared its independence in 1948. It took awhile for the message to sink in, but its neighbors eventually figured out that massing armies on its borders was a very bad idea. They switched to a low-level war involving suicide bombers and rockets. Imagine how long we would patiently deal with Canada if it was rocketing our cities and towns across that border? The “Do it now” crowd is now rooting for Israel to get rid of Hezbollah in Lebanon; mostly Palestinians who took up residence there after previously losing encounters with Israel and Jordan. First thing they did, of course, was to lay waste to Lebanon with a fifteen-year civil war pitting Muslims against Christians. Having no idea what peace is, other than the total destruction of Israel, Palestinians and other Arabs are once again learning what a bad idea it is to provoke yeshiva boys. In Gaza, Hamas—another group of unhappy Palestinians—is also getting shot up by the Israelis. The Israeli’s “Do it now” crowd has concluded that waiting around for peace with Palestinians is a bad idea and a higher level of payback may prove palliative. All of which brings us to our “Do it later” crowd who advise that waiting is just as good an idea, particularly as regards Iran who everyone knows is developing its own nuclear weapons capability. By way of a reminder, it was Iranians who in 1979 invaded the U.S. embassy in Tehran, seized our diplomats, and held them hostage for 444 days. It can be argued that most Iranians are being held hostage, but the funding and arming of Hezbollah comes from Iran. The “Do it later” crowd always proudly points to how we patiently waited for the former Soviet Union to implode. The problem with that argument is that we also engaged in several proxy wars with them. Owing to Red China’s intervention, the best the U.S. could achieve was a stalemate in Korea and now we are stuck with a loony dictator in the north who has missiles and nukes. Then there was that nastiness in Vietnam. Despite that loss the U.S. stayed busy sending troops to various places for the purpose of peacekeeping or swatting bad guys in Grenada, Panama, and Haiti. In 1983 Hezbollah blew up several hundred U.S. Marines who were in Beirut on a peacekeeping mission. After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, we funded and equipped Muslim holy warriors to drive out the Russians, thus helping to bring about the downfall of the Soviet Union. The Muslims, however, became al Qaeda and showed their gratitude by destroying the World Trade Center, flying a commercial jet into the Pentagon, and killing some 3,000 Americans. The problem with waiting for Iran to become a nuclear power is that the leaders of Iran keep saying crazy things and promising to do crazy things. Even Arabs, no slouches when it comes to crazy, think the Persian, albeit Muslim, Iranians are really crazy. So, while the warnings and recommendations of the “Do it later” crowd sound like a good idea, they rarely are. History is filled with examples of why “Do it now” is a better idea because failure to respond to Big Trouble almost always results in Even Bigger Trouble. Every generation of Americans has had to learn this lesson. The nation has always been sharply divided over questions of war. This is what we pay Presidents to decide. After 9-11, we wanted the President to punish al Qaeda and, somewhat reluctantly, we agreed to his getting rid of a murderous despot in Iraq. Then we wanted that war to be over in two weeks. History is rarely so accommodating. Wars tend to be very messy and this is especially true of the years after victory is declared. Militarily, we are still in Europe since the end of World War II in 1945. We are still in South Korea since 1953. War is transformative and, even the most cursory look back at the past half-century or so reveals that the U.S. has benefited itself and much of the world by opposing evil. Wherever the forces of evil may be and whomever they might call themselves, we still need to be able to “Do it now” because power-crazed lunatics will always find an excuse to make trouble. As we debate whether to “Do it now” or “Do it later” regarding the Iranian mullahs, perhaps we should recall British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who, after negotiating with Adolph Hitler, returned home to proclaim “peace in our time.” |
|||||
For those who look to the Mid-East for some signs of civility or as a minimum a willingness to talk in a straightforward manner, one only has to look at the last elections in Iran. Here we have a guy who has openly stated that his ultimate intent is to burn Israel off of the map. Then we have the nice people in the Palestinian terrortories, occasionally known as territories, who voted in Hamas as their new ruling political party? They have the exact same view as that nice guy over there in Iran. Iran has now decided to begin threatening the United States. I’m not too surprised at the number of clowns who are emailing me and saying those threats are Israel’s fault. I would like to add that there is one and only one who is emailing me with ridiculous comments like that. He reminds me of the media in a way: Somehow one point echoed over and over is supposed to make up for a lack of thought. The media tends to act like that also, and right now they seem to be once again on the side of Hamas and Iran’s Hezbollah. Communist News Network is by far the most blatant in their support of the terrorist regimes. What I find to be amazing is that these people, especially the media, seem to gloss over the fact that these groups and nations have vowed to remove Israel from the map. They have also glossed over the fact that all of this increase in violence is coming on the heels of Israel giving back the land they won the last time the Palestinians started trouble with them. I certainly wouldn’t be giving anything back to any of these people. Not a thing. I would be taking more each and every time they start trouble. After the Israelis left the settlements the Palestinians tried to recreate the agricultural success that the Israelis have experienced. How hard can growing things possibly be, right? Their luck with agriculture has been about the same as their luck with everything else. They are creating a dead zone there too. They even had the nerve to ask some of the Israelis to help them turn their failure into success. That showed me that these people just don’t seem to get it. Israelis aren’t even safe in their homeland from the Palestinians and here the Palestinians are asking them if they will come on over and have a cup of tea as they teach the Palestinians how to do what they claimed they already knew how to do. That tells me the Palestinians are a great deal like Europe in their thinking. Remember when the Europeans asked for help with building that wall to keep Eastern Europeans out of their territory right after they got all over Israel for the one they were building to keep the Palestinians out? Europe will be the next Bastian of radical Islam. Don’t let those who lose Europe through appeasement move over here to repeat their stupidity here. One thing we all have to remember regarding any region and democracy; we get the government that represents those who voted. Those who didn’t bother to vote also get the same government. Then the rest of us in this world get to put up with those governments. The upside to an election like this is that they have all clearly stated they have no intention of being rational. They are going to continue to act like idiots and have no plans for discussing solutions that don’t involve exterminations. When they decide to negotiate it will be so they can get a strategic advantage by using a cease-fire to accomplish their re-supply operations. They will always have a group of terrorists that are out there shooting and causing trouble. The answer is always the same: “Those aren’t our people so we have no control over them.” If they aren’t moving to stop them then they are approving their actions and not honoring their own cease-fire, like usual. Some may wonder how we arrived at this point so here it is. When Israel had the PLO surrounded at the Beirut airport years ago, Reagan got them to back off. The end result was a legitimized and politically active Arafat. What people forget is that of course the PLO was willing to talk at that point. It’s amazing how your attitude will change when you’re about to die. We should have let the Israelis finish them off to the last man. I guarantee you that would have put the region on alert that Israel isn’t going to let you get away with bombing school busses full of children, which is what they used to do even if many alive today don’t remember it or weren’t around. I’m happy to see we aren’t telling Israel to back off this time. I remember a motel filled with Marines that got blown up in their sleep because of one of those nice terrorist organizations. And they were there to make sure the fight got settled without the destruction of the PLO. This wound in the Mid-East has been there for a very long time. It was created by Europe, negotiated with the locals and agreed to by them. Like all agreements in that region they aren’t willing to live up to their end. When a wound simply continues to fester and will not heal there is but one recourse left sometimes: Cauterize it so that it stops festering. R.A. Hawkins Web Site Contact Back to Top |
|||||
It’s funny how many people seem to think the burgeoning war between Israel and Lebanon is the start of World War III. Maybe “funny” isn’t the right word to use here. Hezbollah decided to play Milk Carton with a couple of Israeli soldiers; Israel decided to play Blow Up Critical Infrastructure in response. The two have been setting off fantastic, Fourth of July-style firework shows against each other ever since. If this conflict grows to include the whole region—and eventually multiple continents—there will be decidedly little that’s “funny” about it. But if not funny, I guess I just find the question, “Is this World War III?”, rather jarring. I wasn’t alive a hundred years ago, but I think it’s safe to assume, based on a fair mix of common sense and limited research, that people didn’t toss around the World War I label before World War I like that. Don’t get me wrong. There were people who saw WWI coming. And there were people who called it the World War or the Great War, which properly captured its magnitude. But Woodrow Wilson referred to that particular struggle as the War To End All Wars, and I think that says something. In 1912, mankind built an unsinkable ship, which promptly sank. Two years later, they fought the war to end all wars… which was then followed by more wars. Regardless of what people called World War I before and during World War I, the point is they didn’t understand it as World War I the way kids today with their history textbooks would. So when the Archduke of Austria ate a few bullets for breakfast that fateful 1914 morning, I don’t think too many people were saying, “Well, this is it, gents. Start learning what ‘trench’ means. It’s World War I time.” And this is much different than nowadays. Because, nowadays, it’s like we’ve already got World War III’s name and number. Now we’re just looking for the conflict to match it. Take Newt Gingrich, for instance, who recently said of what’s happening in Israel: “We are in the early stages of what I would describe as the Third World War.” Whether Gingrich is right or wrong isn’t the point here. The point is that statements like these are made all the time. Some people believe World War III began on Nine-Eleven. Others believe terrorists have been waging it on the West for many years. In some circles, it’s even believed that the Cold War was World War III, and that we’re working on World War IV now. In every scenario, though, the premise is basically the same. World War III is happening… or it’s going to happen… or it already happened… but whatever the case, it’s a foregone conclusion in the course of human history. We just need our Franz Ferdinand Moment to prove it. I won’t claim I’m exempt from this way of thinking. Major turmoil certainly conjures the words “World War III” in my mind, too. Why is this, though? Is it just the unhealthy byproduct of alarmist post-9/11 rhetoric? That would probably be the easiest answer. However, I don’t think it’s true. I’ve been wondering whether World War III would happen ever since childhood. In fact, my friends and I used to debate the possibility the same way we argued who would win in a fight: Hulk Hogan or Wolverine? Today, I understand why a WWIII seems inevitable. (They evicted a bunch of Arabs to build a Jewish homeland. Who thought that would end well?) But back in the day, we just felt that it was inevitable. To us, it was something that could happen as part of the human condition. And that’s what I think is truly in play here. People don’t ask “Is this World War III?” because World War III is or isn’t happening; they ask because they understand World Wars happen now. It’s not about Israel and Lebanon engaging in a potentially widespread conflict; it’s about someone engaging in a potentially widespread conflict. Because, deep down, we now assume someone inevitably will. This self-awareness marks a turning point in World War evolution. At some point during the 20th Century, mankind realized World Wars weren’t just wars but the Super Bowl of wars. And just as people look forward to Super Bowls, so, too, have we learned to ask: “Is this the Third World War?” I don’t think most of us want such a war to happen. But we wouldn’t be asking about it if we didn’t expect it to fulfill something. So, in a way, I think what it really comes down to is this: Everyone wants this moment in history—our moment in history—to mean something. Not for the moment’s sake, but our own. And since this moment is a moment of war, we want that war to mean as much as possible. And no war means more than one for control of the world. If there’s a reason World War III is inevitable, that explanation—not what’s happening in the Middle East right now—would probably be it. Well, that, or the fact that our species is stupid. I guess you can’t rule that out. Jonathan David Morris Web Site Contact Back to Top |
|||||
|
No column this week. Rep. Ron Paul Web Site Back to Top |
|||||
|
No column this week. Nancy
Salvato
Web Site Contact
Back to Top
|
|||||
©2004-2006 by their respective authors. Reprinted by permission. |
|||||
|
news | constitution | bill of rights | our view | your view | their view awards to win | awards we've won | resources | goodie shoppe our mission | about us | contact us | privacy policy | site map | home This page last updated on Friday, July 14, 2006 8:18 AM Optimized for Microsoft Internet Explorer |
|||||
|
site content ©2002-2006 site design by |
|||||
