I supported this war long before it was actually launched. I don't feel like a warmonger. I oblige myself occasionally to view various media that depict the war on Islamofascism, in Iraq and elsewhere, in all its stunning, bloody horror, because I don't ever want to forget the true cost of freedom. I pause each day to consider the profound human suffering that war brings, and how knowing that war is sometimes just and necessary is sometimes not enough to assuage the pain of a life shattered by its tempests and vicissitudes. I don't feel happiness because I support a military effort that tears bodies asunder and destroys lives. I feel a painful, heavy resolve, because I understand that we are fighting a defensive war that was declared on the way of life that I love and the people I call my own. The people are my fellow Americans—whether they are American by birth or in spirit—and our way of life is a peaceful one under the rule of law, liberty, and justice for all. And the world should be tahnkful when we respond in kind to the aggression of xenophobic totalitarianism and hateful medieval theocracy. Anyone who supports the defensive fight against these bellicose ideologies is a realist, not a warmonger.
And what about the Iraqi people? Has the quagmire club forgotten that this historical Iraqi vote is about them and for them? As much as the fatalistic cynics on the Western left want to patronize the people of Iraq, telling them what is good for them, Iraqis continue to show their ability to think for themselves just fine, and to express a firm desire to see these elections happen. This Sunday. Is it so difficult to imagine that they may be able to figure this out on their own and make their own decisions?
This is about Iraqis who are eager to determine their own fate, their own future. It's not about the irrational contentions of embittered utopians who are willing to tacitly ally themselves with Islamofascists and Ba'athists if it will serve their partisan agenda. The abovementioned thugs are ready to throw every ounce of high explosives and callous hatred they have at everyday Iraqis who are risking life and limb to do something that some Americans can't be bothered to get off the couch to do. They are looking to preserve the status quo of fear and oppression that we are there to eradicate. Does anyone really want to side with such vicious, ruthless people? I'm with the Iraqi voter.
The former regime elements (FREs) and murderous holy warriors on an apocalyptic mission from God are only be emboldened if those who work for liberty offer them any quarter. They perceive this as weakness and redouble their violent efforts at destroying anyone opposed to their programs. This is their modus vivendi, and it always will be. They're willing to die in the service of their hateful ideology and they are immune to the norms of civility. Giving them some more time to come around or to be subdued is not going to make the situation better for the average Iraqi. A transfer of power and the will of the Iraqi people being brought to bear against them is what will improve the political and social climate in Iraq. It is our job to protect Iraqis, not to subject them, as they carry out their will in undergoing this difficult process. Making concessions or backing down under pressure from terrorists is tantamount to allowing those who use terror as a political tool to achieve their intended results. Terror must always be met with disincentive and never with reward.
The Ba'athist hatchet men, who stand to lose the power they wielded mercilessly as a weapon against Iraqis for so long, will kill and intimidate as many Iraqi voters as they can this Sunday. The local and out-of-state Sunni mujahideen will be on hand to fulfill their role in the homicidal jihad against apostates and infidels, in accordance with the tenets of their unreformed, seventh century death cult. It will be awful in some places, difficult in many, and extraordinary in all. Did anyone really expect it to be different? It's still freedom. The vast majority of Iraq's provinces are on line to vote, and the same goes for the percentage of Iraqis planning on going to the polls. It's the crucial first step, if an imperfect one, on the Iraqis' journey to a better tomorrow. This has to start somewhere.
I can't emphasize how monumental this day will be for Iraqis, the Middle East, the United States, and the world. The fact that it is happening at all, in spite of the deranged killers and their designs and tools for mass murder, is well-nigh miraculous. And no reasonable person can honestly believe that the transformation from crushing, totalitarian autocracy to free and lawful democracy is a smooth and easy one. The key right now is to set up democratic institutions which will serve as a base of stability to build into a free and just society. Matters of immediacy include: the establishment of the rule of law with an effective police force, military, and legal apparatus to enforce and uphold it; the right to vote and thus participate in the aforementioned legal enterprises; and a supportive civil structure. That would be a great start, and we're already well on the way to establishing these requisite components for an incipient democracy. This is Iraq we're talking about—the heart of the Arab world, which knows very little of liberty and equality under rule of law. Iraqis are a people who are, just like anyone else, capable of building a free and fair society, but who have precious little experience doing so. That's why they need our support right now. All of us need to get behind this because it's right and just, and because free nations don't go to war with other free nations.
MIT psychologist, Steven Pinker reminds us in his book, The Blank Slate, that the merits of any society are best measured against the poverty of its past, rather than the presumed prosperity of its future. That's what this election in Iraq is about—giving the Iraqi people a toehold out of the wretched pit of its violent past, onto terra firma where they will at least have the chance to build a free society. Anyone who is opposed to this is unconscionable, in my view. It has to start somewhere.
I suspect that history will remember, however grudgingly, that we did the right thing, just like we did in Germany, Japan, South Korea, and elsewhere when we committed to the arduous work of installing their nascent democracies. Personally, I believe that if the cost of spreading liberty, hope, and justice is the bitter spite of ineffectual, naysaying cynics, then it's definitely worth every penny.
originally posted at Clarity & Resolve
Copyright ©2005 Patrick D. O'Brien: may not be copied, published, or otherwise used (except for brief quotes) without express permission of author
It's Still Freedom
Patrick D. O'Brien
This coming Sunday, for the first time in their country's 6,000 year history, Iraqis will go to the polls to decide for themselves how their nation is to be governed. Such an event is nothing short of spectacular in that part of the world—an anomaly, really. In a geopolitical neighborhood where fear, hatred, and brutal totalitarianism are de rigueur, the reins of power in one nation are being handed to its people. And it is happening less than two years after the deposition of the sociopathic tyrant who made life into an earthly hell for so very many them. Isn't it grand, exciting, and inspiring? Liberty is coming to a place that has violently denied her entry for so long! For Iraqis, it is the first step in shaping their own destiny, for offering a better hope for their children's future.
Ah, but not everyone here in the West is as exhilarated as your humble correspondent about this watershed moment. Many leftist organizations, politicos, academics, and media outlets continue to stridently clamor on and on about their immanent Quagmire, quagmire, quagmire! These negativity-addicted ideologues will miss no opportunity to impugn the United States, George W. Bush, or those of us who have consistently supported American intervention in Iraq and the effort to bring liberty to its people. One is sometimes led to suspect that they enjoy seeing the setbacks and calamities in Iraq that are inevitable when turning a tyranny on its ear in the heart of Islamtown. It's almost as if they would like to see us lose this important fight, so that they could then spitefully proclaim, "See? We toldja so!" Those of us who look at Iraq with a view to the long-term, past the present chaos of desperate and wicked men who kill and destroy—we are often accused by the quagmire crowd of being warmongers, imperialists, fascists, or worse.
I supported this war long before it was actually launched. I don't feel like a warmonger. I oblige myself occasionally to view various media that depict the war on Islamofascism, in Iraq and elsewhere, in all its stunning, bloody horror, because I don't ever want to forget the true cost of freedom. I pause each day to consider the profound human suffering that war brings, and how knowing that war is sometimes just and necessary is sometimes not enough to assuage the pain of a life shattered by its tempests and vicissitudes. I don't feel happiness because I support a military effort that tears bodies asunder and destroys lives. I feel a painful, heavy resolve, because I understand that we are fighting a defensive war that was declared on the way of life that I love and the people I call my own. The people are my fellow Americans—whether they are American by birth or in spirit—and our way of life is a peaceful one under the rule of law, liberty, and justice for all. And the world should be tahnkful when we respond in kind to the aggression of xenophobic totalitarianism and hateful medieval theocracy. Anyone who supports the defensive fight against these bellicose ideologies is a realist, not a warmonger.
And what about the Iraqi people? Has the quagmire club forgotten that this historical Iraqi vote is about them and for them? As much as the fatalistic cynics on the Western left want to patronize the people of Iraq, telling them what is good for them, Iraqis continue to show their ability to think for themselves just fine, and to express a firm desire to see these elections happen. This Sunday. Is it so difficult to imagine that they may be able to figure this out on their own and make their own decisions?
This is about Iraqis who are eager to determine their own fate, their own future. It's not about the irrational contentions of embittered utopians who are willing to tacitly ally themselves with Islamofascists and Ba'athists if it will serve their partisan agenda. The abovementioned thugs are ready to throw every ounce of high explosives and callous hatred they have at everyday Iraqis who are risking life and limb to do something that some Americans can't be bothered to get off the couch to do. They are looking to preserve the status quo of fear and oppression that we are there to eradicate. Does anyone really want to side with such vicious, ruthless people? I'm with the Iraqi voter.
The former regime elements (FREs) and murderous holy warriors on an apocalyptic mission from God are only be emboldened if those who work for liberty offer them any quarter. They perceive this as weakness and redouble their violent efforts at destroying anyone opposed to their programs. This is their modus vivendi, and it always will be. They're willing to die in the service of their hateful ideology and they are immune to the norms of civility. Giving them some more time to come around or to be subdued is not going to make the situation better for the average Iraqi. A transfer of power and the will of the Iraqi people being brought to bear against them is what will improve the political and social climate in Iraq. It is our job to protect Iraqis, not to subject them, as they carry out their will in undergoing this difficult process. Making concessions or backing down under pressure from terrorists is tantamount to allowing those who use terror as a political tool to achieve their intended results. Terror must always be met with disincentive and never with reward.
The Ba'athist hatchet men, who stand to lose the power they wielded mercilessly as a weapon against Iraqis for so long, will kill and intimidate as many Iraqi voters as they can this Sunday. The local and out-of-state Sunni mujahideen will be on hand to fulfill their role in the homicidal jihad against apostates and infidels, in accordance with the tenets of their unreformed, seventh century death cult. It will be awful in some places, difficult in many, and extraordinary in all. Did anyone really expect it to be different? It's still freedom. The vast majority of Iraq's provinces are on line to vote, and the same goes for the percentage of Iraqis planning on going to the polls. It's the crucial first step, if an imperfect one, on the Iraqis' journey to a better tomorrow. This has to start somewhere.
I can't emphasize how monumental this day will be for Iraqis, the Middle East, the United States, and the world. The fact that it is happening at all, in spite of the deranged killers and their designs and tools for mass murder, is well-nigh miraculous. And no reasonable person can honestly believe that the transformation from crushing, totalitarian autocracy to free and lawful democracy is a smooth and easy one. The key right now is to set up democratic institutions which will serve as a base of stability to build into a free and just society. Matters of immediacy include: the establishment of the rule of law with an effective police force, military, and legal apparatus to enforce and uphold it; the right to vote and thus participate in the aforementioned legal enterprises; and a supportive civil structure. That would be a great start, and we're already well on the way to establishing these requisite components for an incipient democracy. This is Iraq we're talking about—the heart of the Arab world, which knows very little of liberty and equality under rule of law. Iraqis are a people who are, just like anyone else, capable of building a free and fair society, but who have precious little experience doing so. That's why they need our support right now. All of us need to get behind this because it's right and just, and because free nations don't go to war with other free nations.
MIT psychologist, Steven Pinker reminds us in his book, The Blank Slate, that the merits of any society are best measured against the poverty of its past, rather than the presumed prosperity of its future. That's what this election in Iraq is about—giving the Iraqi people a toehold out of the wretched pit of its violent past, onto terra firma where they will at least have the chance to build a free society. Anyone who is opposed to this is unconscionable, in my view. It has to start somewhere.
I suspect that history will remember, however grudgingly, that we did the right thing, just like we did in Germany, Japan, South Korea, and elsewhere when we committed to the arduous work of installing their nascent democracies. Personally, I believe that if the cost of spreading liberty, hope, and justice is the bitter spite of ineffectual, naysaying cynics, then it's definitely worth every penny.
originally posted at Clarity & Resolve
Copyright ©2005 Patrick D. O'Brien: may not be copied, published, or otherwise used (except for brief quotes) without express permission of author
Posted by Patrick at January 28, 2005 07:34 AM