Teens marching for peace in Arizona didn't even know there was a national peace march taking place the same day.
Thirty or so Gilbert, Arizona teens were out marching for peace on the same day of the national rally for peace in Washington, D.C. As reported in the Arizona Republic, the teens didn't even know that the national rally was taking place on the same day as their little gathering. If they didn't know that, how could they know what actually brings peace against a "crazed and driven" (Rudyard Kipling's "For All We Have and Are") foe?
Once more we hear the word,
That sickened earth of old:
"No law except the sword,
Unsheathed and uncontrolled,"
Once more it knits mankind,
Once more the nations go,
To meet and break and bind
a crazed and driven foe."
Our military forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the world, are engaged in warfare against a ruthless enemy to secure that peace that the Gilbert teens seek. If our troops are withdrawn in the interests of "peace," (and, let it be noted, national Democratic leaders calling for withdrawal are not doing so with peace in mind, they do so for political reasons - namely, hatred of President Bush - he cannot be allowed to succeed), then we will surely not have it.
In fact, the withdrawal of our military forces will be seen as a victory for the enemy and will embolden them to strike again in the U.S. Because we have taken it to the enemy in Iraq and elsewhere, they have not had the manpower or resources to do damage on American soil. We are killing them over there in droves. If we weren't, they'd be in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami and Phoenix carrying out more mayhem and death.
We have we lost over 3,000 brave military heroes in the five years since 9/11. Keep in mind, the enemy killed nearly 3,000 civilians on 9/11 in a matter of hours. The silly people who rallied in Washington wouldn't mind that happening again. What else can one conclude when a mass of leftists, anarchists and socialists demand that the U.S. lay down its weapons and surrender? They would have the greatest military in the world fall short of victory precisely because it is the greatest military in world. It's not right, they believe, for civilizations much older than us to be succumbed by a capitalistic, Judeo-Christian, Anglo-oriented people. Besides, they argue, we're just fighting for oil! (At the same time, liberals deny the right for this country to the use of its own oil reserves).
The Gilbert teens have misread the "truth on the ground" because they've fallen for the "pie-in-the-sky," populist media notion that peace comes when military might stays neatly folded and tucked away in Fort Benning or anchored in San Diego. Not so.
I can't blame the teens, as they get their information from public schools and mainstream media newspapers and TV. Those institutions cannot even recognize the reasons for their own demise in the marketplace - overly liberal; anti-conservative/religious - to make a case that they are the arbirtors of what is truth.
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Mr. Esrtada,
You'be been listening too much Rush Limbaugh my friend. You could be an EIB host when Rush is on vacation.
With respect to democrats advocating withdrawing from Iraq for "political reasons, namely-hatred of President Bush", may I remind you that all politicans make decisions in their own self interest. Politicans are politicians. Republican or democrat, they are politicans. President Bush is responsible for the mess the GOP finds itself in today. He's forced congressional republicans into a position where they must bail on him, or be forced to stick with him and hope it doesn't doom their political future. Democrats are seizing an opportinity, sensing a political shift in the mood of the country. Their future is also tied to Iraq. Yet in the end, it's politics…just as it's always been.
I agree that a U.S pullout in Iraq would embolden our enemies. Again, the blame for poor planning and execution of the war lies with Bush and the fools who sold him of the idea of invading Iraq. They never planned for a protracted conflict. Further they didn't understand the country they were invading. They beileved their own rheteroic…the war would last days, weeks…not months. The american people won't tolerate an endless conflict without an end in sight. The November election was a clear sign that our patience is growing thin.
Whether we're killing them "in droves" or not makes no difference. The enemy is no more or less emboldened by our actions. Whether we're in Iraq or not, they are emboldened to the same degree. You state that if we weren't killing then over there, they'd be killing us over here. Do you have any proof of that assertion or is that paranoid propaganda?
There is one clear solution to this problem. We must eliminate (not reduce) our dependence on oil. If fundamentalist Islam is the beast that we've been led to believe, the beast has feet of clay. Cut off their oil revenue and you'll defeat the enemy.
My opinion is that Iraq is finished as a functioning country. We can stay there as long as we want; the war has past us now. The majority of Iraqis in the conflict are killing each other in this phase of the war. That's the irony of the war. As much as the fanatical elements hate the west, they hate each other more than westerners. This is where the media has failed us.
If we leave Iraq tomorrow, Al-Qaeda in Iraq is doomed. They face certain death at the hands of the Shia, hell bent on settling the score with Sunni's. Al-Qaeda is our enemy. More importantly, Al-Qaeda is the enemy of Shia Islam. To this day, we use terms like "the enemy" and "terrorists" to describe who we're fighting. Yet we're not fighting a homogeneous enemy. We're refereeing a clash of factions within a religion. They might kill Americans; they might kill each other. The media did a poor job of explaining the complexities of Iraq. The truth is, we don't even know who the terrorists are.
Greg in NY
Comment by GreginNY | February 18, 2007