Some Thoughts on Iraq

Here’s are a couple thoughts that have been floating around in my head today about Iraq. They were prompted by two articles, and the commentary backlash thereof.

The first story is the one that notes that, for the first time, the majority of Americans believe the War in Iraq is “not worth it”. The second story is the suicide bombing in Mosul that killed 22 American soldiers and wounded dozens more.

First story first. I’ve been wondering all day what, exactly “it” is? The article mentions the “long term security of the United States” but I seriously wonder if those people polled understand just how “long term” that security is likely to be. This seems to be the only reason given to people in the poll and, if that is true, it’s very misleading.

Anyone who has followed the story of Iraq in the last four years ought to know that US security was only part of the reason we acted. In fact, it was one of myriad reasons the President gave for going into Iraq. Other reasons included: rescuing millions of people from a genocidal dictator, removing a constantly unstable influence from a very colatile region of the world, bolstering the reputation of the UN as an organizations that “means what it says”, and removing a major international terrorist sponsor from the terror network. I’d think that, given those reasons together, you’d get a pretty clear majority in favor not only of going into Iraq in the first place but also for staying there until the job was finished. And, coincidentally enough, poll numbers before the invasion, and the results of the 2004 election have borne out that idea pretty well.

Unfortunately, our nightly news broadcasts and our newspapers and magazines don’t quite tell us that. They don’t often note that in the past three years the resistance movement in Iran has steadily gotten stronger, or that Kurds in nothern Syria have been clamoring the the freedom their brothers in Iraq have. They don’t tell us that Egypt and other countries in the region have been talking about liberty and democracy in Arab leadership councils for the first time ever. We don’t hear many of the stories that might tell us that indeed our being in Iraq has accomplished thus far exactly what the President has predicted it would.

So is it a surprise that a poll run by MSM outlets will show the view of Iraq the MSM has been feeding us for years? Is it a shock that the poll would ask such apparently ambiguous questions? Hell, given what I see on the nightly news in Iraq I wouldn’t think our troops presence was merited either. But the nightly news isn’t even half of the story and that’s something this poll can’t even begin to consider.

But that’s where the second story comes in. Again, we’ve seen terrorists kill American soldiers and the overwhelming question is “why are we there”. We won the war years ago. We’re not even fighting something you could call a war right now (where is the army? who, exactly, is the enemy?). We’re slugging it out against a minority of Iraqis angry because we arrested their ticket to a life of ease and a constantly renewing supply of mercenaries hired and outfitted by Iran and Syria.

We’re not fighting a war. We’re not there as occupiers. We’re there in a far more important, but infinitely more dangerous role: bodyguard.

Think about it for a moment. The Iraqi people are, right now, weak and unable to defend themselves against the enemies who want to take over their country. They’ve been made weak by decades of horrific abuse, conditioning that tells them that only the strongest brute in the crowd should be the leader, and supposedly benign nations who took advantage of them to the tune of billions of dollars. They have no army – it fell apart as soon as we defeated it (since it was made up primarily of conscripts who had to be forced to serve and lackeys of the former regime). They have no idea how to stand up on their own and run their own affairs. They don’t know how to build a democratic government, though they very much want to. In short, even after a couple of years they’re easy meat for the ravening wolves howling around them.

All they have is us and those who have chosen to stand with us. They need us desperately to stand between them and those who want them so badly to fail. They need us to stand there and take the mortar attacks and suicide bombers and roadside IEDs because, quite honestly, they can’t take that load yet. They need us to suck up the damage that would collapse their nation in a heartbeat while they learn how to be strong and proud again.

And they certainly are learning. Every week a terrorist kills dozens of young men who want to be police officers and stand up for the rule of law. Yet every week those dozens are replaced by dozens more who are undaunted. Every week a terrorist launches an attack that kills women and children who were doing nothing more than shopping for groceries or going to school. Yet the survivors go back out the very next day and resume their lives as best they can.

I believe they do this in large part because they see us there, taking punishment that could have been meant for them for no other reason than we believe it’s important that they run their own affairs. They see the price we are willing to pay in blood and tears for them and know that when you boil things down all the way there’s no good reason we should be there. They’ve seen our soldiers fight in their stead while their newborn army learns courage under fire and they remember. Every week their resolve and knowledge grows.

There will be an election in Iraq in January. It is likely to be a bloody affair – there’s no way in the world that the terrorists are going to let it happen unmolested. But it will happen because the Iraqi people have seen what freedom can mean to them and have found the strength to seize it themselves.

But the only reason that will happen is because we are there bodyguarding them as best we are able. Elections will happen because we are putting our soldiers between the nation of Iraq and the terrorists who want to visit horrors on it as a wall of iron that no military force on this planet can fully breach. In fact, the only thing that can breach it is the infantile, selfish, and ignorant belief that being there is “not worth the cost”.

President John Kennedy put paid to that foolish notion years ago when he spoke for all of us and said “… that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.” He was speaking of a bedrock principle of our country that goes back centuries – that freedom isn’t ours alone; that everyone in the world can and should enjoy it. He was speaking of the tradition that Franklin Roosevelt summoned when he said, “”We too, born in freedom, and believing in freedom, are willing to fight to maintain freedom”.

Then, as now, there are many in this country who are too selfish and afraid to pay the cost necessary to bring that freedom to others and, in doing so, strengthen the freedom we already enjoy. They failed then and they will fail now. Of that I’m very certain, no matter what a daily poll says.

No related posts.

Category: General