We owe a moral debt


American history has made the Middle East worse
I've said much the same things, but Victor Davis Hanson says it better .

First, the United States had been far too friendly with atrocious regimes in the Middle East. And when bloodletting inevitably broke out, either internally or between aggressive regimes, too often we cynically played one side off the other. Or we backed repugnant insurgents, with little thought of the "blowback" that would result. We outsourced sophisticated arms and training to radical Islamists fighting against the Soviet-backed Afghan government. We hoped the murderous Saddam might check the murderous Iranian theocracy — and then again sold arms to the mullahs during the Iran-Contra affair.

We breezily called for an uprising of Shiites and Kurds only to abandon them to be slaughtered by Saddam after the first Gulf War. We cynically gave the Mubarak dynasty of Egypt billions in protection money to behave. While we thought we were achieving short-term expediency, American policy only increased long-term instability by not pressuring these tyrants to reform failed governments.

Second, at key moments in the 1980s and '90s, the United States signaled that it would appease its terrorist enemies rather than engage in the difficult work of uprooting them. We did little other than file an indictment or shoot a missile at the killers who murdered American citizens, diplomats and soldiers in East Africa, Lebanon, New York City, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Leaving Lebanon, scurrying out of Somalia, and continually flying through Saddam's skies for 12 long years without removing him only cemented the image of an uncertain America.

I'm one of the very few libertarians who believes that we owe the people of the Middle East a way out of the morass. The United States helped make tyranny and Islamist terrorism possible, even if we did do it to contain the Soviet Union.

Again, I am drawing a distinction between radical Islamists who want to terrorize the world into bowing to Islam and Muslims.

What's more, the rules we keep inflicting on ourselves to show that we are "civilized" will prolong this war. If the Islamists know that American forces won't attack mosques, it doesn't take a tactical genius to figure out where to store supplies. If the Western press doesn't do basic fact checking and actively seeks stories that make the American war effort look doomed, then of course false stories are going to make headlines.

War is not civilized. Ask any grunt in the field. Yes, there should be rules that govern the actions of the military, but sound military practice is not good civilian law and custom. Wars happen when diplomacy fails, war is the last resort.

War destroys.

It is that simple.

Now we can dance around it. We can pretend that there is some higher meaning. It won't make the killing stop. Diplomacy works only when all sides respect each other and the rules they agree to.

Diplomacy with Islamists has been an utter failure for sixty+ years, no matter who the Islamists were dealing with.

Fear is no substitute for respect, but it can be a start. Especially when the other side dedicates itself to destroying you.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sat - December 2, 2006 at 01:59 PM  Tag


 ◊  ◊   ◊  ◊ 

Random selections from NeoWayland's library


Pagan Vigil "Because LIBERTY demands more than just black or white"
© 2005 - 2009 All Rights Reserved