What the West needs to defeat Islamic Imperialism
The problem with the Iraq issue is that GW Bush initiated the war for the right reasons, but then has tried to justify it on the wrong ones. In the old times USA would have alleged national defense as the basis to wage that war. Nowadays they try timidly to justify with "liberating the Iraqis", which is nonsense.
The war with Afganistan against the Talibans was totally justified on the grounds that it had a government that was aiding and abetting US enemies, who were responsible for the 9/11 attacks and would attack again. It was for similar reasons that the war on Iraq was originally started, apart from the suspicion that Saddam was cooking Weapons of Mass Destruction. When the US forces failed to find any hard evidence of WMD in Iraq, then the government resorted to the argument of "after all, to democratize Iraq would be in and of itself a good justification for this war."
Opportunity and Priorities
In truth, before attacking Iraq, it would have been better strategy to address the ayatollahs in Iran. Iran is a stronger and more dangerous enemy than Saddam Hussein was. Iran supports and subsidizes Hizbullah and HAMAS, apart from the fact that they also assist Al-Qaeda (despite the fact that they are enemies themselves). Now they are obviously looking to get the bomb, if it's not the case that they have it already, although in that case they would still not have an importantly large arsenal so as to use it as nuclear shield and threat with it to Israel and others in the Middle East, but they are working on that.
Wrong Reasons
When the USA dropped those two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the only reasons alleged in its support were the need for victory. That was it. After all, it wasn't the US that initiated that war, it was Japan. And the reason why that war was waged was to bring the Japanese imperialist threat to an end. It certainly wasn't waged with the purpose of "liberating and bringing democracy to the Japanese people."
Hesperophobia and Anti-Americanism
But in our own times, when Postmodernist relativism is king, and when the Blame-America-First has become the favorite pastime among the peoples in the West (even among many Americans), everything that America does is wrong because America did it. So Americans, no longer certain of their own right, no longer with believe in themselves, have to look for timid excuses to justify what is their moral right to defend themselves from aggression.
Just look at how many people in the mainstream media in the West have echoed lamentations for the execution of that good guy Saddam Hussein, but don't bother to say anything any time that adolescent girls are executed in Iran because they had pre-marital sex. Or when in Saudi Arabia a thief gets his hands cut off, or when they execute apostates (in Islam it is forbidden to leave Islam for any other religion, and the penalty is no other than death). They say nothing about those repeated and instituted violations of basic human rights, but as soon as that angel Saddam Hussein is hanged, they lose no time in pointing out the barbarity of the Americans (even though it weren't the Americans who judged, sentenced or executed Hussein, it doesn't matter, it was, as with everything, America's blame).
It is in this context that we have the Americans trying very timidly to justifie with the wrong reasons, what is easily justified on the basis on the Just War Theory: the right to defend from aggression, actual or imminent. Whatever country whose government hides, protects, finances or in any other way assists the enemies of America, will suffer the consequences. This is the only justification needed.
If you are or were a dad or mom of an American soldier in Iraq that is risking his life, would you feel good that your son or daugther is risking his life for a cause of other people? Contrast it with the pride associated with knowing that your son is there risking his life in order to protect you and the rest of us. There is a huge difference.
But as long as America continues trying to justify the past war with Iraq and its current occupation, with arguments like that of bringing democracy and prosperity to the Iraqi people, we will continue witnessing the moral retreat of the West in the face of the Islamic threat. Until it happens again that one or several terrorist plots succeed, with several thousand deaths, and then Americans wake up and understand that the enemy is very real.
In the face of the Communist threat during the Cold War, the West was able to defeat it and win only when it finally had leaders who were certain of the moral superiority of the West, and were willing to say it over and over again, valiantly and with no remorse. The Cold War was won only when Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Pope Johannes Paulus the Second were brave in denouncing that Communism was inherently evil, and not only another way of life. It is that kind of moral certitude that we need now for the people in the West to wake up to the fact that the Islamic imperialist threat is also inherently evil and not just another, valid way of seeing things.
To hang women for going out in public without wearing a burqa, or for having pre-marital sex, or for marrying someone not approved by her family, and to behead people for the "crime" of apostasy, are not simply another way of life. These are evil practices founded upon an evil, totalitarian ideology, and they are evil because they go against the most basic human liberty and dignity. An ideology that orders that these barbarous acts be committed, is an evil ideology and as such it has to be fought. When we in the West again come to have leaders who understand this and are willing to say it and fight for it, we will again be ready and capable to win a war against totalitarianism, just as we won it in WWII and the Cold War. But not any earlier.
Posted in Spanish at Libertad y Razón.
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