The Anti-Warists Talk Mean
National Review Online is waging a war on grammars with the title and subtitle combination “Winning the Iraq Wars: All of its many fronts.” in which Victor Davis Hanson reminds US why we continue to occupy Iraq.
[Emphasis added in all cases below.]
The present fighting is part of a fourth war for Iraq: Gulf War I, the twelve years of no-fly zones, the three-week war in 2003, and now the three-year-old insurrection that followed the removal of Saddam Hussein.
All this war numbering reeks of padding the stats. I remember reading that the War on Terror™— which we’ll later learn either encompasses or is interchangeable with Iraq —is actually World War 4. (We won WW3, the cold war.) At least if we lose in Iraq this time we’ll still be 3-1 in wars on Iraq.
But this last and most desperate struggle, unlike the others, is being waged on several fronts.
First, of course, is the fighting itself to preserve the elected democracy of Iraq. Twenty-five-hundred Americans have died for that idea — the chance of freedom for 26 million Iraqis, and the more long-term notion that the Arab Middle East’s first democracy will end the false dichotomy of Islamic theocracy or dictatorship. That non-choice was the embryo for the events of September 11.
After reading that last paragraph twenty five times, I think I understand what it says.
Don’t ask.
As for that embryo? We should have aborted it back in the eighties when we realized that Bin Laden was the daddy, rather then nourishing his hell spawn as it gestated in the womb of Soviet occupied Afghanistan. But then vitriolic Western Lefties like me wouldn’t have understood the moral complexities of that conflict any more than we do the current one…
Although it is not the sort of conventional war that Westerners excel at — the enemy has no uniforms, state organization, or real army — our military has performed brilliantly. Past mistakes made were largely political, such as not quickly turning over control to an interim Iraqi government in summer 2003 while allowing the Iraqis sole public exposure.
But these were tactical and procedural, not moral, errors. They have only delayed, but not aborted, the emergence of a stable democratic Iraqi government. For all the propaganda of al Jazeera, the wounded pride of the Arab Street, or the vitriol of the Western Left, years from now the truth will remain that our soldiers did not come to plunder or colonize, but were willing to die for others’ freedom when few others would. Neither Michael Moore nor Noam Chomsky can change that, because it is not opinion, but truth — something that the Greeks rightly defined as “not forgetting” or “something that cannot be forgotten” (alêtheia).
Clever. All philosophical truth statements should be phrased so that to disagree with them is to impugn the earnestness of our military servicemen and women. Of course “our soldiers did not come to plunder or colonize.” They came because they were ordered to Iraq by a civilian administration in the service of myriad institutions and interests, with myriad motives, many of which include, quite apparently, plundering.
Presented as it is, Hanson implies without saying it outright that: Our leaders didn’t develop an Iraq policy of preemptive military action and indefinite occupation because it would enable selected institutions to “plunder or colonize” Iraq; but to Protect Freedom.
I’m not sure that statements of The Other’s motives count as philosophical truth statements, (unknowable!) but to put forth the above sentiment as a true answer to the question “Why is there an Iraq War?” seems less than serious and obfuscates the real truth of the matter, whatever that may be.
It would almost seem pointless to continue with what follows from this ridiculous thesis, but…
Stump Lane 