| Submit your comments on this article |
| And now the bad news... |
| 2003-04-10 |
| Sammy's gone — maybe underground, maybe to meet his maker, maybe to Russia, maybe to Syria, maybe to the Costa Brava. With him went all of the Baath Party but a handful of die-hards. Some of them are on their way to Tikrit for GötterdÀmmerung, or an Arab equivalent. Some are trying to pot a few Marines before going bye-bye, dying in the Lost Cause. But the Baath really went out with Saddam. It could come back, someday, but it will be through the back door, with a different name, wearing a false moustache and glasses. Probably it's dead. So the hard part's over, right? Not quite. The Baath was as much a mask as a political movement. With the mask off, we're face to face with the real enemy. It's an enemy we're already familiar with. In Afghanistan and Pakistan it wears an Islamic face, but it stalks the "Arab Street," too. Now we have to contend with the xenophobes, with the blind, unreasoning hatred that's not limited to the Islamic world, but which the Islamic world is trying to make its trademark. They're hardly even bothering with the pro forma Islamic posturings — the Syrians, Jordanians, Palestinians, Sudanese, and other sweepings are swarming to Iraq not to protect Iraq and the Iraqis, but to kill Americans. There's a desultory blessing given by the usual vicious holy men, who are more politicians than theologians, but the real driver is pure malevolence, hatred of America and Americans. The tactics used by the Masked Marauders are the same they use back home in Palestine or that they'd like to use if their repressive regimes in other places would let them. The link has always been there with Iraq, but because it's so much more obvious in Syria and Iran we tended to overlook it. But Sammy managed to pack in a bit of both terror worlds: Ansar al-Islam in the north, with its al-Qaeda roots and international wahhabi links, to terrorize the Kurds, and a deep and intricate involvement with the PLO and the Fatah thugs. Our battle goes from being "only" with al-Qaeda and its supporters, but encompasses al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Tanzim, and Hezbollah. It's all warf and woof on the same fabric. So now we can gradually switch from conventional war to dealing with the intifadah to come. Syria's already described our presence in Iraq as an "occupation" — shades of Paleostine. If we don't deal sternly with the flow of explosives and hard boys, if we don't cut the funding off at its source before it has a chance to get started, we're going to have a long drawn-out problem. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #6 Fred's right of course. We are in for a long fight regardless of how well the Iraq engagmement goes. We are doing moral due diligence by trying to engage and reform this culture in Iraq and, hopefully, to disrupt the flow of funds and Jihadis before a nuclear 9-11 leaves us with no choice than to really take the gloves off and end entire cultures rather than merely regimes. I hope it works, but we are being naive to assume it is likely. |
| Posted by: JAB 2003-04-10 23:32:09 |
| #5 Morocco, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Lebanon. The United States armed forces has invaded each of these muslim countries in the past 60 years. And we have left each of them. It holds no territory in any of them and only holds a small military presence in Afghanistan at the invitation of the people of Afghanistan, to whom 2 million people, using nothing more sophisitcated than their feet,walked back home to in search of freedom secured by those same infidel American Armed Forces. There are people in the Arab world who will try to use the "occupation" of arab lands by infidels as a way to drum up support for their cause, but this is a futile losing effort. Because America, unlike every other invading army has something to give (rather than to take) that no army has ever given before. Liberty and Democracy. The Arab world thirsts for freedom more than they do water. They have been kept from it by the sheiks and mullahs for too long, and if America did not have millions of arabs and muslims living within its protection as full citizens, the result might be different but every Arab knows someone in their family who has gone to America, and has become wealthy and prosperous in a country far away (run by christians!) for no other reason than they have freedom and democracy. The Destruction of Saddam Hussein is the "shot heard round the world". In the cafes and souks of all muslim and arab countries the question is being whisperd about "if Saddam could fall that fast, perhaps it could happen here". There are some who say that and shudder, knowing that it is they and their power that could be coming to an end. but there are many many more who, know having seen it for themselves, will finally believe it to be true. It will not be a passing thought, it will begin to invade not just their dreams of the night, but soon, you will see it invade their thoughts during the day. Then, we will all see something truly magnificent. The work in Iraq will be hard, and there will be many people at home and abroad who will work against it, but do not loose faith in what could happen here. If you find yourself wondering what the value was for all this just remember to think of the "childrens prison" that was liberated is Basra. All of the Arab world is like a large "childrens Prison", and America just took its boltcutters to the locks. |
| Posted by: Frank Martin 2003-04-10 22:55:34 |
| #4 The trick is to get the Iraqis to start fending off the "unhelpful" foreigners themselves, including the ones further south of their border. That's in the short term. In the long term, the Israeli-Palestinian thing has to be settled. Preferably equitably. |
| Posted by: RW 2003-04-10 22:40:07 |
| #3 Ahhhh.. They've only got a 50% chance of backing down from a 50-cal in the chest. They've also got a 50% chance of falling flat on their face. |
| Posted by: Dishman 2003-04-10 22:37:16 |
| #2 Fred---We knew that when we went into Afghanistan that we would be giving the hornets nest a kick. We also knew that going into Iraq would be the equivalent of knocking the nest down and opening it up. Iraq was the low fruit on the tree. The arabs are shocked and awed, and now they are pissed. So now we have to send messages to the other nutcases coming out of the woodwork. President Bush, at the beginning of this war was talking 10 years. That may not be far off. Every nutcase is going to try to derail recovery and reform in Iraq. We are going to have to liquidate them, either in Iraq, host countries, and are going to have to keep drying up the money supply that keeps them operating. We need to be firm and fair in Iraq, and we have to out Israel the Israelis in dealing with these terrorist proxies. This is a fight to the death. Working on fixing Iraq is going to be like doing open heart surgery while on a long hike. It will take stout hearted people and lots of no BS leadership. But I remember what you wrote recently about the arabs. They will mouth and jihad, but they will also back down in front of an Abrams and a 50 cal in the chest. I guess we see what we have to do. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-04-10 22:04:27 |
| #1 Well, we've dealt sternly with the source of $25,000 checks to the Paleo jihadi families...that's a good start, right? |
| Posted by: seafarious 2003-04-10 21:41:20 |