Posted on 01/10/2003 6:14:10 PM PST by Pukka Puck
President Bush, in a speech to the United Nations a few weeks ago, said that Saddam Hussein has "proven only his contempt … for all his pledges. By breaking every pledge [every U.N. resolution] -- by his deceptions, and by his cruelties -- Saddam Hussein has made the case against himself." The case, that is, for war. And the question materializes: Should the U.S. invade Iraq, or not? Should the U.S. further its war on terrorism, or not?
The way this is viewed by some members of the Democratic party - Senators, Congressmen, activists - and some in the Social Democratic party - Europeans - a familial analogy is expedient.
The Democratic party, playing camp counselor, rests its fundamental war position on the assumption that the United States isn't grown up enough to wonder out into the woods alone, i.e. to conduct a war unilaterally. There can be no "doing it alone," they say. No crossing the street by ourselves. Why? It would be too cowboyish, too rambo-like, too imperialistic. It would put too loud an exclamation point on the aggressively individualistic sensation of being American and being American militarily. Detractors of the Bush Doctrine have said that an invasion of Iraq would be more a staple in imperial plans than peaceful ones.
We therefore need allies if we go at all, they say. The U.S. needs to hold hands with France or Russia or China or Germany if we engage in war, like a child needs to hold the hand of Mommy or Daddy. Pinpointing France (of all countries), a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, as a country whose permission slip we need signed first, the Democrats claim that other nations' opinions are needed for the war. But haven't we already heard their opinion, their say, their opposition to the war? Are their "expressions" of "caution," their temporizing in the form of "looking for other solutions," their calls for "patience" and their echoes of Chamberlain enough of an answer already?
Michael Kinsley, a socialist and writer for the Washington Post, epitomizes the true position of most on the political left. He says that instead of talking about the "immorality" and "evil" of terrorism in the modern age, we ought to try to understand the terrorists. This is more disastrous than terrorism itself: condoning it.
He speaks of a "deeper understanding of the terrorists' mentality." Anyone out there need a "deeper understanding" of the goals of Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein? I can understand understanding, but not with people who utterly disregard your understanding and want to kill you and your understanding. Understand?
Why, exactly, do the terrorists - generally Muslim, typically young, all Arab - abhor us? If it's because America is rich, then it's more jealousy than hate. If it's because America is "arrogant," then their perceptions are nutty. Yet the explanation that they deplore Americans because we're Americans is ambiguous. A thin, sub-layered and perspicuous reason lies behind their loathing: they attack us because they are the ones who don't understand us, not the other way around. Kinsley, the Democrats, and the rest of the left ought to shake off their masqueraded relativism in the form of opposing an Iraqi invasion and join the troops.
Islamo-Fascists hate Americans because we are standing in the way of their murderous lust for Jewish blood.
Any questions?
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