Friday, December 15, 2006
Why we need to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan
We are 'Over There' not to spread democracy but to protect our own geopolitical interests.
by Ferdinand III
‘No war for oil’ is the Marxist chant against any foreign incursion. For the Marxists and wailing socialists, rabid in their anti-American anti-Jew racism, pre-emptive self-defense is nothing more than imperialist offence, with the intention of enslaving ‘natives’ and controlling oil or other resources. For the anti-realists of the liberal left I would suggest that China, Russia and Islam fit more nicely into this world view than say the Anglo-Saxons. But no matter. Sunnis killing Shias in their bloody 1300 year war of tribal hate; coupled with Pathans killing less ‘holier’ Muslims in Afghanistan means to the sensitive multi-cult elite and media, that our Middle Eastern strategy is a failure. Or is it?
Iraq and Afghanistan are far from failures. There are three important sea-changes to world geopolitics thanks to our incursions into territories 7000 miles from our shores that must be highlighted. First, if we stay in Iraq and Afghanistan and obliterate the terrorist and fascist threat, which we can if we want to, then we will have dealt the fascistic elements of Islam a resounding defeat that they will never recover from. Second, by showing continued resolve in fighting an asymmetrical war and establishing Western friendly regimes in two-hell holes on earth, we will start the long process of bringing reality and modernity to a region, and a fascist ideology that desperately need it. Third we will have bases from which to attack Iran and Syria and end both Iran’s nuclear ambitions [while changing its regime] and forcing Syria out of Lebanon which will allow the Americans and Israeli’s to finally eliminate Hizbollah.
Staying ‘Over There’ is the only way forward.
Yes we all know that 30-100 people are dying each day in Iraq and that the Taliban are rearming in Afghanistan. Call me cruel, but so what. Iraqi’s have been engaged in a bloody civil war on and off since 656 AD when the first Sunni-Shia bloodbath erupted. Today’s body count in Iraq is normal by historical comparison and less than many epochs of violence in that area’s history. The daily kill rate under Hussein was at least as high, and when the British tried to occupy the unnatural country of Iraq from 1925-1932 it is estimated that 50-80 people were being cut to pieces every day. It is easier to obliterate lines of people with a car bomb than to go through all the nasty work of cutting limbs and heads with long knives. Same for Afghanistan. The Muslim Pathans, as Churchill observed in 1898, have historically been fighting everybody over everything in their endless range of mountains.
It is not our problem if Shia’s and Sunni’s want to annihilate each other – unless they are killing our men. If families, tribes and mosques want to wipe each other out, then let them go to it. Our matter in Iraq and Afghanistan is to accomplish 3 important tasks: 1. not allow oil money to flow to terrorist elements. 2. make sure that neither country becomes a training center or sponsor of terror. 3. set up bases to put military pressure on Iran and Syria to ensure that our geo-political and military interests are protected in the Middle East. That is why we are involved in these two wars.
If those are the goals, then the question is how to get there? Leaving either Iraq or Afghanistan is not the answer since running away from a problem rarely solves it. Regarding Iraq, bargaining with Iran and Syria who are funding in part the military operations against the Iraqi government is likewise a rather insipid option. Increasing troop levels is not appropriate if you don’t have a winning strategy in the first place. Nor is falling back to defensive-only positions a path forward to victory. Stating that wars must be won in 3 years or less given domestic politics ignores the reality of asymmetrical terrorism and civilian militia armies that have no HQ’s, no state capitals, no tank and infantry formations and none of the trappings of armies from times past. In short we are certainly in a new era of longer term warfare.
Why be optimistic about Iraq and Afghanistan? After all doesn’t the media tell us that we have already lost?
War is ugly and winning takes political will, military strength and clear objectives. Currently Bush and the West have none of these. Iraqi’s killing Iraqi’s is not our problem nor is Taliban violence against less devout Muslims our prime worry. Western soldiers killing fascists and terrorists is our only concern. Over 55.000 dead terrorists litter Iraq with a 25:1 kill ratio in favor of the Americans as testimony to the power of the US military. About 5000 dead Taliban fertilize the soil of arid Afghanistan – a kill ratio of 20:1 in our favor. Militarily we are winning.
Billions of investment dollars, much of wasted or stolen, is nonetheless helping to slowly rebuild both countries infrastructure. In 2005 Iraq’s GDP grew by 34% - the highest in the world. In 2006 from an admittedly low based the economy should still grow 15-20 %. The same rates of growth exist in shattered Afghanistan. In Afghanistan massive copper finds indicate that the mineral wealth of the country, once it is stabilized, will vault Afghanistan out of abject misery into a nation with a viable economic future. In both states democratically elected governments, brokered by Western power, tenuously hold onto power, trying desperately to bring civilized life to war-weary populations. It would be a moral disaster and a military defeat to leave such allies to the predations of fascist Islam and terrorist.
But are we in Iraq and Afghanistan to spread democracy and build nations?
The short answer is no. We have no interest in losing the lives of our young men and women to create in failed Islamic states, what took centuries in the West to create. We are there to protect our own national and geopolitical self-interests. Period. It has nothing to do with oil, imperialism or controlling Afghanistan’s future mineral wealth. Being in the Middle East is part of fighting a fascistic death cult sprung from the pre-modern and evil minds of 7th century AD ideologues and preserving our civilization. That is why we are there.
The Islamic-Arab world is a fascist-pagan mess. Even the so-called ‘Arab democracies’ of Lebanon, Turkey and Morocco are chimeras. Lebanon is a vassal state of fascist Syria. Turkey is an Islamic nation where the military is the power broker and human rights abuses legion. Morocco is a Western friendly but family run state with limited checks and balances and is hardly a free democratic liberal polity. Elsewhere in the Arab-Islamic world Western methods of revolutions of the mind and spirit have made no impact. Except for selective crony and state managed capitalism little from the West makes an imprint on the fascist-paganisms that constitute the Arab-Islamic world.
From such a pit of medievalism we must rebuild the failed states of Iraq and Afghanistan – not to spread romantic notions of democracy and self-realization for all, but simply to protect our own civilization and support our allies in both nations. That is why we are ‘Over There’.