THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VI, Issue # 101, May 18, 2004
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE WAR ON TERROR & OUR PROBLEM IN THE MIDDLE EAST:
HAVE WE LOST OUR WARRIOR SPIRIT?
By Alan Caruba
FULL STORY:
I seriously doubt that any of the detainees in the jails in Iraq have ever read, nor even heard of the Geneva Convention. When I was
in the U.S. Army, no one ever devoted a minute to discussing it, but maybe things have changed. These rules of conduct for war
certainly are unknown to the terrorists who have been waging war on the United States of America.
There clearly were abuses, maybe even criminal acts committed against some of the Iraqi detainees, but the huge uproar over these
isolated events is designed to (1) undermine homefront and military morale, (2) to erode American and allied support for the war, and
(3) to bolster the resistance to the creation of a constitutional democratic system of government in Iraq, a country in the midst of a
region that has no other true constitutional democracy, with the exception of the State of Israel. We seem to have instantly forgotten
the killing and mutilation of the bodies of U.S. contractors and the constant danger that confronts our fighting forces. We pay scant
attention to the endless bombings and murders perpetrated against the Israelis.
All of the major problems of the world these days come from the Middle East. We either change that region through force of arms and
through diplomacy or none of us will ever sleep peacefully in our beds.
I have not liked the American reaction and I have not liked seeing our President publicly apologize for the acts of a few soldiers. From
a public relations point of view, I suppose this was necessary, but I don’t recall hearing anything from the Arab press over the three
decades that Saddam Hussein was jailing, torturing, and killing millions of Iraqis. This is the same Saddam Hussein whose cousin,
dubbed “Chemical Ali,” gassed thousands of Kurds and used chemical warfare during the eight-year war with Iran. And people are
still saying there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Except for those extraordinary young men and women who volunteered to defend us, I fear we have lost our warrior spirit, the kind of
beliefs that permit us to face danger and defeat it. Have we forgotten that the same kind of people attacking our soldiers in Iraq were
the ones that attacked us on September 11, 2001?
War is a monstrous undertaking. Americans have fought their share of wars and, most notably, have not done so in quest of an empire.
In the last century, we fought to preserve freedom. In this century, we are fighting to expand it against one of its most ancient and
ruthless enemies, the Islamic Jihad.
Americans need to remember how we accomplished the end of World War II. We destroyed two Japanese cities with atomic bombs in
order to secure Japan's surrender and, in Europe, we reduced the cities of Nazi Germany to rubble. That war cost the lives of an
estimated sixty million people around the world. We made the sacrifices necessary to protect the world against two vile dictatorships.
We did what was necessary to end it.
It is the warrior spirit that enabled the first Americans to fight the greatest military power of its time in order to found a new nation;
we survived a Civil War and we emerged victorious from two World Wars. We stymied enemies in Korea and everywhere else other
than Vietnam. We lost Vietnam because of too much political interference with the military and because Americans had grown weary
of the conflict.
This nation gave up the notion of a citizen army after the Vietnam conflict in favor of a volunteer army. Now, in Iraq, that army, plus
our National Guard units and reserves may not to be sufficient to meet the challenge. If you wonder why, just think back to the eight
years of the Clinton-Gore administration that did its best to decimate our fighting forces on the land, on the sea, and in the air.
If you watch C-Span, you can listen to generals of those units tell Congress they are undermanned, they are not battle ready. There
are plans to expand the numbers of our active military forces because they are insufficient to meet our worldwide commitments. It will
take three years. If we were to announce tomorrow that we will pull our troops out of the many nations we protect and assist, the
outcry would be heard from every capital.
Meanwhile, our troops are on the Iraqi battlefield, sometimes driving humvees that don’t even have doors, let along armor plating.
They are being picked off in small, but steady numbers by mortars, roadside improvised explosives, and by small arms. Americans
are watching this war on television and the news for weeks now has been bad. Despite the fact that we are having considerable
success fighting the Shiite militia of the radical Muqtada al-Sadr, that news is drowned out by the PR fiasco. Thanks to the abysmal
press coverage of the war, there is the feeling we are bogged down. The press does not let a single death pass unnoted.
There is yet another, virtually unspoken factor. Here at home, Americans are growing increasingly fearful of another terror attack.
Forget about whether such an attack would politically “benefit” either Bush or Kerry. It would not take much to plunge us back to
the days following 9-11. The economy was severely harmed. Our airlines are still in big trouble. It took two years before consumers
began to feel safe enough to spend money.
And this war is costing us about $60 billion a year, while Congress continues to spend money on a whole range of other things,
including a level of spending on pork-barrel projects that defies the imagination. This Congress is one of the worst in decades.
Both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, are selling us down the river.
The war is taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan these days, but it’s here, too. Having accepted the challenge of ending the threat
to this nation and the world, are we losing our nerve?
A new memorial to those who sacrificed their lives in World War II is a vivid reminder of what the last big war required of us. We
call them “the greatest generation”, but will we — that’s all of us -- be able to pick up the banner of freedom and fight the greatest
enemy of this new century and defeat it?
In November, 2004. we will vote for either the President who committed us to the war after we were attacked on 9-11 or a candidate
who, from week to week, can’t decide if he is for or against the war. If Kerry’s track record means anything, he is against it. If Kerry
wins, it will mean our warrior spirit, our willingness to fight for freedom, will have been abandoned.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Problem of Iraq
Page Two
Page One
The Problem of Rogue States:
Iraq as a Case History
The Middle East & the Arabs
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, Communications Director of the American Policy Center,
and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly
column, "Warning Signs," posted on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center
(www.anxietycenter.com). A compilation of his past col- umns, entitled Warning Signs, is published by Merril Press. In addition
to Warning Signs, Caruba is the author of A Pocket Guide to Militant Islam and The United Nations vs. the United States,
both of which are available from the National Anxiety Center, 9 Brookside Road, Maplewood, New Jersey, 07040.
Copyright 2004 Alan Caruba
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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