“What We Have Here, Is A Failure To Communicate”

The war in Iraq is going badly. Not because we aren’t doing the right thing- clearly, we are. The war in Iraq is going badly because we aren’t saying the right things.

Liberating a nation that was brutalized under the iron jackboot of a tyrant who also funded global terror, was a good thing to do. Attempting to instill a pluralistic democracy in Iraq was a good thing to do, is a good thing to do- for Iraq and for the region.

Clearly, what we are doing is a good thing. Just as clearly, what we are saying about Iraq and the region does not mesh with what we are doing and what we want to do.

As we have noted, we are not fighting political insurgents:

These terrorists do not regard their political ideologies as primary considerations. For them, it is about power and nothing else. That power might be draped in religious garb, but in fact, there is no pretense of political respectability. There are no ‘representatives’ at the UN, claiming to represent the people of Iraq and there are no examples of the terrorists in Iraq that offer to help anyone. They are not rallying people to their cause or orchestrating mass demonstrations to bring attention to their cause. There are no dramatic and sympathetic leaders paraded in front of willing cameras and their are no legions of ’spin doctors’ appearing on FNC or CNN. There are no discernible liberation movements- only movements that openly proclaim their love of Islam and their love for death (most often directed at other Muslims).

Terror in Iraq is about the exercise of brute power and nothing else.

The terrorists are blowing up Iraqis by the hundreds. They are not, for the most part, targeting American, British or coalition troops. There is an orgy of death…

There are 26 millions of Iraqis who want democracy. There are no more than 15,000 to 30,000 thousand terrorists who do not want to see a democratic Iraq- and most of them are not Iraqis. They are thugs, criminals and terrorists- and that is how we need to refer to them. They are not ‘insurgents.’

Imagine yourself as an Iraqi, potentially subject to the most vicious crime, violence and hate possible. The police you want so desperately want to depend on call these terrorists, thugs and criminals by every name but what they are- terrorists, thugs and criminals. Instead, they refer to the crime wave as ‘an insurgency.’ They refer to the private, power and money hungry gangs as ‘sectarian militias.’ How secure would you be in your faith in the police, your government and the nations that freed you from tyranny, by design, now refuse to deal with what is no more than a criminal uprising? If you were an Iraqi and realized that America and other free nations, for political or religious sensitivities, would not label criminals for what they really were, you wouldn’t step up to the plate and stick your neck out, either.

As long as we elevate these criminals that have terrorized Iraq into something other than what they are, we will only manage to obscure what were are fighting- the mass production of evil by a few evil men. In the same way that Nazi Party produced evil that was to rain disaster down on Germany in torrents, there are ideologies that have produced evil that will rain disaster down on much of the Arab world.
We are fighting evil. It’s that simple. No amount of negotiating with Hitler could have prevented the loss of 50 million lives. No amount of negotiating with the terrorists in Iraq will preven the slaughter of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. These terrorists are not less brutal than Saddam- in fact, they are more brutal. Saddam needed a reason, no matter how small, to kill. These murderers can’t be bothered to find a reason to kill. Anyone, anytime, any place, is potentially a target.

Evil has never been appeased or negotiated away. The only one way to deal with evil is to kill it. We have to identify the evil for what it is, speak out and eliminate it. There are 26 million Iraqis that understand that. Does anyone really believe that the Iraqis want this kind of violence? It seems only our representatives in Washington cannot make that distinction. They believe in the nonsense of PC- that we need to tread lightly, so some might not be offended.

Here’s a little secret: Decent people are not offended when indecent or evil people in their midst are identified and eliminated. In fact, decent people usually say ‘Thank you!’

We wrote in Clash Of Behaviors

Many have written about the ‘Clash of Civilizations.’ In an ever shrinking world and with the ubiquitous embrace of technology, it is clear that ‘civilizations’ are homogenizing. We are all more aware of different cultures, faiths and societies than ever before and we are integrating the best of those into our own reality. What we are witnessing now is a ‘Clash of Behaviors,’ whereby proponents of various dysfunctional expressions of religion, politics and culture, attempt to force themselves upon us. It is as if various gangs were trying to claim their turf.

In When Karl Met Sigmund, Dr Sanity writes,

Simply put, totalitarian systems–whether from the left or the right (and that includes Marxism in any of its incarnations, whether religious or secular)– actively promote the most negative, primitive, and immature aspects of human nature. In fact, they give a societal/institutional blessing to such behavior; and thrive on the resulting projection, paranoia, distortion, and denial of reality. [emp-SC&A]

We are ‘losing’ in Iraq because our words have us fighting the wrong battle. We are not now fighting to bring democracy to Iraq- the Iraqis can take care of their own interests, as their entusiasm to vote proved. We are fighting evil and facism, often dressed in religious garb, that would undermine what the Iraqis want for themselves. Would we give up on South Central Los Angeles because the Bloods and Crips were fighting a turf war? Would we leave the residents of South Central LA at the mercy of these gangs?

We understand what the Bloods and the Crips are. This administration has also deliberately chosen to mischaracterize the violence in Iraq, and therein lies most of the problem. We are not fighting ideologues- we are fighting criminals and terrorists. Rather than pretend we are fighting some mighty ideological enemy, we need to identify the real enemy. Our troops will not have their morale broken if they know that truth. In fact, we know our nations’ military have been at their finest helping, rebuilding and defending civilian populations. We rebuilt much of Europe and Japan after World War II and did so brilliantly.

It is true there are sectarian differences and allegiances in Iraq. That is also true in virtually every country in the world. It is also true that throughout the Middle East, there is tribal strife and violence that is never far from the surface. It is also true that that strife and violence is fostered by and encouraged by tyrannical and dysfunctional leaders. A divided country is a lot easier than a country that is united behind common values. It is in the best interest of those who want to keep a population subjugated to encourage sectarian strife.

Once more it was proved that given the chance, people will always vote for freedom. That so many Iraqis, of every group imagineable came out to vote in free and fair elections, rang an alarm bell in every Arab capital.

From that point on there has been a concerted effort by the Arab League and the dysfunctional leaders they represent to do everything they can to ensure that democracy does take hold in the region. We have also noted that

The Arab League is neither NATO or the Moose Lodge.

Even the name, ‘Arab League,’ is deliberately misleading. In fact, that organization does not represent Arab interests at all- and never has. The Arab League has not sponsored a single educational, economic or real democratic reform and empowerment program in it’s entire existence. The Arab League is an organization dedicated to maintaining the status quo and preserving the leaders of some of the most repressive and dysfunctional regimes in the world. That is it’s entire raison d’etre…

The civilized world is measured by accomplishment and achievement. As we have noted many times, cultures, societies and religions are measured by what they build and not by what they destroy.

The Arab League is complicit in maintaining that status quo in the Arab world. It is after all, a lot easier to hate than it is be productive- and that is just what the sponsors of the Arab League, dysfunctional and corrupt regime leaders, pay for.

Arab leaders and the Arab League complain to the west that they feel discriminated against and misunderstood, in both the cultural and religious sense. They should feel the pressure. They have managed to destrot generation of generation of Arabs, depriving them of hope, education and a future. Their protestations of ‘feeling’ hurt are absurd- and our responding to them as if those protests were credible, is even more absurd! As we have noted many times,

When nations that are that are led by or are under the influence of tyrants or dictators, attempt to justify those actions, we can rightly assume that justification is false. Tyrants and dictators do not make moral choices, because moral choices can only lead to the demise of the tyranny.

Anyone that comes to the defense of tyrannical regimes and their leaders, have themselves made a conscious choice to defend and stand by what is immoral. They themselves consciously adopt an immoral posture.

It really is that simple- and the time has come for us to deal with reality in Iraq. If we are serious about helping Iraq become a democracy, we must see the realities Iraqis see and deal with those realities, no matter what the Arab League and other Arab leaders say.