One of my favorite aspects of a site called the Conservative Cat is that there is a feature called “The Thoughts of Chairman Meow” where a quote from one of his previous posts is randomly selected to appear. I love it because it is always clever and because it always makes me think, two outstanding characteristics for any post. When I checked out the site this morning, the randomizer sent a post that had appeared in January, called “Choices”, where the always insightful Conservative Cat pointed out that:
There is always a military solution. It's quite simple, really. You just kill people until the violence stops. That is, after all, how Saddam Hussein kept the peace . . . . See, the problem is not that the Army can't do this job, the problem is we're trying to strike a balance between effectiveness and a minimum of collateral damage. A purely military solution would involve wide-open rules of engagement and lots of troops. A purely political solution would involve minimal violence but lots of publicity of how good things are going to be if we all pull together.
You should read the whole thing. In it, he further pointed out that the chief problem is the Democrats, who are working against our victory in Iraq. As usual, a clear, accurate assessment. And, again as usual, thought-provoking. This morning, I thought about that problem of having to “strike a balance between effectiveness and a minimum of collateral damage”.
It occurs to me that it might be useful for a moment to look at our war in Iraq as though we were fighting against a terrorist group that has taken an embassy compound hostage. Of course, in this case the embassy is the size of an entire country. We want to have as few casualties among the hostages as possible, but in this case the enemy keeps murdering randomly selected hostages. Usually, when the hostages start to be murdered, the special ops forces move in, but in this case, because of the size of the country, it isn’t possible. We have all the disadvantages of a terrorist hostage seizure, including a large number of innocent people in danger. So our military is fighting one of the most difficult wars of all, a hostage takeover, and they’re doing it without the three real benefits they should have in such a situation.
The benefits? Benefit one in a hostage takeover is that it is in a severely limited area. It can be surrounded, and kept contained in size. Iraq is too large, its borders are relatively unsecured, and weapons and reinforcements for the enemy can move in relatively easily.
The second benefit? In an embassy takeover, the hostages know that there are people trying to rescue them. If a hostage is hiding, and manages to get to a phone, such a hostage will tell the people outside the embassy as much information as possible about where the terrorists are, how many weapons they have, and so forth. Why don’t we have that benefit in Iraq? The Democrats will tell you that it is because the Iraqis want us to leave. There are "polls" taken in Iraq. But hostages aren'texactly in a good position to openly declare their preferences. And if you consider the embassy hostage, you will see that the last thing the hostage wants is for the people who want to rescue them to go away and leave them to the terrorists. And if the hostage is convinced that the rescuers may simply leave, then that hostage is not going to cooperate with the rescuers. It would be too dangerous to work against the terrorists and then be left in their hands.
Benefit three? The civilized world wants the hostages freed. In this case, too much of the socalled “civilized world” is behaving as though the people in Iraq are worthless, and there is no reason to help them or even encourage those who are helping them.
A useful part of this hostage-metaphor is that the Iraqi people know what it is to be held hostage by a terrifying force, because, as the Conservative cat pointed out, Saddam kept the “peace” by treating his country as an occupied embassy and his people as hostages to his will. Cooperate or die. Those “insurgents” who are kidnapping, torturing, and murdering people, who are using bombs and booby traps to kill randomly, and who are willing to park a car bomb next to marketplaces, schools, children, various groups of people, etc., those who are willing to murder purely at random, are not the kind of people the rest of the Iraqis want to be left to the mercy of. There will be no mercy. And they’ve already “been there” under Saddam.
There are basically three things that would motivate the Iraqi people to actively help us, thus providing the benefits other hostage situations have. One, they could wish for the United States and its people to make it clear before the powers of the Earth that we are going to stay the course and help them as long as necessary. Both political parties should openly declare and promise that, whoever is in the White House, the war will be fought to the end. Second, our media could, and should have from the beginning, report on heroism, rebuilding, victories, how noble our military is being in a very difficult war, encouraging groups in the US to form partnerships with areas in Iraq with adopting schools and hospitals, etc, sending supplies, forming pen-pal groups, and so on. If these bonding actions were carried out throughout the country, no one school or group would be standing alone as a target. Our media should report on what is being done to free Iraq and rebuild it. Third, the world community should recognize that letting the terrorists win in Iraq would only give the terrorists billions of dollars and land and supplies and other assets to increase the terrorist acts all over the world. The countries that are “sitting this one out” should be actively helping instead. They could be adding manpower to patrol the borders and otherwise put pressure on the nations bordering Iraq to stop them from destabilizing the situation even more. There could be international pressure against sending more terrorists and supplies into Iraq from the outside world. The “Western” world should stand as one against the terrorists. The Iraqi people are worth fighting for.
But just as the Conservative Cat points out, the Democrats are the primary impediment for any of this. As a matter of fact, it is the Leftists all over the world that are the chief impediments to victories against the terrorists.
It is as though there was an embassy takeover and some people showed up determined to disarm the rescuers and send them away.
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