Friday, July 22, 2005

How we Might Lose the Iraq War

I saw this picture in the Tribune. Here's the story.

That's her daddy. He was killed by terrorists (Not Insurgents) in Iraq. His job was guarding her school.

She don't know much about Shite or Sunni.

She knows her father's dead.

She doesn't know much about Saddam Hussein.

Those are her fathers feet who carried her as a baby. He won't do that again. Look at the pain in her eyes. This is never going away.

She won't have any opportunity to have daddy at her wedding. When she marries, as I hope she does, she will remember this day with pain.

When a despotic dictator emerges in Iraq who promises that he will get rid of all the bad people who kill little girl's daddies she will submit to his tyranny with willingness. She will do it because she will remember this day. This has happened over and over again in world history. Hitler is the most recent iteration. When the despot emerges the US will not have the collective political will to stop him. We as a country will be happy to hand off the mess that is Iraq of today..

She is the future of Iraq. The USA doesn't matter to her. Daddy did. Daddy was killed. In the old days Daddy wouldn't have been killed, she believes.

This picture is NOT good news to our efforts and the sacrifice of our troops.

Her heart and her mind will be hard to win. She wants her daddy back.

This is a pessimistic future. But it's more pessimistic if we don't win. We must win the war of the hearts and minds of people who have every chance of becoming our enemy. They have declared war. Look at this statement. We must win this war of the hearts and minds and offer this little girl hope and a future. Or Saddam will look like a peanut next to the despot that will follow. This really matters.

3 comments:

NodakJack said...

How do we "win this war?"
In our hearts, we know we can't. How do we slink into the night is more like it.
Love your blog, Gleaner.
NJ

Gene said...

Jack, If I knew the answer to that one I’d be president. And by the way, he doesn’t know either. The fact is, no one does. I do know that this is a struggle against a force more set on world domination than the Soviet Union ever was. Perhaps more persistent than the Nazis. The citizens of those regimes didn’t all believe in the mission to the bottom of their souls.

These people bent on overturning civilization to their way of thinking cannot be taken lightly. I added a link to the bottom of the blog that shows this conundrum. We must win, that little girls heart and mind, and we must win to stop the insanity of a theology bent on taking the world by terrorism and force.

We can give no quarter. Am I pessimistic, yes, mostly because I don’t believe the political will in America is there to finish the this. Vietnam was a cakewalk compared to this. The USA, Great Britton and Europe are the dominos that will fall this time. Not Cambodia or Laos. This is life and death.

If we fail this time it’s personal. It will have to do with how your great grandchildren will live. If we fail the world will change forever for the worse.

NodakJack said...

Sometimes, when I read back in my history books, I think that King Richard had it right. Even then the Muslims were causing the west to note their presence.
The commies had ONE thing right. Their prohibition of religion evidently wasn't just aimed at Christianity. They kept the Muslims under control. They probably loved Christians compared to those jamokes.
I'm not a bigot, but I have a problem with quite a few of the Muslims in this country. It goes back to a question I ask of them, "..whose side would YOU be on if the Islamic radicals won?"