Response to Anatoly Tsaliovich
Reader comment on item: What If the United States Had Not Invaded Iraq
in response to reader comment: TO FIGHT OR NOT TO FIGHT: THERE IS NO QUESTION

Submitted by Sanchez (United States), Dec 23, 2006 at 22:12

Anatoly, your analysis is quite interesting to read, especially given your WWII perspective which fewer and fewer of us have these days. You raise some interesting questions that need to be answered.

First of all, there is no doubt in my mind that President Bush is not a malicious person who would wantonly kill so many people as is claimed by so many. He is a sincere man who has a vision for the world that is essentially good. Inspite of all this I believe Iraq was a mistake and not just in terms of how it was fought. Let's look at some facts
1) Most of the 9/11 hijackers and conspirators were Saudis or Pakistanis
2) No Iranians, Iraqis or North Koreans were involved in 9/11,
3) The only muslim country where people mourned 9/11 was Iran.

Given this scenario, does it make sense to call Iran/Iraq/NK the axis of evil? NK is evil in its own way but to drag it into an already complicated crisis was uncalled for. You state that its unclear which country needed to be confronted first in this WWIII. You are right that it is a hard question simply because this is not a war that can be fought at the military level. It can only be fought at the ideological level. No war can be won if you are not honest about what you are fighting. Waging war to spread "freedom and democracy" is an exercise in futility because "freedom and democracy" can only exist in certain contexts and not in a vacuum.

The real exercise the West needs to engage in is combating the ideology of Islam in a honest way without caring for political correctness. The Van Goghs and the Rushdies and the Danish cartoonists need to be defended not just in the physical sense but also in an ideological sense. Unless a blistering and fearless attack is launched on the fallacious idea that Islam is not to blame for terrorism, no amount of military activity will be enough.

To have any chance at winning this WWIII, we need to be ready to offend in an honest way, always holding ourselves to a severely higher standard than the enemy. This means opening up our free societies to intense scrutiny in a fearless way. Western ideals can defend themselves very well against Islamic bigotry. You want to hold a conference for the denial of the holocaust, be my guest. We should NEVER be afraid of speaking the truth and never be afraid of lies because in the end truth always prevails but not silence.

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