A VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS
Iraq: Criticism or Racisam?
By Rich Trzupek
The angry reaction to General Petraeus� report on Iraq, among Democrats and Liberals, could be easily dismissed as politics as usual. And, to be sure, there is political gain to be had by dismissing the general's upbeat report as the delusions of a Republican puppet. The 2008 vote largely depends on the public's perception of the war, after all.
Yet, doesn't this exchange reveal something else about politicians like Harry Reid, Barack Obama, MoveOn.org and all of the people who so angrily support them? Let's be brutally honest here dear readers. When you listen to these people, isn't it clear that they are, in fact, racists of the worst kind?
Many opponents of the war make several claims that are clearly nonsense. The most obvious delusion is this: if the U.S. would simply pull out of Iraq, today, or preferably yesterday, the nation would be at peace.
There is not a shed of evidence to support such a conclusion and one need look no farther than opponents of the war to conclude this is so. U.S. Senator Barack Obama admits that genocide is sure to occur, with Shiites slaughtering Sunnis, if U.S. forces withdraw now. He goes on to dismiss the bloodshed, on the grounds that since the United States isn't strong enough to prevent genocide everywhere, it shouldn't care about it anywhere.
In an editorial, the venerable New York Times, that bastion of liberalism, also admitted that genocide was an inevitable consequence of withdrawal. The Times' editors then shrugged their collective shoulders in print. Oh well-not our problem.
Of all of things that America stands for, this should be last on the list: blind acceptance of genocide, especially when we have the means in place to do something about it. Believe what you will about the value of this war or our motives for entering into it. Even if you believe the worst, isn't protecting millions of innocent lives reason enough to stay?
We have battled intolerance before, have we not? We were horrified by the Holocaust. We mobilized our nation and sacrificed hundreds of thousands to fight it. And, once that war was over, we would spend unprecedented amounts of cash to rebuild the nations we had fought. More recently, tales of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo moved us to intervene, to protect the innocents that were being slaughtered by a brutal oppressor.
Yet, there are times when America turns a blind eye to genocide. Millions died in the killing fields of Cambodia and we scarcely took notice.
Chairman Mao was responsible for tens of millions of deaths, more than any other ruler in the history of man. Not only did we do nothing to stop it, this incredibly evil man would become a folk legend of sorts among the more "hip" members of American society. A Hollywood icon like Cameron Diaz angrily denounces President Bush for his supposed crimes, yet she turns around and sports gear that pays tribute to a monster like Mao.
How is this possible? Why the disconnect? It's hard to escape the conclusion that, among the "enlightened," liberal classes, brown and yellow people simply don't matter.
They surely don't reach this conclusion consciously, but they do arrive at it unconsciously, which is a far more dangerous route. For, to the public at-large, they appear to be exercising the highest of moral standards by opposing war as a means to an end. In fact, they effectively choose to selectively embrace force in response to evil-only when that evil threatens people of similar skin pigmentation.
We have, finally and painfully, made significant strides in Iraq. Critics of the war had written off Andabar, the largest province in the nation and one which houses a huge Sunni population. The combination of increased U.S. presence and Al-Quida atrocities turned the Sunnis in Andabar around. Today, the terrorists are on the retreat in Andabar. Attacks have drastically reduced and the Sunni population co-operates with, rather than fighting against, American forces.
The same is true in Baghdad, where sectarian violence has been drastically reduced and Al-Quida has been forced into an embarrassing retreat. Increasingly, U.S. forces are helping to restore stability and plant the seeds of hope in a nation that has known nothing but violence and fear for 30 years.
General Petraeus reported all of this to Congress. His was a message of hope, which is remarkable if you think about it. This region of the world is used to thinking about government in selfish, tribal, parochial terms. Yet, in a few short years, the vast majority of the population has learned the value of compromise and cooperation-to some extent at least.
We may think Al-Quida for that. The alternative that the terrorists have offered is attractive to few Iraqis, no matter that these few are all too willing to blow themselves up. Whenever the forces of Al-Quida have briefly taken control, oppression, murder and intolerance have quickly followed.
The Iraqi people, of all sects, are too sophisticated to put up with that level of abuse for long. Even if they sympathize with religious values, it�s easy to see that church should be matter of choice, while state ought be an independent entity.
If we were fighting the same battle on our own shores, is there any doubt that we would react with righteous anger? Would we stand, for a second, the idea that a foreign group of religious fanatics should attempt to intimidate us into accepting their form of belief? And, if we resisted them, would we spare any expense to track down and bring to justice anyone who murdered innocent civilians in retaliation?
All that is different about this fight is that it is being fought half a world away and that the innocents being killed are somewhat darker in color than ourselves. These two circumstances seem to justify genocide among the people who oppose the war, which tells us all we need to know about them. Murder, to the Harry Reids and Barack Obamas of the world, is just fine-so long as white folk aren't killed.
That's worse than politics. That's simply appalling.
