Tuesday, April 13, 2004
WW III
It hit me the other day, while watching the reports of the chaos in Iraq, that we really are in WW III. Yeah, I know. We all expected that it would involve the US, USSR and China lobbing nukes at each other and that it would be over in thirty minutes. But, given recent events, let's consider...
We have a coalition of mostly Western nations involved in what has now become high-stakes street fighting in a middle eastern nation, but which has polarized the Muslim world against us. And don't discount those numbers. Not only does the "Muslim world" include the middle east, you can add in many nations in Africa; Malaysia and Indonesia; and countless numbers of muslims scattered among every nation of the world.
Not that I think every follower of Islam is going to take up arms against the US, just as I don't think that every Christian is going to take up arms against Muslims. But it's just that the scope of W's folly in Iraq is really so much larger than one small, unimportant desert country. We've already seen Spain's sitting government booted out of office over the conflict. We've seen nations alienated by the unilateral and imperialistic behavior of the US. Hey, by this point in WW II, Hitler had barely managed to annex Poland and Czechloslovakia. The US wasn't even involved, and Neville Chamberlin was "negotiating."
And North Korea is making its usual threats of nuclear war, except that a Pakistani official has now confirmed having seen the missiles.
We have less than eight months to fix this mess, people. Look at it this way. It's not a vote on homeland security. It's not a vote on the economy. It's a vote on whether you want the US to be the aggressor nation in World War III. It's a vote on whether you want us to become the Germany of the next century.
Okay, hindsight is 20/20. I'm sure many good Germans without a fascist bone in their body liked Hitler and what he was doing back in '38. But we have the advantage of being able to use that hindsight in this situation. If you've ever told yourself that you would have stood up to the Nazis as they were coming to power, then tell yourself you'll do it now. And tell yourself that you can't possibly support someone who, in only three short years, has made such a mess of the world that we are in a more dangerous situation than at the height of the Cold War, than at the darkest day of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
And remember this -- while Fallujah is exploding, while the American death count is racking up faster than at any other point in this war, while innocent civilians are being taken hostage left and right, the Asshat in charge is on vacation, telling the world that "things are improving in Iraq."
Yeah. That's like saying "Things are improving in Hiroshima" right after the bomb was dropped. Yeah, improving if you consider a sudden drop in air temperature an improvement.
We're edging up to 700 dead. How many more will it take? Do we have to hit a thousand? At this rate, we'll match the 9-11 death toll in a month. And then what? Will it take W directly causing the deaths of as many Americans as the terrorists did for people to wake up?
Or would you like to be able to tell your grandchildren (assuming any of us are alive to have them) all those thrilling tales of life "during the Big One, back in '05..."
We have a coalition of mostly Western nations involved in what has now become high-stakes street fighting in a middle eastern nation, but which has polarized the Muslim world against us. And don't discount those numbers. Not only does the "Muslim world" include the middle east, you can add in many nations in Africa; Malaysia and Indonesia; and countless numbers of muslims scattered among every nation of the world.
Not that I think every follower of Islam is going to take up arms against the US, just as I don't think that every Christian is going to take up arms against Muslims. But it's just that the scope of W's folly in Iraq is really so much larger than one small, unimportant desert country. We've already seen Spain's sitting government booted out of office over the conflict. We've seen nations alienated by the unilateral and imperialistic behavior of the US. Hey, by this point in WW II, Hitler had barely managed to annex Poland and Czechloslovakia. The US wasn't even involved, and Neville Chamberlin was "negotiating."
And North Korea is making its usual threats of nuclear war, except that a Pakistani official has now confirmed having seen the missiles.
We have less than eight months to fix this mess, people. Look at it this way. It's not a vote on homeland security. It's not a vote on the economy. It's a vote on whether you want the US to be the aggressor nation in World War III. It's a vote on whether you want us to become the Germany of the next century.
Okay, hindsight is 20/20. I'm sure many good Germans without a fascist bone in their body liked Hitler and what he was doing back in '38. But we have the advantage of being able to use that hindsight in this situation. If you've ever told yourself that you would have stood up to the Nazis as they were coming to power, then tell yourself you'll do it now. And tell yourself that you can't possibly support someone who, in only three short years, has made such a mess of the world that we are in a more dangerous situation than at the height of the Cold War, than at the darkest day of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
And remember this -- while Fallujah is exploding, while the American death count is racking up faster than at any other point in this war, while innocent civilians are being taken hostage left and right, the Asshat in charge is on vacation, telling the world that "things are improving in Iraq."
Yeah. That's like saying "Things are improving in Hiroshima" right after the bomb was dropped. Yeah, improving if you consider a sudden drop in air temperature an improvement.
We're edging up to 700 dead. How many more will it take? Do we have to hit a thousand? At this rate, we'll match the 9-11 death toll in a month. And then what? Will it take W directly causing the deaths of as many Americans as the terrorists did for people to wake up?
Or would you like to be able to tell your grandchildren (assuming any of us are alive to have them) all those thrilling tales of life "during the Big One, back in '05..."
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