Why I Support the War

I’ve actually had a few people ask me why I support the war. First of all, without being a religious Christian, I am a spiritual type of guy who believes in a loving God who would like nothing more than to see His children behaving in a loving way toward each other. Secondly, I’ve never been a big fan of war or of violence. And, last but not least, I am not a huge fan of government (though I do think that ours is about the best one could ask for and far superior to the vast majority around the world). So, it’s a legitimate question: Why would a person who prefers peace and brotherhood (our would the PC version be something more like “siblinghood”?), and thinks big government is generally bad government, support a war?

To me, the love of peace and the desire to see a loving world are reasons TO support the war. “How could that be?” you ask. Well, my biggest reason for supporting the war is that I believe our enemies are very serious. It’s unfortunate that anyone would have to be referred to as an enemy, but there’s no other word to describe someone who considers YOU to be their enemy, or to describe someone who holds the goal of destruction of all you hold dear. Someone whose ideology is so alien to what you believe is right, and who has not merely stated that they want to wipe you out, but who has proven time and again that they’re more than willing (seriously… like they consider it a holy duty) to take action to bring about your demise… well, the language doesn’t hold a more appropriate term than “enemy” for such a person.

Therein lies the rub. The Islamists, or Islamofascists, are serious about destroying our way of life. They refer to us as decadent, and say we’re infidels. In their ideology, that makes us less than human, or certainly subordinate to them. And they’re not just talking about the fact that we can watch porn on the internet, or have barely-legal women strutting around in various stages of undress while singing songs, or even the fact that we love our iPods when they refer to us as decadent. It’s the fact that we tolerate other religions. We tolerate (and accept!) a variety of religious beliefs, including non-belief. We tolerate (and accept) gays. I know… within this country there is much debate about the degree to which we have tolerance for alternative lifestyles, but we have to remember that while we debate gay marriage and most people are willing to accept an alternative like civil unions, our enemies kill gays.

The Islamofascists interpretation of Islam (which looks a lot like a huge powerplay to me, where a ruling elite eventually gets to trample all over the masses of people by religious fiat) is hateful. There’s not much (if any) “love thy neighbor” in it. There’s a lot of “kill thy neighbor, or even those in your own household, if they don’t behave according to a strict set of guidelines… which, by the way, can change or be reinterpreted, by a fatwa from those above you.” It’s a “total control” ideology. You turn your life and will over to others, and those who don’t are eligible to be killed. Witness the Taliban’s Afghanistan. That’s what we’re talking about. Women remaining covered, uneducated, and treated as property. Men, while in a position superior to women, having to live under strict codes imposed by others. People living without hope, in a mode of pure terror and survival, in a system that places no value on creativity or productivity, and certainly not on human rights or property rights. To advance, you become part of the ruling cadre’, not by virtue of hard work and creativity, but by being as ruthless as they are.

They want that here. They want that in Europe. They want that all across the world. Yes, it clearly kills civilizations off. How prosperous was Afghanistan? How prosperous is Iran? (They even have oil and can’t keep it together!) How prosperous are the Palestinians? But the point isn’t what WORKS for people and for higher standards of living and care for the planet and it’s inhabitants. It’s ALL about whether or not you’re believing the right things and behaving in the right ways. Ultimately, like any fascism, it’s about power for an elite with no thought for what happens to the world after that power is attained.

OK… what has that to do with Iraq (which is the most controversial aspect of the general war on terror)? Well, aside from the fact that Saddam Hussein was a ruthless tyrant, and an enabler of terrorists (even if you don’t believe he was harboring al Qaieda operatives like Zarqawi after he’d fled Afghanistan, or training them in the North, it was widely publicized that he was paying suicide bomber’s families), he also had, at minimum, the knowledge of how to make chemical weapons, if not stockpiles of them. It was clear at the time, and made even more clear by documents recovered in Iraq, that Saddam was waiting for the sanctions to be removed—a process he was helping along—to simply get back to where he had been and wanted to be in terms of WMD.

All of that is bad. But what made it all worse is that Saddam’s regime, by its continued existence as well as by the things he said and did, was emboldening the Islamofascists. His regime continually thumbed its nose at the UN, the United States, and the civilized world. The UN, the USA, and the civilized world were content to talk and to threaten and to pass resolutions, but not to ACT with any resolve. This emboldened the Islamofascists. The statements of al Qaieda leadership tell us that they saw the USA as a paper tiger and nothing more. Do you think it was a secret from them that Saddam was shooting at our jets in the no-fly zone? Was it a secret that he was somehow able to build palaces while under sanctions by the UN using Oil For Food money? Was his seeming ability to hang on to his weapons of mass destruction by interfering with, and then ending the inspections regimes, making it seem like HE was in charge of the inspection process, something that made the UN and the USA look stronger or weaker? And, the fact that he could do all of this, making his people suffer all the more while still maintaining power, had to embolden anyone who held the desire for tyrannical, fascistic power.

So, I support the war in all of its aspects. I don’t want to see the rise of a horrible, fascist power that not only ends individual freedom, liberty, and hope for a better future, but that also denigrates women, enslaves men, and kills gays or anyone else who is not deemed appropriate, such as anyone who doesn't follow the teachings of the Quran as interpreted by the Mullahs. I think that reversing a course of apparent (and practical) weakness that emboldened these Islamofascists is a good thing. I believe that striking a blow for freedom, liberty, and democracy right in the heart of the first lands the Islamofascists would like to claim for themselves is a good thing. And, though I hate to say it, if killing must be done, killing them there rather than here is a good thing. Killing, it seems, must be done, because when someone wants to kill you, your only choice is to die, or kill them before they’re successful. The Islamofascists have made no secret of their desire or their ability to kill.

I’m a huge admirer of Mahatma Gandhi. Studying him as I have, I believe that Gandhi would’ve understood the need for this war. Gandhi was able to liberate India from British rule because he knew that the morals of the British people would not allow them to stand for their leaders perpetrating violence on the non-violent protesters. He knew the leaders themselves would not be able to continue that course. Eventually, they'd listen, see their side was intellectually and morally inferior, and capitulate. But the Islamists moral compass allows them to say things such as “We will win, because you love life, and we love death.” The Islamists are NOT guided by the moral compass that Gandhi could rely on, knowing what he knew about the British people and the West. Gandhi would’ve known that, if what he was confronting was a people who would kill and keep killing his protesters, and would do so with the blessings of the followers of the killers, he would have to come up with another tactic. The same was true of Dr. King. He knew that the majority of whites would see that the ignoramuses who wanted institutionalized discrimination and believed in racial superiority were wrong if the people saw thoughtful, non-violent protest being confronted by ignorant violence. If Dr. King had been a Jew in an Islamic land, do you think his tactic of non-violent protest would have worked? Would he have made it to the capital of that nation to give a speech on the mall?

The Islamofascists have told us and showed us that they are serious. They declared war on the USA and Western Civilization long ago. What they want for us is a near polar opposite of what we want for ourselves (and what we’d hope for even for them). When confronted by that (and we are confronted by that) we’d better be willing to resist, and part of that resistance is supporting our troops and our government in an effort to fight them.