Viewpoints
Re: "Time to leave Iraq"
by Lilian Filanis
September 28, 2004
Tuesday
There are two ways to fight wars. You can destroy your
enemy completely, killing everybody, sowing salt into his
fields like the Romans are supposed to have done with Carthage
in the Punic Wars. Or we could act like the
winning side did in the First World War and make them
suffer and pay big time. Then there is the way the United
States dealt with Japan and Germany after World War Two. We
protected them, invested in them, fought off Communism for them
and now they are democratic allies of ours and it is impossible
to think about how they could be enemies of ours again in the
future. Democracies do not fight with other democracies!
By the way, the harsh treatment of Germany after WWI was likely
the impetus for WWII. It took us forty years and a Cold
War to get all of this done in Europe.
We soundly defeated Iraq after taking them on for attacking their
neighbors like Kuwait, Iran, Israel, etc. and for killing Kurds
which caused problems for our allies like Turkey and for threatening
us with WMD, attempting to assassinate a former US President,
defying UN pronouncements, shooting at our planes, etc.
Now we could just leave them and hope for the best or we can
convert them into a friendly democracy. All the other middle
eastern countries are dictatorships and are fighting this by
sending in irregular terrorist fighters. Let's face it,
if there was a productive Iraq where the people were happy then
democracy would spread and the dictators would be out of work.
So we have a choice. Fight a war now with some losses or
withdraw setting up maybe a much bigger war later with who knows
what kind of weapons. Besides, we have told the world what
we intend to do and have given our word to the Iraqi people. If
we back out now then nobody anywhere will ever trust us or in
the case of enemies, be afraid of the United States ever again.
It is tough but we have to stay and win.
Lilian Filanis
Fairbanks, AK
Related Viewpoint:
Time to leave Iraq by Don Hoff, Jr. - Hixson, TN
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