My view about the course of history since 9/11
The Course of History
The September 11, 2001 attack on the Twin Towers in New York changed the course of history and forced us to change our strategy and the military tactics known to this day.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor the president wanted an immediate and strong response and the military wanted a measured response. To the attack on USS Cole, President Clinton responded with a few rocket attacks. The American people forgot very quickly the facts and the pain. The Islamic extremists want to destroy our way of life and to transform our country and people to Muslim Shariya (Muslim law) states. We should understand the danger and we should know what to do, to defend our country and our lives.
After the attack of September 11, our president declared a total war on El Qaida, on its allied and its supporters.
The need to apply new security measures will slowly, slowly, change certain old democratic rules at the expense of personal freedom and our way of life. The American way of thinking, and that of the world is about to change. It is worth noting that for the first time, the leaders in the US and in other countries are people born after WW2 or who were too young to grasp the effects of this cruel war that engulfed the whole world. That war had destroyed cities and villages in Europe, in North Africa, and in Asia and left thirty million people dead, more than one hundred million people injured or handicapped, without counting the suffering of the widows and the orphans. World War II was cruel and surpassed by far the El Qaida war in its intensity, scale and the number of soldiers and military gear it involved, and by the large geographic area it encompassed.
It was also the United States that had to intervene in North Africa, in Europe, and in Asia to redirect the course of history towards peace and prosperity.
Today we are facing change and we have not yet realized the magnitude and the direct and indirect consequences of this new method of combat and of war. George W. Bush and his team are maybe the only ones to have grasped the range and the magnitude of this change and of the way in which first the United Stated, and then the world must face this almost invisible enemy. While trying not to confuse Islam in general with radical Islam, the Western World will see itself compelled to admit its weakness and sooner or later, if it wants to survive, it will need to reconsider and re-evaluate certain aspects of its democracy in view of the phenomenon of Islamism. Islam from its part, if it wants to live with the Western World will also have to change many aspects of its way of life.
Radical Islam has also changed the course of Arab and Muslim history and has maybe given a false hope to the Arab and Muslim masses, that the Occident can be beaten, the same hope that the Palestinians thought of having acquired, when they launched the intifada against Israel.
In his time, Napoleon had changed the course of European history by forcing the kingdoms to go to battle with his army that was trained for a new way of combat. This is what Bin Laden is trying to do; he is forcing the Western World to fight against an invisible army, while the Occident, with its open movements and military corps becomes vulnerable. Arafat=s and Bin Laden=s mistake is, that this war will last a long time, and the one who will have the longer economical, military and social means and endurance will win. We tend to forget the evil, such as the El Qaida attacks. We prefer to put our head in the sand and we are unfair for the sake of politics, giving our enemies and friends the tool to fight us.
Bush has no choice than to win the Iraqi and Afghan wars for several reasons:
1. If the United States abandons Iraq, as a leader, we will lose the moral high ground and Iraq will become a haven for Arab and Muslim terrorists and will transform the Middle East into a fanatic dictatorial force that would threaten us and Europe. The Iranians would be the first to fill the vacuum left in Iraq and would help establish a Shiite Muslim Sharia (Muslim principles of jurisprudence). These facts alone would destabilize our Arab allies and would endanger the flow of oil.
2. Iran has already declared war and is threatening openly the destruction of our ally Israel and it will certainly not stop there. How can we call such a country, if not an evil country, as our president has declared it in his State of the Union? If we do nothing in the face of an evil, we give a free hand to the evil nation to triumph.
3 For the survival of the US as a world democratic power.
4. For the well-being of the Arab and Muslim world, if it does not want to fall back into a religious dictatorship
5. For the well-being of the world.
We saw the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which is older than 50 years and no one can see the end of it. The French-German wars lasted almost a century, similar to the English-French war, which lasted more than a century. We can expect that the United States will have to stay in Afghanistan and in Iraq as long as needed in order to stabilize the situation and to defeat the El Qaida. It may take 50 years or even more. Meanwhile the Middle East culture is transforming itself through the presence of television and of modern technology. The screen image projected by Al Jazira TV penetrates every Arab state, home and café, even if most of the time it is against America. This channel also projects the same reality on the ground, which, after a while will project the image of democracy and will change the Arab perception. .The screen images that reach us in our living rooms are also changing the American perception and culture. Fifty years ago, one could not imagine seeing so many foreign tourists in the American streets. This presence is helping the American economy, which is prospering. The presence of foreign people among us is also changing our way of life and our perception. The image of the election in Iraq, which penetrated the living rooms of the Arab world will have an indirect and certain impact on the Arab way of life and will slowly, slowly transform the Arab society. The American society has become more vulnerable because the people do not understand the meaning of terrorism and are influenced by a lot of propaganda in the American street. It comes from various so-called friends’ and foes’ spheres of influence which penetrate our living room trough media and the free internet. All this influence is changing the course of history for us and abroad without us even being aware of it.
If we continue this course, we will probably find ourselves in the middle of a war that we did not want, and for which we were neither prepared nor able to prevent it. In my view, our president was elected by the American people for the second term in the middle of the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan and in many other places in the world and at that time the United State Congress has not objected. Any president cannot easily change his strategy even if he wanted to. Can we change the rules in the middle of the game, without consequences?
All the presidential candidates, may they be democrats or republicans, except for a few, are confusing the American people for the benefit of their own political advantage and are sending our allies and our enemies a very mixed message. The fact of everyone complaining that the war is still not won and that it is not well managed is equal to someone cutting the legs of another person and complaining that he is too short.
From the beginning of the Bush administration, many political leaders and our European allies have together orchestrated a passive and sometimes a negative attitude towards this administration although they have voted for the war. I know from the experience of World War II and other wars that no leader is perfect. Those who are watching without any responsibility can easily criticize the one who is acting and carrying the burden. I understand that nothing is perfect, but as Americans we should unite in a common cause before it is too late.
Eventually, maybe after fifty or a hundred years, we will recognize the facts and we will probably salute our sitting president for his determination, despite all the pressure put on him from multiple directions in the middle of the war. This is my opinion.