Our soldiers fought for the chance of a democracy; that fact is uncontestable. Before they came to Iraq, there was a fascist dictatorship. Now, after three elections, there is an indigenous democratic government for the first time in the history of the Middle East. True, thousands of Iraqis have died publicly in the resulting sectarian mess; but thousands were dying silently each year under Saddam--with no hope that their sacrifice would ever result in the first steps that we have already long passed.
Our soldiers also removed a great threat to the United States. Again, the crisis brewing over Iran reminds us of what Iraq would have reemerged as. Like Iran, Saddam reaped petroprofits, sponsored terror, and sought weapons of mass destruction. But unlike Iran, he had already attacked four of his neighbors, gassed thousands of his own, and violated every agreement he had ever signed. There would have been no nascent new democracy in Iran that might some day have undermined Saddam, and, again unlike Iran, no internal dissident movement that might have come to power through a revolution or peaceful evolution. . . .
Reading about Gettysburg, Okinawa, Choisun, Hue, and Mogadishu is often to wonder how such soldiers did what they did. Yet never has America asked its youth to fight under such a cultural, political, and tactical paradox as in Iraq, as bizarre a mission as it is lethal. And never has the American military--especially the U.S. Army and Marines--in this, the supposedly most cynical and affluent age of our nation, performed so well.
We should remember the achievement this Memorial Day of those in the field who alone crushed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, stayed on to offer a new alternative other than autocracy and theocracy, and kept a targeted United States safe from attack for over four years.
An opinionated look at current events, culture and faith, since 2005 telling you what to think and why to think it about everything that really matters.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Analysis and Tribute for Memorial Day
National Review Online's Victor Davis Hanson provides informed analysis of the Iraq War that segues nicely into a tribute to the US Military, just in time for Memorial Day. We commend the article to gentle readers, and offer a couple of teaser quotations:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment