TO FIGHT OR NOT TO FIGHT: THERE IS NO QUESTION

Submitted by Anatoly Tsaliovich (United States), Sep 17, 2005 at 12:30

Obviously, Iraq war is one of the most controversial subjects of our time. Like any war, it is disgusting and bloody, counter-productive and divisive, hard and expensive.
I know this first hand, barely surviving as a child the WWII, still remembering the sounds of German military planes, falling bombs, explosions, for some time being blind on both eyes either because of malnutrition or infection, along with other war fallouts. And don't forget anti-Semitism, rampant not only in Germany, but also in "mother Russia" (I heard, that even USA got a fair share of this "blessing"). Indeed, for all these reasons, I am supposed to be very "anti-war", which I am!

But I am also an engineer, a scientist in very "pragmatic" disciplines. One of my "specialties" is system analysis, which teaches me to look "beyond my nose", at as general model of the events as I can reasonably handle and make practical use of. From this "vantage" point, I see that Iraq is an episode of WWIII and that this war is already upon us, whether we want it or not. And it's really immaterial and too late now to look at what caused it: imperialism and colonialism of the West, utopism and intransigence of communism (remember, Hitler also was a "national-socialist"), poverty in the 3d World, fight between the great powers of our time (Bin Laden was supported by US agains Russia, while Russia supported Saddam Husseyn against US!), etc., etc. Too late to discuss this, at least as far as Iraq war is concerned: like they say, when the head is taken off, it's too late to care about the hair.

Unfortunately, many in this country but especially in Europe do not understand, or do not want to understand, what WWIII is about: now we all have to fight for our survival. It's not less that that!

Who do we fight? The medieval aggressive brand of Islam deeply rooted within ignorant, brainwashed, and militant masses. A thousand years ago, it used to be time, when Islamic world was much ahead of the Christian world. For instance, muslims made fun of stinking Western knights and their "fair" beauties (sorry, but it's true). But for the last millenium, Islamic world actually moved backward in culture and civilization, while retaining, or even "improving" on its ugly "dark age" agressiveness and cruelty. Have you seen a "head cutting feast" on TV?

As it is typical in a relatively short history of modern America, our first impetus is to ... do nothing. Isolationism was the name of the game for a long time, even as recently as WWII. Of course, doing nothing about war and trying to "sit over" the adversity, is also a strategy. Another "strategy" is appeasement: give the bandit all he wants and he'll leave you alone. But in my opinion, both these strategies are the losing ones, that may result in a tremendous loss of life, resources, and national pride (just in this particular case, have you heard about "dhimmitude"?). Times changed and the American continent is no more "another world", but very easily reachable island. And they did come on 9/11 and proved to us the futility of isolationism, didn't they?

Now, about this particular war in Iraq. Just imagine, that Washington, or Lincoln, or Roosevelt, waited longer than they did to start military actions! Where would the world be today? For example, many of us would probably speak Deutch today, while many others wouldn't be alive altogether!

But then, why Iraq, not Iran, not North Korea? There are many "worthy" scoundrels in the world. The thing is, that it is easy to be a "Monday Quarterback" and see the mistakes other people (and countries) did at the time. As far as WWIII is concerned, Iraq is as good a place to carry out the offensive against our enemy, as any other. I am not a military expert to decide which place would have been better. And I suspect, the majority of people who criticize the Iraq as a choice for the offensive, know even less, in this respect. Nobody before fought WWIII and who knows what the right course is? Just put yourself in President's Bush's shoes and think what you would have done in the face of Saddam's belligerence, Arab world hatred, Europe's defying anti-Americanism, dirty political games in this country when a political "job" is put above that national interests!

While there are many "cons" and "pros" in the Iraq war case, but do we have the other choice?

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