Indifference Kills

Submitted by Lee D. Cary (United States), May 3, 2006 at 16:10

What we've gotten for our efforts to support freedom in the Middle East is the hope of freedom for millions of people. The "someone's" who "complain" will complain whatever stance the US takes. Complaining is their avocation.

Indifference, Pat, is not a geo-political option (particularly since 9/11) nor is it, in my opinion, a moral one. As for the cost: in 1943, US Marines assaulted the small island of Tarawa in the Pacific. Three thousand, three hundred and one of them died to take the island--and 4,690 Japanese died to defend it. The photos of the dead shocked Americans. None had been published earlier in the war. But they got over the shock quickly, because they knew that freedom isn't free. And it never will be--whether you claim it for yourself, or you claim it for others, as we're doing in Iraq. As a nation, we now know less about taking the long view than did our parents and grand parents. And that is sad and dangerous.

Not only can the West do what needs doing in the Middle East, there's role there that only the West can play as an aggressive catalyst for change. Bot violent and non-violent. Who else is there? China? Russia? Countries from Africia and S. America?

You write, "Until then, they're on their own." That's be a valid position, except they'll not stay to themselves. A significant precentage have declared war against the West, blaming the West for all their homebred problems. When they've killed more of us, we'll wake up to that point. (I personally believe it will take the detonation of a nuclear device in a US city, within 5 years) There will be less grief for all if we thoroughly engage the challenge of Middle East transformation now, and do so aggressively. Few of them, and fewer of us will die.

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