UFO Info Week-End

If America were to withdraw Iraq would be condemned to blood and chaos which would spread throughout the Middle East

If America were to withdraw, Iraq would be condemned to blood and chaos which would spread throughout the Middle East. We had no strategic interest in the welfare of the Iraqi people.It was perfectly possible to make those arguments, but only until the invasion had begun. There is no status quo ante in this bellum; containment is no longer an option.So even those who were against the war ought now to acknowledge the necessity of American success. They are perfectly capable of engaging in fierce fire fights, taking the inevitable losses, and persevering until they have won. Without that vital close-combat capability, no amount of technology can guarantee superpowerhood. Now that the Americans have proved that they possess it, victory in Iraq is closer and the world is a safer place.There was a respectable case to be made against the Iraq war.

It could have been argued that containment was still an option and had created a form of stability. Though life may have been wretched for most Iraqis, that was no reason for the West to interfere. While it is too early to assume that this has been corrected by the recent bloodletting, it is also too early to assume the contrary.No military mission ever succeeded without inspiring fear. In certain sectors, the Americans may have been deficient in that regard. Let us hope that this has now been put right, for in Iraq, fear is the beginning of wisdom.It must also be remembered that Americans have been trying to kill the Iraqis who have been trying to kill other Iraqis who want to be free. If the Americans have been committing crimes against humanity in Iraq, they were committing the same crimes in Nazi Germany. Freedom sometimes has to be enforced by lead and steel.Fortunately, there seems no weakening of American resolve in the pursuit of enduring freedom in Iraq.

No one now talks about American vulnerability to body bags; and their troops have demonstrated that they do not deal only in smart weaponry from long range. Some commentators have been writing as if the Iraqis were either savages to whom life is cheap, or supermen whom casualties cannot deter That does not seem to have been borne out by recent events A mosque was rocketed; the country did not explode Large numbers of insurgents were killed in Fallujah. As a result, the fighting subsided.Some Iraqis had formed the impression that they could kill Americans with impunity and then dance gleefully around dishonoured corpses Now they know better. The Saddamists in Fallujah have been hit hard and, at any rate for the moment, they do not seem in a hurry to hit back Fallujah had been an enclave of anarchy. The Americans deserve gratitude for bringing that to an end.Equally, there may be hopeful signs even in the latest bloodshed. It would have been better to move more cautiously.But the Americans’ mistakes should not be allowed to obscure the moral grandeur of their purpose in Iraq. If – when – the Americans have their way, the average Iraqi will be freer and more prosperous than ever before, while living much longer Iraq should be a great nation in a vital region.

Thanks to the US, it will have the chance to be so and to spread a beneficent example.If Prussia was an army masquerading as a state, Saddam’s Iraq was a torture chamber masquerading as a state. The army has been replaced by a pitifully under-trained police force, who are expected to operate in conditions of maximum danger with many months less training than a British constable would receive before being deemed competent to track down a lost sheep in Little Snoddering. If the Americans had merely dismissed everyone of the rank of Colonel and above, plus a few brutal NCOs, while offering the rest an amnesty and retraining, there would have been an instrument to assist authority, however dubious its antecedents.Instead, there are large numbers of unemployed and resentful characters whose main marketable skill is their military training. Moreover, the abolition of Saddam’s army was a dramatic signal to the Sunni minority that their dominance was at an end.