Casting out Fear
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” I John 4:18
One of my guilty pleasures is reading Jack Kelly’s weekly column in the Blade. My wife Terry won’t read it any more because it just upsets her. Jack is a conservative Republican and a military veteran still fighting the Viet Nam war. He seems to feel that there is a military solution to every problem. He also clearly has issues with anyone else who doesn’t share his view.
The reason I raise Jack is because he is a spokesperson for the “win at all costs” Iraq strategy. Since we’re seeing a lot of that sort of fear mongering in the public discourse defending the war in Iraq, I thought that I would look at some of these ideas in a little more detail and see where they lead.
The first fear is that if we lose in Iraq, those that we are fighting will get nuclear weapons and use them on us. It is probably not a coincidence that this is the same argument that was used to justify the invasion. I guess if it worked once, why not try it again? Hopefully we can all agree that there are no nuclear weapons in Iraq, nor are there even the basic pieces to make a nuclear weapon. The only country that we know has a nuclear weapon that is also unhappy with us is North Korea. We also suspect that Iran has a nuclear program, but they don’t have a bomb yet. I’m assuming that the native Iraqi’s really don’t have any interest in using nuclear weapons to blow us up, they can do it now with IED’s, and when we leave they will probably be too occupied blowing each other up to follow us. So it must be al-Qaeda that Jack is worried about. Somehow they would take over Iraq if we left and then use oil revenue to buy a bomb from North Korea. Even if they could take-over, the reality is they don’t need oil revenue to buy a bomb. They could probably raise the money today if a nuclear bomb were for sale. Fortunately, these bombs aren’t for sale and for good reason. If I sold you a bomb or any other WMD, what would prevent you from turning right around and threatening to use it on me to get your money back? In other words, this is a silly argument.
The second fear is connected to the first. If we “lose” in Iraq, al-Qaeda will quickly subdue the warring factions and gain control of Iraq’s oil reserves. The whole reason that there are warring factions in Iraq is because of the oil money. It is highly unlikely that native Iraqi’s armed to the teeth are going to suddenly roll over and let al-Qaeda take control when we leave. Iraq at its core is a tribal country and the al-Qaeda leaders are not part of the family. They could certainly gain more influence, but it is much more likely that Iran, Syria, and the Saudi’s will have the greatest say in who has influence and power in Iraq when we leave. Each of them already has a dog in this fight and none of them are al-Qaeda.
We are left with an administration attempting to create support for a particular policy through baseless fear. This policy has killed over three thousand Americans, maimed another 23,000, and killed perhaps as many as 600,000 Iraqis. I don’t know about you, but it looks a lot like terrorism tactics to me.
January 16th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
I’m with all the way up to Al Quaeda isn’t Saudi. The United Arab Emirates for all appearances is lead by cleric rule the majority of the time. They are not progressive or moderate muslims. They are hard line, Sunni muslims. Bin Lauden is Saudi. Al Quaeda is Saudi funded. The perpetrators of 9-11 were mostly Saudi.
I always suspected Sadam was allowed or backed by the Saudis to create the dictatorship in Iraq. He was Sunni and shot up quick. Iraq was pretty progressive and modern before Sadam. The women were doctors, lawyers, dressed like us. Sunni Saudis gained and maintained control of Iraq through the terror tactics of Sadam. If not, perhaps Iraq would have ended up like Turkey, pretty westernized.
When Iraq moved on Kuwait, it was really the Saudis trying to control that wealth also, but they weren’t connected with the invasion. They are not our friends no matter how many times Bush Sr. shakes hands with them.
We’ve wasted lives, are trillions in debt, have a really tarnished reputation in the world and the simplest way to deflate terrorism is to get off oil. The Middle East has very little to offer in the marketplace, maybe olive oil, other than that, crude is it. Notice the lower gas prices. I’ve already heard it’s because consumption is down. What if we didn’t use it at all. Terrorist funding would dry up.
January 16th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
al-Qaeda and the wahhabi fundamentalists are clearly funded by the Saudi’s. It’s a curious sort of symbiotic relationship where the wealthy sheiks are able to retain power by generously funding the groups that profess to seek their overthrow.
At the moment, I think that the Saudi’s are perfectly happy that al-Qaeda is distracted by the US invasion of Iraq. But as far as the Saudi’s are concerned, I think that their concern is that the Sunni’s interests are properly represented in Iraq. That’s because they don’t want to deal with the diaspora that would result if there were widespread ethnic cleansing by the Shia.
As far as moving away from Middle East oil. I think that is something that we all can agree on.
Jeff