A great deal of Anti-Americanism is brewing these days, in this country and abroad. It’s important to analyze the motivation behind it. It is not, as they would have you believe, peace in our time.
It is power.
As the world’s only superpower, the U.S. is a magnet. We lead the world financially and militarily, and thus politically. Pundits are correct when they say Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attack was not spurred by envy of our lifestyle, however, our status as the only superpower is an unavoidable catalyst for the events that led to the attacks. Critics condemn our foreign policies, but there are no policies that could possibly please everyone. Policies of appeasement might do that on a short-term basis, but they give a green-light to behavior which is detrimental to our interests in the long run. Our appeasement policies of the 90’s are what led to the growth of terror networks and rogue states that are now difficult to deal with. As the world’s lone superpower, many people around the globe want to see us come down to their level. Regardless of how benevolent we may or may not be, there will always be some resentment and animosity born under the perception that we have it better than them. We can react either by becoming isolationist, or we can try to help bring others up.
The current threat we face was spawned by and is fueled by Islamic extremists. The level of devotion they truly have to the religion of Islam is questionable. But their true agenda is obvious. They don’t hate America for hate’s sake, and they don’t attack us in the name of Allah. Instead, they want Islamic militants to have unregulated power throughout the world, and they see America, correctly so, as a major threat to that. Period.
The other major opponent America faces these days is the political far-Left. This does not include well-intending American liberals. The far-Left consists of resentful, anti-capitalistic, pro-communist activists. They consist of moral relativists, they hold contempt for those who use religion as their moral compass, and they despise the social conventions of Western life.
The Left makes it clear they do not side with these militants and terrorists. This may be true; however, they do share their agenda, regardless of what they say. They resent government where the people have the power, as do the Islamic fundamentalists and communist dictators we are currently threatened by. Thus there is a shared interest against the U.S., which promotes democracy and spreads capitalism. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, indeed.
The Left is uncomfortable when the power lies with the people because they are then left to their own devices to succeed. They feel safer when government controls the means of production rather than the segment of the population they feel will freeze them out of the loop.
This is why the Left capitulate a position of appeasement towards terrorists and militants. They aren’t aiming for peace, but rather to be a thorn in our side, to compromise our power so as to build up their own. While only the hard-core extremists would actually wish for terror attacks against America, there is certainly a sentiment of comfort that America got what it deserved on 9/11. When you really get to the core, there’s really not much of a distinction between those two ideas.
The other reason they want to acquiesce to this threat is because they are scared. They convince themselves that if we appease our enemies, they’ll go away. The only problem with this is that history has shown this to be fallacious logic, time and time again. Leftists outside our country actually fear America more than terrorists, but only because the terrorists are now directing their ire towards America, and not them. This is a large reason why some countries do not with to align with us.
But the Left in America is suspicious. Note that, despite the large number of socialistic countries and a few remaining communist regimes, many of these people continue to choose to make their address right here in the U.S.A., despite their extreme animosity. Are not our true beliefs revealed by our actions?
The last time the Left was this loud was during the Cold War. They insisted on appeasing the Soviet Union, and were quite clear that communism was their preferred form of government. They swore time and again that Ronald Reagan would cause a nuclear World War III by his strong opposition to the U.S.S.R. and resolve not to disarm. But they were blatantly wrong. Despite all their predictions, the Cold War ended without a nuclear holocaust. And given the fact America prospered and the Soviet Union collapsed, I’d say America won. The Left does not acknowledge their wrongness in that debate, and they continue to push the same agenda today in the Iraq debate.
The case against Saddam Hussein is quite clear. In 1991, America stopped his attempt to gain power and territory through expansion and greater control over the oil reserves in the Middle East. He knows we can and will do it again, so he has resorted to terrorism and secret development of weapons of mass destruction to achieve his ends. Protesters agree Saddam Hussein is evil. He has an express desire to hurt American interests, and he has the power and weapons with which to do so. We have over a dozen U.N. resolutions backing us. So, how is it we don’t have the moral right to remove him from power?
Those who truly are pacifists, and those have serious reservations about going to war, are welcome to express their opinions, and they are certainly valid. But the majority of the protesters we see in marches and pontificating on TV do not qualify as such. Instead, they are simply pushing the agenda of the Left and attempting to besmirch George W. Bush for their own gain. Their flimsy reasons for their anti-war position are what expose them for what they really are.
The assertion that this is about oil is a non-starter. Only a fraction of our oil imports come from Iraq, and we get it cheaply. Our main antagonists near the Middle East, on the other hand, have multi-billion dollar oil deals with the current Iraqi regime. So maybe this conflict IS about oil after all.
To insist that inspections are working is a stall tactic. Suppose they truly are working. Can someone else then take their turn at surrounding Iraq with 150,000 troops to force them to keep working via threat of war, so our troops can come home? Inspectors are in place to verify what Iraq offers as evidence of destroyed weapons, weapons we know to have existed before inspections were stopped in 1998. That evidence has not been forthcoming. It is not the job of inspectors to engage in an Easter egg hunt.
The fact that we armed Hussein against Iran in the 80’s is not relevant to the situation today. Sometimes we choose the lesser of two evils, and prefer to assist others willing to fight our enemies rather than spill our own blood every time. That sometimes results in support of people we may later regret. But then doesn’t it become even more our responsibility to clean up the mess?
The Left needs to see a smoking gun? These are people whose political ideology suffered its greatest failure when Nikita Khrushchev confessed that the horrors of the Soviet Union under Stalin were real, not the right-wing propaganda they had been labeled as. Was there a smoking gun when we defeated Hitler? It wasn’t until his defeat that we had solid evidence of the six million casualties of the Holocaust.
Unilateralism? Seriously? France and Germany have been very loud in protest (perhaps suspicious for their current financial ties to the government of Iraq), but doesn’t the rest of Europe count? Doesn’t Great Britain count? Australia? Japan doesn’t count? Israel doesn’t count? Even Turkey? Interesting, the interpretation of the word unilateral. It’s very telling that the countries of the former U.S.S.R., who lost to the U.S. in the Cold War and are now tasting freedom for the very first time, now back the U.S. and are in favor of the removal of Iraq’s dictator. These are the former allies of the American Left, who are now posturing against them as they experience what freedom is really about.
The protesters hate war? Good. Most rational-thinking people do. But remember: The very freedoms they have to harbor these opinions, and to speak them loudly, are in fact the SPOILS OF WAR. Even just in American history, they are the spoils of at least the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and two World Wars.
The contention that the Iraqi people aren’t campaigning against Hussein is laughable. It’s quite true there are no protests against Hussein in Iraq. To anyone who truly believes in freedom to voice dissent, that statement says everything that needs to be said.
Give peace a chance, indeed. Peace through appeasement is impossible. “Peace in our time” was first uttered by Neville Chamberlain in 1938, after meeting with Hitler and being convinced he could be appeased. That turned out great.
The leading activists of the Left want to exercise their own power against the U.S. government, and are rallying anyone willing to listen to their propaganda and offer themselves as a puppet with a sign. The agenda of these protesters is not peace, it is Anti-George W. Bush, and Anti-Americanism. The protesters are like spoiled children, with the luxury of complaining about their restrictive parents while being secure in the notion that those same parents will continue to look after their best interests and protect them despite their defiance.
The shame in the Left is their false assertions about America. The U.S. is not fascist; it defeated fascism and rebuilt Japan and Europe in World War II, a war which we ironically are chided for not being pro-active sooner.
If there is truth to the idea of the American Empire, exactly whom does it rule over? Consider the imperialism of the British Empire, the French Empire, and the Roman Empire to gain some real perspective here. Our major wars have been to fight against Nazi imperialism, Japanese imperialism, Communist oppression, and Iraq’s attempt at an oil empire. And from all those wars, America gained no territory. Accusations of imperialism via subterfuge are ridiculous. America’s corporations are spreading throughout the world, but they bring wealth wherever they go. In The Clash of Civilizations, Harvard professor Samuel Huntington estimates that the West’s portion of the world’s economic pie has shrunk by half from what it was after World War I. To say Americans benefit from milking the resources of other countries is betrayed by the fact that American taxpayers support billions of dollars of foreign aid, something of which the U.S. receives none.
The Left is quite deceitful in their agenda. Upon examination, they in fact are not for the free exchange of ideas, but rather favor policies that restrict freedom of speech. They spawned the political-correctness movement. They label dissenting voices as “hate speech.” Contrary to the concept of innocent-until-proven-guilty, they shift the burden of proof to the accused: To not be labeled a “racist,” you must favor affirmative action programs. To not be a “homophobe,” you must favor legislation of hate crimes which makes it more of a crime to kill a homosexual than a heterosexual. To not be a “sexist,” you must favor eliminating the freedoms of private organization membership policies.
The Left preaches tolerance, yet they promote Islamic teachings in schools while banning displays and discussion of Christianity. Talk about freedom of speech: America’s loudest denouncer in the Iraq debate, French president Jacques Chirac lashed out at EU-aspiring nations who spoke in support of the U.S., saying they “missed a great opportunity to remain quiet.” So much for the free exchange of ideas.
The danger is that the Left has significant influence in America via education, an area subsidized by the government and thus largely neglected by proponents of capitalism. This has had an adverse impact by allowing the Left to take advantage and indoctrinate our children and young adults towards their Anti-American beliefs. They have frozen this segment of our society into a fear of decision-making via the “vast gray areas of morality.” While education has been sadly ignored by those interested in making a more-than-comfortable living, don’t think for a second that the Left isn’t making plenty of money at it. And in politics too, where their policies promote dependency upon government, as a catalyst towards government control over people, i.e. communism. Indeed, the Left profits from their agenda. It’s just that their money comes from your taxes.
And money equals power.
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