The Alternative Is Nukes

When civilization’s only other alternative is turning Middle Eastern sand into glass, the Iraq war becomes a rather mild response to the war on terror.
Liberal civilized society cannot coexist with terrorism. The terrorists appreciate this even if some of our own leaders do not. We cannot sit idly by while terrorists hijack planes and fly them into skyscrapers. Our society cannot function in fear of a crop duster spreading nerve gas over a major city, or of smallpox virus introduced into a subway air system, or of nuclear-armed suicide bombers. And we certainly cannot absorb the reality of such attacks. Nations, such as Spain, that cower before terrorists and embrace appeasement, can at best hope to be the alligator’s dessert.
And nations such as France and Russia that sold their souls in the United Nations Oil For Food corruption scandal only prove that those who embrace decadence before principle don’t have to wait for terrorists to incinerate them before they fade into historical irrelevance.
Terrorism cannot be accommodated. Osama Bin Laden has no interest in breathing the same air as Christians. Terrorism cannot be appeased. Bill Clinton tried and terrorists simply escalated their attacks. Terrorism cannot be negotiated with. Blown up school buses are the rewards that Israel has reaped for its agreements with the Palestinians. And terrorism certainly cannot be rewarded. Spain’s capitulation to terrorism has only brought a torrent of fresh demands from terrorists. And, most importantly, it cannot be deterred. Its soldiers believe that death earns them an eternity in the sack with 70 virgins.
But we cannot simply triumph over terrorism in the same manner that we defeated Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. If we filled the entire universe with chimpanzees and gave each of them a typewriter, every now and then, their random pecking will yield a great novel. It is by similar serendipity that liberals are correct in their assertion that we cannot wipe out terrorism by simply killing terrorists. Each one we kill has ten more martyr wannabes standing ready to take his place.
For that reason, the war on Iraq and its aftermath is every bit as critical to the survival of civilization as was World War II or the Cold War. Arabs must be yanked out of their spiral of ignorance and paranoia that tyrannizes their societies as much as their despotic rulers.
It’s true that Islamic countries find us threatening. But it’s not just our military might that makes them quiver. It’s Brittney Spears French kissing Madonna that frightens them. They fear that their children will be seduced by western depravity. Liberals who are eager for the west to disarm are unwilling to give up Hustler magazine or MTV.
For that reason, we must have a strategy for choking off the source of terrorists. One way is to nuke ‘em. At White Sands, New Mexico, at the site of the world’s first nuclear explosion, one can find shards of trinitite, a glassy substance created by the fat boy plutonium bomb. I don’t doubt that Syrian sand would make an equally good substrate for more trinitite. The other alternative is to take the Islamic world by the lapels and shake it into the modern world. A free, prosperous and democratic Iraq will not serve as an incubator for terrorists. It will serve as an example of what Arabs unshackled from tyranny and intolerance are capable of.
Unless we can drag Iraq into modernity, that country, and every other in the region, will be at the mercy of every organized crime boss who wishes to call himself a cleric or a champion of Arab nationalism.
We have taken on an awesome challenge in Iraq. We are trying to lift an entire country out of 1000 years of backwardness. In his own perverse way, Saddam Hussein facilitated this by creating the most secular nation in the Arab world. Iraq’s schools are run by the state and not by Islamofascists. And, he made himself so hated that we were able to enter the country and be greeted as liberators.
We cannot measure success by how quickly we leave. The historical path that Iraq takes will determine the course of history for centuries, unless we are forced to bring World War III to a quick end in a flash of fission and fusion.