Posted by
JimG on Saturday, July 22, 2006 11:28:05 AM
I am privileged to have a college classmate who is a Marine and has experience in the Iraq theater. He recently sent me an email regarding the war strategy and where we are in the grand scheme. Given the flaming rhetoric that often accompanies this subject, I thought it relevant to convey the thoughts of someone better versed than I in military strategy and history:
"The gain is the opportunity to plant a stable, freely-elected Arab state in the Middle East. Not an American democracy, not even a liberal democracy, but a starting point that when their economy comes online will provide a long term, significant impact on other governments by beginning to eradicate the poverty and ideology that breeds future terrorists. What is frustrating is that we do not better articulate our vision (this is not about an"exit strategy"- maybe that is why), but it's hard to get it into a 10 second sound bite. (Also stating we want a free Iraq to incite a free Iran is also a tough diplomatic position to claim out loud). And candidly, most Americans can't see that far down the road. We live for 1-2 years and the problem is the Global War on Terror is correctly named and beyond the scope of the American instant gratification lens. It is a decade long war and will go places beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. Realize it (if only for future generation's sake). The alternative is disastrous. To leave too early will not only encourage future conflict but it sends the worst signal to those who would potentially be our allies in this fight that we will not be there for them. Unfortunately that signal already has precedent in the past."
Obviously, this letter pleads for patience. The real problem is that American's are impatient. We want what we want and we want it right now. If we have to wait in line, wait on hold, wait for service, or wait for results, we tend to decide it is not worth our time and walk away. The concept of delayed gratification is as foreign to Americans as living debt free.
However, if something is important enough (or we believe that something is important enough) we can wait, endure, and prevail. This is a goal that is crucial, and worth our patience and endurance.
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
~John Stewart Mill