Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Truth Is Hard To Accept And In The Case Of Iran, Few Do
| Some realities are so disturbing that we would rather not deal with them. This habit tends to be a political phenomenon that we often encounter and that we often pay a dear price for. For decades our federal government has refused to face the harsh realities of deficit spending. They just can’t find it in themselves to deny their spending habits and tighten our federal belt. Unless we eventually legitimately confront the reality of runaway deficit spending and face the unpleasant facts that we can’t continue to spend what we don’t have for much longer, we will soon have a rude awakening. All because we did not want to face the facts. World Wars I and II were realities that we did not want to have anything to do with. Woodrow Wilson spent the years 1914 through 1917 trying to not have anything to do with the war. An American population that had no desire to be a part of what was happening “over there” also wanted to stay out of it. Their fears of the possibility of Americans getting involved in World War I even drove Woodrow Wilson to, in 1914, draw up a declaration of neutrality. He even urged Americans not to take any sides. In 1916 a grateful American electorate reelected Wilson on the slogan “he kept us out of war”. A year later, American was at war. After neutrality did not prevent Germans from killing Americans, Wilson turned around and stated that we were going to be a part of World War I in an attempt to fight a “a war to end all wars” and to make “the world safe for democracy”. Our need to defend ourselves and our interests were inevitable. We just didn’t want to face the truth. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt presided over our nation, he and most Americans again did not want to be involved in the war “over there”. Our allies begged on hands on knee, but we refused to officially get involved. We did however try to covertly help our allies like Great Britain. Although we did not want to fight, we knew how important it was for our allies to not go down in defeat. So we offered minimal, under the table, support. And then Japan attacked and killed what was up to then, the most devastating foreign attack on America ever. A short time later, we were not just fighting in World War II, we were leading the war effort. There is often question as to just how much history would have been altered had we put our muscle into these fights before it was too late and could no longer deny the facts. There is also question as to just how much, our leaders and we the people, as a nation, have learned from past denials. Today, our war weary nation wants nothing more than to put an end to conflict. Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, we want the war in Afghanistan to be over and our military involvement in Iraq to be done. The only difference there is that some want to end when we have achieved our goal and eliminated the threats that sent us there in the first place, while others just want us out of the two countries at any cost. I happen to be a party to the former school of thought. I also happen to be of the school of thought that, as troubling and unpleasant as some realities are, we, as a nation, can not sweep them under the rug. By doing so, we will eventually trip over what sweep there and fall. Currently an unpleasant reality that we must confront is Iran. Put aside for a moment their nuclear ambitions. For a moment, don’t even consider the Iranian Presidents stated desire to push Israel off in to the sea. Let us ignore for a brief second the possible threats that we don’t want to deal with. Instead let us just look at the existing threats that we are dealing with right now—–threats that we do not want to acknowledge because the truth of them happening creates “a reality so disturbing that we would rather not deal with it”. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the greatest threats and challenge to our missions being completely accomplished are insurgents. These are extremist rebels who seek to engage the democratic installed governments of the two nations in battle and ultimately overthrow them. We have long known that Iran is providing many of these insurgents. Not only are they providing the actual rebels, they are also supplying them with explosives and other military hardware. This is a point made quite obvious in a recent article in AsiaTimes.com entitled Afghans Fear Infiltration From Iran. In it, the authors document the events in a tiny border town between Iran and Afghanistan named Islam Qala. The article details the ease in which Iranian insurgents are helping the Taliban to defeat the American born democracy behind the new Afghan government. Take a moment to review this account of Iranian involvement. And then understand this. The ugly truth in what we must confront is the only way we can assure a success with any longevity in Afghanistan and Iraq. The truth of the disturbing realities Iran confronts us with are so undesired that I will not even bring myself to state the harsh truth of what we must do. Read the Asia Times article that I reference and link to here and draw your own conclusions. But before you do remember what Wilson and Roosevelt wanted to believe and then remember what they had to do. |
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KK13Df03.html
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