OT: Letter to a Soldier in Iraq

[Guest guest]

Hi y'all,

 

Is this real .. or a propaganda tool? I don't know. And I don't care.

And I don't agree with a couple of points presented therein .. but some

of the ideas do provide a lot of food for thought. I'm normally a very

positive thinker .. I detest naysayers and harbingers of doom and those

who cry wolf and look for demons behind every tree. BUT ...

 

Having spent more than half my adult life outside the USA .. with maybe

80% of that time in Islamic or moderate Moslem countries .. and being

able to WELL understand the mentality of the Islamic (vs the Moslem) and

now seeing/experiencing on a daily basis the great increase in Islamic

terrorism directed toward Turkey .. (we are the present target and its

believed that the incidents will increase considerably in the days and

weeks to come) .. a moderate Moslem country that has its share of local

and imported Islamic fundamentalists who are determined to bring down

the only democratic, secular Moslem country on Earth, I can say that the

general slant of this being a war for civilization is right on target.

And the comparisons between what is happening in the fundamentalist Arab

countries and what happened during World War II is also right on target.

 

Though the letter does lean to the right .. which I'm also inclined to

do based on my life experiences, I'm not presenting it in a political

framework .. it stands alone (methinks) without need for any partisan

support. We are no less at war now than we were when the USA and its

allies were during World War II. And the stakes are no smaller.

 

Please don't be lulled into believing that sticking our heads in the

sand will make all the problems go away. There is no way nations with

such diametrically opposed philosophies can exist side-by-side in modern

times because of the increased mobility and technology that allows small

groups to overpower and terrorize larger groups .. they are NOT going to

go away on their own .. and the Arab nations will NOT stop them because

they fear for their own security .. and their own positions of power.

 

Don't be lulled into thinking that a job for every man, a chicken in

every pot and a car in every garage will satisfy them. There are no

poor people in Saudi Arabia and this holds true for some other hardcore

Islamic countries. With some exceptions, its not a better life for them

and theirs they seek .. its a change in the structure of society .. they

want to revert back to an autocratic, fascist, Islamic controlled world

order. And unless the civilized nations of the world get off their fat

asses and stand together against them, they will succeed. :-(

 

Anyone choosing to take this letter (or any other letter) apart line by

line can do so easily .. there is always something to criticize if we

look hard enough. But by doing so, they might be doing no more than

distracting themselves .. and others .. from the realities and the true

messages contained in this letter. Damnit .. I know it is real .. I've

lived it and I'm living it now .. and we will never win this war without

sacrifice .. we'll never win it by spouting altruistic, warm fuzzy, love

thy neighbor NAMASTE bullshit. None of us will ever live long enough to

see the world singing in perfect harmony .. but maybe we can live long

enough to create a safer world for our children and grandchildren so

that they don't have to fear being blown to shit when they go outside to

play in their own back yards .. or while visiting Disneyland or some

other decadent, ungodly American place of entertainment. Butch

 

---------------------------

 

by Dennis Prager

25 Nov 2003

 

Dear American Soldier in Iraq:

 

I am writing to you simply as a fellow American.

 

In just about every way, I am quite typical. I am a married man with

three children, believe in God and love my country. I differ, however,

from many Americans in a couple of ways. First, my vocation -- radio

talk show host and columnist -- makes me a professional communicator. So

I might be able to say things that most other Americans feel but could

not communicate quite as clearly. Second, and more important, I suspect

that more than some Americans, though hardly more than President Bush

and his administration, I am keenly aware of the fragility of

civilization, of the monumental evil you are fighting, and of the

historic mission of America.

 

For these reasons, I am writing to you. Though you may already know

everything I am about to say, I need to say it for those of you who,

after seeing fellow soldiers blown up or severely injured, may sometimes

wonder whether these sacrifices are worth it.

 

So, first, let me set the record straight. Not since World War II have

the stakes been this great. This is a war for the future of civilization

every bit as much as the war against German Nazism and Japanese Fascism

was. If we had lost that war, the world would have devolved into

barbarism.

 

If we lose this one, the same will happen.

 

It was a war for civilization then; the war against Islamic Fascism is

such a war today.

 

Of course, there are hundreds of millions of fine people among the

world's 1.3 billion Muslims. But that is, unfortunately, as irrelevant

to understanding today's war as the fact that there were millions of

fine Germans living in Hitler's Germany was to understanding World War

II.

 

It is not the fine Muslims who rule most Muslim countries, some of which

are among the cruelest on earth. It is not the fine Muslims who dominate

the Islamic schools around the world that teach that it is right to

subjugate women and to slit Christians' and Jews' throats. It is not the

fine Muslims who wish to impose a violent, hate-filled religion on

others. It is not the fine Muslims who burned 13 churches in Nigeria

just last week.

 

And sadly, most of the fine Muslims, including those in America, rarely

condemn their civilization-threatening co-religionists.

 

Iraq is the battleground for civilization. That is why our enemies are

throwing everything they can at you. If you help create the first free

and tolerant Arab country in the heart of Islam, they are doomed. If we

fail in Iraq, we are doomed. Our enemies know this. We need to know

this.

 

Second, don't be discouraged by America's relative aloneness in the

world. The world is not, by and large, a good place. And the United

Nations, which reflects the world, reflects that fact. That is why

Libya, a police state that ordered the mass murder known as the 1988

bombing of Pan-Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, is not only on

the U.N. Human Rights Commission, it is the head of the commission. And

Syria, which is worse than Libya, judges us on the Security Council.

 

As for Europe, Britain and a few other Western states aside, the folks

who gave us Auschwitz and Communism and who now bankroll Iran and North

Korea hardly have a claim to moral superiority. Americans like you died

for their errors. They never died for ours. And they err again. Instead

of learning to fight evil, they have only learned that fighting is evil.

 

Third, we Americans are relatively alone because from our founding we

have believed that we have a mission to better the world. And for this

we are hated. We are not hated for our power; we are hated for our

values and our sense of chosenness -- just as the never powerful Jews

have long been hated for their values and their chosenness.

 

In sum, you are carrying the great burden of history on your shoulders

every day you serve in Iraq. That some of your fellow citizens do not

understand this only means that the war for civilization is taking place

as much here at home as it is in Iraq.

 

We pray for you not only because you are our sons and daughters risking

your lives, but because if God is good, and if we humans can discern

between good and evil, you are doing God's work. It is as clear as that.

No American war has ever been clearer.