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Danny |
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This has been a very emotional week for some, what with the sixtieth anniversary of D-Day. On TV people like former Senator Bob Dole are tearing up on Tim Russert’s show as they talk about the World War Two Memorial dedicated last Memorial Day weekend in the nation’s capital. It was a momentous event that some thought was too long in coming. But in actual fact World War Two Memorials are all around us every day of our lives. The whole western civilized world is a memorial to those incredible accomplishments. Everyone of a certain age, every institution for the past 60 years is here and possible because of that victory. Imagine the world run by absolute dictators and ---ah, wait a minute--- That
would be to imagine yourself living in almost any part of the
Arab/Muslim world. Well it’s also been an emotional time for those
newest practitioners of democracy in Baghdad who are proclaiming a new
era of freedom after having just been handed over the keys to the
executive washroom, which is about all they’re going to get for
awhile. On 60 Minutes the other night, Andy Rooney showed photograph after photograph of those no longer with us who gave their lives in service to this country- -hundreds of pictures of smiling young people scrolled across the screen in silence. You could only cry. Especially when in a very few short minutes you would be once again shown the ongoing saga of “Operation Iraqi Quagmire” or whatever it’s called this week. I still like Jon Stewart’s “Mess’O’Potamia” as the most accurate. The
irony of celebrating D-Day- -one of western civilization’s most
incredible accomplishments and turning points, right up there with the
Battle of Hastings, the defeat of the Spanish Armada or our own
Revolutionary War- -things that changed the known world forever, and
also “celebrating” the handover of power in Iraq is just absurd.
Islamic fundamentalist warriors have been trying to take over the
western part of their known world since before their defeat at the
Battle of Tours in 732 AD- -that’s also in France, in case you don’t
remember. They were driven
back over The Pyrenees where they lived in Spain until Ferdinand and
Isabella drove them back
across Gibraltar in 1492. Remember,
they took a chance on this Italian guy from Genoa who said he could get
them gold from the east faster than they or anyone else in Europe was
used to by sailing west? They
were so desperate to pay their armies to keep the Moors- -from Moor-occo-
-at bay they said yes to Cristóbal Colón, and the rest is history.
Of
course for all the five hundred years of history since, there has been a
dramatic discourse between two medieval cultures- -ours and theirs.
And that is the culture clash. Should
we live in a world frozen in time at the fifteenth century or should we
accept the modern world and live in it accordingly.
This
month in Iraq there will be an attempt to put away the old and welcome
the new. But it is such a
transparent attempt at progress that no one can really expect any
significant changes to take place.
The U S, Brits and the Coalition-of-the-Coerced forces will be in
charge of defending the citizenry from renegade militias.
Iraqis will be in charge of library fines.
Western forces will oversee oil field security and petroleum
production. Iraqis will
sort the junk mail. And our
forces will patrol the streets of all major cities day and night.
Iraqis will direct traffic at busy intersections. The
testimonials of those who stood on Normandy’s beaches this week
recalling sixty-years ago are humble and pretty plainspoken. There isn’t much to say that could add anything to the
enormity of the accomplishments of those days.
We just wouldn’t have our world the way it is today unless we
had had those who acted then. And
yet in Baghdad all we have is talk- -hot air- -and no action.
The difference is as stunning as pictures of Bushie and The Pope.
Neither one quite knows what’s happening. Neither
one knows quite why he is sitting there on the podium or what happens
next. We
sure haven’t figured out what happens next in Iraq. Thinking back over the reconstruction and revitalization of
Europe and how, despite the Cold War, the history of the rejuvenation of
a continent torn apart is mostly a success story, one wonders how the
Iraqi world, the Muslim/Arab world, will ever catch on and catch up.
At least Europe had already been used to a certain level of
modernization and industrialization, although it’s true that in 1939
the Polish Army still fought on horseback and tried to repel German
tanks from this hopeless position.
Now the modern Polish Army is one of the leading forces in the
Coalition, and no, not on horseback. How
is this “Mess’O’Potamia” ever going to be untangled so that
sixty years from now some of these twenty-something kids fighting this
war can stand on the Tigris and feel the same sense of accomplishment
that’s all over France, and everywhere, this week? All
I can think of is Walt Kelly’s classic Pogo,
the possum in the Okefenokee Swamp who said: “We have met the enemy
and he is us.”
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