(no subject)

[aadler]

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Today, on my way downstate, I realized that it’s been four years since I’ve seen the leaves change in the Ozarks. In autumn of 2003 I was in Iraq; 2004, at Fort Bragg; in 2005, Afghanistan. It’s striking, memorable. I’ve just been elsewhere.

I had trouble yesterday loading Rosetta Stone onto the library computer; I’d used it before, but it’s been awhile, and they may have changed their system. I’ll try again on Monday, in hope that it was just a momentary glitch. Meanwhile, I’ve considered ordering Farsi directly from the company. It costs, but if I score high enough on the DLPT, the extra pay I would get from the Army for language proficiency would return the investment in a single month.

Open Cut — Political Pessimism

Sharpening and increasing my Farsi knowledge might be a good idea anyhow. It seems increasingly unlikely that Iran’s atomic ambitions can be stopped without decisive and extensive military action. Kim Jong Il’s North Korea and Saddam’s Iraq have already shown how ineffective sanctions are — be they NATO, EU or UN — against an outlaw regime, especially one that has its prestige tied to exactly the things such sanctions hope to prevent. I’ve served in two combat theaters already, and expected to return to one or both of them … but, unless something changes, another one is about to open up, and you can bet I’ll be called.

I worry about our country. There really is a global war going on right now, progressive democracy against Islamic fundamentalism, and I don’t know if we can win it. We’re powerful enough, but national will is a different matter entirely. I’ve heard it said, and I’m afraid it’s true: “We’re not a nation at war. We’re a nation at peace, with a military that’s at war.” Americans are accustomed to being safe and comfortable, and they want to stay that way. How do you convince people to pay the price to do what’s necessary, when they don’t want to believe it’s necessary?

We could lose. It may be happening already. The people who try to claim Iraq is another Vietnam are wrong about practically everything, but they may wind up being right in the way that matters most: Vietnam was lost because the American people, as a whole, lost the willingness to pay what it would cost to win.

The difference is that, this time, it won’t stop with one country.

Islamic fundamentalism is now the Islamic mainstream, and its goal is worldwide. This isn’t about Iraq. It isn’t about Afghanistan. It isn’t even really about Israel anymore. Islam used to own a sizeable chunk of the world, and Islamic identity has been dreaming for half a millennium of a return to those glory days. It just might be possible to pull it off now, and I’m afraid our enemies know it.

The people fighting us are willing to keep fighting forever. And we’re not. We’re strong enough, our military is effective enough, our political leadership (at least the current leadership) is determined enough … but our civilian population isn’t really convinced that it’s worth it. How much ground will we have to lose before they come to feel that it is?

The people of the Roman Empire never did come to believe it.

Rome fell.

Close Cut

I turned out another 600-odd words on “God Save the Queen” yesterday, and would have done more today if I hadn’t had to make the trip downstate. I’m about to get into the action part of the story, and anybody who knows me knows I love action. Once I’m able to get to it, I should speed through that, and it constitutes almost all of the original second chapter (only now it’ll be the third). That leaves tying everything together and wrapping it up, and I’m fairly decent at that, too.

It’s possible, if not likely, that I could finished before the end of the month. If so, I’ll only have “Queen’s Gambit” to handle during the time I’m also tackling NaNoWriMo.

Ready to go, and other things to speak of tomorrow.

Comments

Grounds for concern

[xxmagex.livejournal.com]

Mark Steyn once wrote that it seemed that most of the political parties in Europe and some in the United States thought that government's primary focus should be on what are really secondary concerns- health care, social services, ethnic diversity and the like. In Europe's chattering classes minds, the Minister of Health is more important than the Minister of Defense.

That's the problem.

A question of priorities.

What I hear in my segment of rural America about Iraq is remarkably similar to what I suspect I would have heard in the late 1960s about Vietnam; if we're there, we should be there to win. No half measures. They have no problem doing what it takes to win. The question is does the political classes willing to do what it takes.

In Continental Europe I really doubt that they do. In the United States, well I'm watching how the Lamont-Lieberman race in Connecticut plays out for a good indication. I'm cautiously hopeful for the US after you get past the moveon.org types.

Another reason I'm cautiously hopeful about the USA long term is I finished the book "Looming Tower" by Lawrence Wright last night. He details the rise of the forces behind Al Qaeda since the late 1940s and follows AL Qaeda from its creation up till 9/11. After reading about the internal mess Al Qaeda is organization wise and their complete lack of long term political aims other than blowing things up, for all the world Al Qaeda, in my opinion, has to be viewed as a combination of the Keystone Cops and SS that is scared of women with a death fetish.

Pathetic, but dangerous none the less.

Okay, now you've got me thinking about the whole war on terror. I'll have to write more about it when I get the time.

Re: Grounds for concern

[aadler]

Al Qaeda’s internal dissension is encouraging, but doesn’t answer all concerns. There was a decided absence of unity among the various factions clamoring for independence in 1700s America, but the overall current of thought turned out to be more important than initial disorganization. That’s what worries me: where the currents are moving things.

There’s a Taliban-like organization right now that dominates Somalia, and has all but driven the official government into exile. The Taliban itself is making a comeback in Afghanistan, fueled by cash from the opium harvests they wiped out when they were in power. And, in both Afghanistan and Iraq, it’s now common belief among the populace that the U.S. is in league with the people we’re fighting (the Taliban on one hand, Iranian-inspired insurgents on the other) because they simply can’t believe a nation as powerful as we are couldn’t beat them if we really wanted to.

Islam is hungry and sees a chance. America as a whole — I want to be wrong on this, and would welcome evidence that I am — is complacent and disinclined to embrace hardship or recognize the necessity of doing so. And, as you’ve noted, Old Europe has many of our weaknesses in even more exaggerated form.

I’m not crying doom because I desire it. I genuinely fear it. I’m just not willing to look away.

Re: Grounds for concern

[xxmagex.livejournal.com]

http://xxmagex.livejournal.com/69949.html

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

Militant Islam has certainly made no secret of it's ambitions. They want the old empire with interest. The truly difficult thing is that, by and large, they're doing a hearts and minds campaign that the rest of the world isn't countering successfully. They are making vast inroads in Africa and I suspect Europe, particularly France, are in more trouble than they realize.

[aadler]

That’s really the only part of the current situation that encourages me. As long as Europe and Africa make more inviting targets, the brunt of the action will be taking place there. Maybe there will be an opportunity for people to SEE the threat growing, and progressively have it impressed on them that something has to be done about it.

Meanwhile — as xxmagex observed — we have to hope that political leadership in this country doesn’t disastrously shy away from engagement just because it’s costly and unpleasant.