A rchive Date
[ 08-04-2004 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Iraq ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Salim_Mansur/2004/04/08/412660.html
Chaos in Iraq is new test of wills
By SALIM MANSUR -- For the Toronto Sun
Thu, April 8, 2004
There can only be one response to the ongoing chaos in Iraq that began with the barbarity of displaying the mutilated bodies of Americans at Fallujah.
It must be crushingly hard, unsparing and resounding in its message: America is committed to the long haul of bringing civilization back into the land of Abraham's birth.
Americans must put down this revolt -- sparked by a radical Shiite cleric's call for rebellion -- mercilessly.
In this test of wills, any sign of weakness will only embolden the dark forces ruthlessly opposed to Iraq's progress towards freedom and democracy.
This war against terror in Iraq and elsewhere cannot be only America's burden. It should be the shared responsibility of all free and democratic nations.
The Canadian government has sadly played a pathetic version of Pontius Pilate, seeking to wash its hands of responsibility and turning its back on its closest allies. This is contrary to our history as Canadians.
We were there in Korea, in Normandy, in Flanders, not because we take the grisly business of war lightly.
We were there because we know the price of peace, and that ordinary men and women rise to great heights of courage in defending peace and freedom from those who breathe the foul air of tyranny.
We now need to be with our American friends, our English cousins, our Australian partners in the Commonwealth, our Italian, Spanish, Polish, Japanese and other allies in the cause of freedom and democracy being tested in the land of two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, that until so recently was a hell of a prison for Iraqis.
We can imagine a new Iraq -- peaceful, free, civilized and a harbinger for a new Middle East -- because we know how Americans helped to change the destiny of a once deranged Germany and Japan. Americans have the tenacity to go the distance, and this is fortunate for Iraqis who long for a future different from their past.
Canadians, need to be there, helping Iraqis fight their demons. We owe this to ourselves and to those Canadians who fell in the past to keep our land strong and free.
Saddam Hussein's Iraq was the Arab world's "heart of darkness." Its resources were squandered in pursuit of a tyrant's demented ambitions. Saddam himself stood in the path of any regional advance towards sanity.
Prior to 9/11, the flames of this inferno were never going to be extinguished by outside powers as it consumed hope for Arab progress.
The attacks on New York and Washington, however, altered the perception of terror so it could be seen for what it is, an instrument of choice in an undeclared war by Arab-Muslim fanatics against the West.
While not one single date or event stands as a marker for the beginning of this undeclared war, the attack on the 1972 Munich Olympics by Palestinian terrorists might be viewed as its opening act, culminating on 9/11.
Over three decades, these fanatics sowed fear in the Middle East and beyond, intimidated states, enlisted the support of governments and adopted terror as a weapon of choice against the West.
This weapon has worn the garb of nationalism, socialism, communism and, in its latest incarnation, political Islam to disguise its politics and garner popular support.
All the while, Saddam's Iraq was a part of the serpent's nest for terrorism, feeding it, sheltering it and directing it while craftily denying any association with terrorists. The horror of 9/11 made it permissible to extinguish Saddam's inferno. But hell has no greater fury than when it is finally being purged.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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