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Agreeing with Charlie
Rangel? Get Out!
War on Terror/Frank
Salvato, Managing Editor |
December
22, 2004
- If anyone were to say that I would ever agree with
Congressman Charlie Rangel I would normally offer up a half-hearted chuckle.
I say normally because today I found myself in agreement with him. I have
disagreed with the congressman on almost every aspect of Operation Iraqi
Freedom. He is against the war. I understand why it was necessary. He stands
in opposition to President Bush and I stand in support of our leader. But
when it comes to how other countries in the Middle East aid us in the War on
Terror I find myself in agreement with Mr. Rangel. Our Middle Eastern Allies
are poor allies at best.
The United States contributes the largest part of the quarter of a million
plus fighting force in Iraq. We do so with a modest contingent of true
allies. Chief among those countries willing to join us in a job none too
pleasant – dirty work that should have been dealt with long ago – are
Britain, Australia, Italy, a contingent from Eastern Europe, as well as
troops from over 30 more nations. The governments of France, Germany, Russia
and China were a bit too busy stuffing billions of dollars of oil stained
money in their pockets and trying to keep the cash cow that was Saddam
Hussein in power to bother with the "nuisance” known as terror. Evidently,
greed trumps human rights in their book. It is precisely for that reason I
suggest we drop their designations as allies but then the Kumbaya crowd
would whine for a month of Sundays because we weren’t reaching out to
governments that cheer every time we experience a setback. But I digress.
With the exception of the Pakistani Army operating within their own border
territories and those Iraqis the allies have trained, the list of countries
putting boots on the ground in Iraq is stunningly devoid of anything Middle
Eastern. There isn’t one soldier fighting to eliminate the terror born of
the Middle Eastern culture who originates from a Middle Eastern country.
While Saudi Arabia says it is "cracking down” on extremists in their country
the effects from that "crack down” are negligible. Jordan, Egypt and Kuwait
all "support us” in the War on Terror but their support is tantamount to
"coat
holding.” Syria and Iran say they are against terrorism but they are
two of the biggest supporters – no pun intended – of the
terrorist insurgents now waging jihad against the allied forces in Iraq. And
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi is walking around stunned that he wasn’t given
a "reward” for giving up his WMD (Hey, Muammar, not having your country
bombed back into the Stone Age was the reward).
Here is where I agree with Charlie Rangel, and believe me it isn’t easy to
admit it. The United States needs to pressure these Middle Eastern countries
into correcting the wrong they have been guilty of allowing to fester. They
need to be held responsible for allowing and fostering the terror movement.
Through their complacency they have become the terrorists’ ally.
Terrorism was born – and if not born certainly perfected – of the fanatical
Middle Eastern culture. It was refined under their governments’ blind eye
and allowed to spread like a cancer through their mosques and schools
pervading and becoming acceptable throughout their societies. Where we in
the free world would never think of strapping belts of explosives to our
teenaged sons or daughters and taking pictures as if we were celebrating a
graduation, parents in the Middle East see nothing wrong with celebrating
the beauty of a suicide bombing. In fact, these families are revered. Where
the families of Columbine killers Klebold and Harris bear the burden of
their sons’ actions as a shocked community heals over time, Middle Eastern
families – not all but an incredibly sizable amount – celebrate the
martyrdom of these misguided children poisoned by their own parents to kill
in the bastardized name of religion. It is these people who are guilty of
allowing terror to prevail within their culture. So too should this culture
provide the wind that snuffs out the flame of terror.
There are many ways to pressure these countries into picking up arms against
those who they created and abetted. We can use all of the traditional
avenues of diplomatic persuasion first of course. Employing these tactics
against the trading partners of these countries may be a brilliant move as
well. Perhaps a good place to start would be to threaten the withholding of
all foreign aid to any Middle Eastern country that doesn’t actively join in
the War on Terror. A creative mind would have a field day coming up with
pressure tactics in order to make boots-on-the-ground Middle Eastern
participation in the War on Terror a reality.
It’s time that the world community, including the Middle Eastern countries,
realize that this war is not of a political nature but of something much
more serious. Religious fanatics come in all shapes and sizes but the ones
who smile as they fly airplanes into buildings bring the point home, that
point being, terrorism is something that must be erased from the face of the
planet for the good of all peoples. Allied troops are doing their job. It’s
time everyone else did theirs.
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