Author: Jim Guirard
Date: May 15, 2003
The anti-liberation Left is almost frantic in its criticism of George W. Bush's overthrow of Saddam Hussein's Fascist-left (i.e., Stalinist) tyranny in Iraq. As harshly as they can, they condemn the Bush Doctrine as one of "arrogant unilateralism" and of "pre-emptive war."
First, with regard to their charge of "unilateral" action against Saddam, they are either a) unable to tell the difference between 1 and 34 (the number of nations in the Coalition of the Willing), b) ignorant of the meaning of the prefix "uni" (one only, all alone, solo) or c) deliberately deceitful.
By their warped definition, even NATO and the European Union should be considered plainly and improperly "unilateral," as well -- unless they have the blessings of the perverse United Nations
Next, their shrill charge of "pre-emptive" war simply reminds us of the "peacenik" protesters against Ronald Reagan's preemptive liberation of the Caribbean island nation of Grenada twenty years ago. Of course, some aging members of the earlier group (Ted Kennedy, George McGovern, John Kerry, Jane Fonda, et al) are still active today -- still in bed with "Fascist Fidel" Castro and still chanting their peace-at-any-price mantra.
It was in early May of 1983 that the Cuban-controlled regime of communist dictator Maurice Bishop and his Castroite New Jewel Party were summarily overthrown by U.S. armed forces. This was to prevent Cuba from completing a 9000-foot runway for use by Soviet Bloc MIG-23 fighters and military transport aircraft on their way to Cuba, Nicaragua and other targets of Soviet imperialism.
Back then, Reagan-Bush foreign policy sharply reversed the "no more Vietnams" policies of the Carter-Mondale years. It boldly instituted an assertive new policy of "roll-back." In essence, America went from a McGovernite mentality of "never fight again" to a Reaganesque "never lose again" mode of operations.
As might be expected, one of that policy's loud opponents of that policy was the then Lieutenant Governor and soon-to-be U.S. Senator John Kerry from Massachusetts, who said: "_[insert appropriate idiotic quote] __." But despite such Blame America First advise, Reagan's new liberationist approach worked wonderfully well with respect to the small Soviet/Cuban colony of Grenada, which became and remains a multi-party, civil-libertarian democracy to this date.
But even more importantly, it served also as the historic precedent for the fall of many other communist "dominoes" which had tumbled into the Soviet Empire since 1918 -- almost all of them during three 5-year periods following World War I, World War II and particularly following the collapse of South Vietnam in April 1975.
And such a precedent it was! -- much as the recent fall of the Saddamite tyranny in Iraq may also prove to be. In Grenada's case, it was history's first liberation of a nation from single-party Marxist-Leninist domination, thus refuting the so-called "Brezhnev Doctrine" of once communist, always communist.
Remarkably, in less than a decade the entire Evil Empire would collapse, first in colonized Central Europe and eventually throughout the dry-rot of the Soviet Union itself -- about twenty nations in all.
In the case of Afghanistan and Iraq, these long-repressed and tortures people deserved liberation as desperately as the people of Grenada, Nicaragua, Africa, Central Europe and the former Soviet Union did. Their ongoing deliverance into the beginnings of self governance, civil liberty and free enterprise should serve as a powerful tripartite precedent for the gradual democratization of many other Muslim peoples, as well.
Post-Saddam Trends
Exactly which Arab and Muslim nations might be the first to follow Afghanistan's and Iraq's lead into pluralism and democracy, we cannot tell. No more than we could tell in 1983 whether Communist Poland or Castroite Nicaragua -- or East Germany or Estonia or Ethiopia -- would be the first, second, tenth or twentieth Soviet colony to escape the clutches of the Evil Empire.
Logically, several so-called "moderate" Muslim regimes might be expected to accelerate their current trends in the right direction -- led by such small nations as Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Morocco, Tunisia and the like. Even Muammar Qaddafi's Libya seems suddenly willing to join the community of civilized nations.
Without the gut-wrenching need for the actual overthrow of authoritarian regimes in such larger "cooperating" countries as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt, the example of a liberated and democratizing Iraq should serve as a catalyst for meaningful reform -- particularly since all three of these regimes are generally, albeit imperfectly, allied with us in the war on al Qaeda terrorism.
Even such hard-core dictatorships as Iran and Syria might begin to take modest turns for the better, if for no other reason than to avoid becoming the next high-profile "axis of evil" target for pre-emptive liberation and regime change.
Finally, with regard to the sponsorship and timing of the 2003 liberation of Iraq, the United Nations was importuned in every reasonable way to remain involved and faithful to the enforcement of its own seventeen resolutions demanding Iraqi elimination of its weapons of mass destruction.
It was only when the World Body was led astray by Jacques Chirac, who was on Saddam's Food for Oil payroll, and failed to demand enforcement of its multiple mandates were the United States and its Coalition of the Willing be forced to act preemptively -- but multi-laterally -- in its stead.
Jim Guirard -- TrueSpeak Institute 703-768-0957 Justcauses@aol.com