There is much ado going on about how the so-called “War in Iraq” has just entered its fifth year and all the expected fanfare about our being there. I need to point out the perspective on this as it relates to other “wars”. Immediately after WWII we became engaged in a generations long Cold War which forced us to maintain armies in Germany and throughout Europe. They are still there today we must not forget. So between 1942 and August 1991 we were fighting both fascism and communism which required our military presence remaining constant. These were both wars between the philosophies of free nations (Capitalism and Judeo-Christianity) against fascism and then communism. In both cases it took a huge financial toll and loss of life but freedom eventually outlasted the others – and I use that term advisedly.
Today communism is almost totally extinct and discredited from the planet but a new war between philosophies has erupted. This time it remains the free and Judeo-Christian states against a harder to isolate but nonetheless just as ruthless as the previous adversaries which can be labeled as another form of fascism under the cloak of radical Islam.
If history is any judge, this latest conflict may require our presence as a counterbalance and sentinel for at least as long as our presence in Europe was required in the second half of the Twentieth Century. Just as the successful outcome of the Cold War required not only our military presence but our economic might, these tools may be necessary in the Middle East until the economies and cultures there become stable and independent of the influences of chaos which are opposing our efforts today.
The talk of a “5 Year War” very likely is a gross underestimation of just how long this conflict will last. Like it or not we are in for a lot longer conflict and we’d better find a way of realizing this and making peace with it because to walk out now and bury our heads in the sand by deluding ourselves into believing that we are still in a pre 9/11 world is insanity.