Mark Charalambous
Geraldo Rivera has given the best reason for direct US
military intervention in ISIS: “Revenge.”
Speaking on Fox News’ The
Five on June 9, he clarified: “For taking the heads of Americans.”
Such candor may repel a lot of people. But if we widen the lens focus to analyze the
emerging new global reality of our position in the region... and beyond,
Geraldo’s argument emerges as the correct one to make.
Allow me to explain why Geraldo’s seemingly crude, reckless notion
bears merit.
The counter-arguments go like this.
- This is our fault for invading Iraq in 2003 under a pretext.
- We committed numerous wartime atrocities during the Iraq War, culminating with a civilian casualty count recently measured as 150,000 out of a grand total of 500,000 Iraqi deaths.
- The Islamic uprising is one of epic nationalism and religious fervor justified by a people that have suffered under the yoke of western dominance since WWI. Starting with the colonialist arbitrary dissections of the Middle East after the collapse of the Ottoman empire, the region has endured repeated interventions, political, economic, as well as military, by the United States. Such as overthrowing governments by CIA skullduggery (installing the Shah of Iran after overthrowing an elected government) or just flagrant “regime change” by brute force as we did in the Iraq War.
And then there’s always the forced dislocation of the Palestinians
to make way for the creation of the state of Israel following WWII.
Indeed, there is no shortage of reasons to justify the Al-Qaeda-cum-ISIS-cum-Caliphate
“blowback” that has jolted not just us, but the entire civilized world.
So how then can we argue—morally? —for a military response,
justified by a need for... revenge?
There are plenty of arguments to be made by our enemies that
we, indeed, are the “Evil Empire.”
Good luck trying to deny it to the man tortured at Abu
Ghraib by the decadent US Army forces, particularly the sexual humiliation at the
hands of female soldiers.
So, are we the “Evil Empire?”
No, we are not. Despite the atrocities. No more than ancient
Rome was an “evil empire.”
Like ancient Rome, we are the superpower of our day. Like
Rome, we are hated by many people outside of our borders—both in enemy nations
in the Middle East and within many of our ally nations... in fact, by many
American citizens right here at home.
We are constantly reminded of this thanks to the generosity
of our First Amendment rights of free speech.
American America-haters. Reverend Wright, Ward Churchill, Noam Chomsky.
Hollywood. Chances are, your college humanities or social science professor.
Michelle Obama even (“For the first time in my adult lifetime I am proud of my
country.”). Our President, Barack Obama, many claim, is another
anti-American. (A truly scary thought...)
People hate us for many reasons. One: they are not us. They
do not enjoy the wealth, freedom and privileges we have, especially when it
comes to some extent at the expense of the exploitation of non-Americans. This,
in a word, is jealousy. Everyone hates the boss.
Two: they have direct experience of harm resulting from our
actions. You cannot fault someone for hating us if their child was killed,
unintentionally or not, by a drone attack at a wedding celebration.
We can all agree that it should be the norm, not the exception, that bad players acting on our behalf are held accountable when they commit... evil acts. (Let’s call them what they are...) One of our strengths is that occasionally when something
like that happens the guilty parties are held accountable. If so, it’s a result of one of the many things that make us not an evil
empire, but a great empire. We are a nation
of laws.
Nations, cultures, civilizations are measured not just by
their monuments, but also by their ideals ...their cultural mythologies. What a
people believe about themselves can be more revealing than their
tangible accomplishments. Our mythology is of a nation founded on principles of
personal freedom, liberty and self-governance. We have high ideals. Opportunity.
Responsibility. Charity. Inclusion. The “melting pot.” We have had high
aspirations; and we have tremendous achievements
to our credit.
Back to the United States / Rome analogy.
In the centuries of Rome’s dominion of over much of their
known world, they committed atrocities to create and hold their empire. Rest
assured, the conquest of Gaul by the great Julius Caesar was not accomplished
without ruthless massacres and war crimes, despite the wonderful whitewashing
in his canonical Latin text, the Gallic
Wars.
But we have the hindsight of history to judge Rome. Two
thousand-plus years of it, in fact. If Rome was an “evil empire,” would
civilization as we know it been better off if it had never existed?
Of course not. The Roman Empire contributed so much to the
advancement of the human potential and civilization that we cannot imagine the
world as we know it without it. Perhaps first and foremost, it midwifed the
glorious culture of ancient Greece for posterity.
The analogies between Rome and the U.S. are well excavated by
historians. Like the Romans, we brought forward the great civilization that
preceded us: Europe. Like the Romans, we in a sense perfected and capitalized
on it. Thanks to the genius of the Founding Fathers who were well-schooled in
their history, we codified the best system of government ever. And largely as a result of our Constitution, gave rise to the
greatest machine for scientific, technological and economic achievement the
world has ever known. The Roman Republic/Empire had endured for half a
millennium before the Pax Romana established a period of peace and prosperity
for the Romans and all those who wisely chose to accept their terms: “Be our
friend, friend to our friends, and enemy of our enemies.”
Other than it took us less than half the time, are we much
different from the Romans?
There is one last comparison between us and our ancient
role-model. And this one is just as important.
As we look to this new “Caliphate” that has to date
conquered half of Syria and Iraq and is growing daily by the influx of
volunteer converts flock there from around the world like hippies to San Francisco in the Summer of Love, we
are struck dumbfounded as we witness their atrocities in the name of their
religion.
Islam is the very definition of intolerance. Try asking a
Muslim scholar if it is true that his religion prescribes the death penalty for
someone choosing to leave it. One thing I will tell you: you will not get a one-word answer, as in
“Yes, “ or “no.”
How do we compare with the Romans in terms of religious
tolerance? Speaking of pre-Christian Rome, we are in an important respect quite
similar.
The Romans were politically astute. They recognized, for
instance, that to preserve their empire it was sometimes necessary to have
nations at their borders quarreling with one another. Instability between
neighbors at the periphery served to keep them too busy to cause trouble. Those
pragmatic Romans...
Similarly with their religious policies. They recognized
that religion was something that humans do. It is clearly a necessity for human
beings to have some explanation for what lies beyond... in Hamlet’s
“undiscovered country.”
The Romans knew that when attempting to absorb a people into
their “sphere of influence,” obliterating their customs,
traditions, or especially their religion, would not make things easier. The
Romans assimilated. They assimilated the religious beliefs, and gods, of these aliens
into their own pantheon. The Romans may
have been obsessively superstitious, but they were pragmatic...
And this is how the Christian world, after surviving its own
era of intolerance, persecution—and let’s be honest, atrocities—evolved in the
west to tolerate other belief systems. No, Christianity did not directly assimilate
foreign religious beliefs into its catechism (though it is not a coincidence that Christmas falls on the date of the Roman holiday Saturnalia, not on the supposed historical birthdate of Jesus Christ), but it bent to welcome non-believers and not treat them as infidels. Over the centuries it eventually grew to accept science where it conflicted with scripture, albeit grudgingly. Religious pluralism, including
atheism; that is the present-day religious climate of the nations of the west that once used Christianity as a foundational pillar.
When scummy, decadent, NEA-recipient “artists” decide to
mock Christianity by making “Piss Christ” or the cow-dung rendered “The Holy Virgin
Mary,” no one is killed. There are no death threats, despite the outrage from offended
Christians. In fact, the “artists” probably won’t even lose their tax-supported
NEA funding! There is no Christian-equivalent fatwa. The worst thing that can happen is excommunication. I doubt
the “artists” were worried about that...
The real “religious” intolerance in the west today comes
from the anti-religious zealots. Case in
point: the recent contrived outrage expressed by secular “progressives” upon
discovering a restaurant that merely admitted it would decline a request to
cater a gay marriage if asked to do so!
The national outrage, stoked by the media, reached such a fever pitch that the state
legislative body was compelled to enact emergency legislation to “correct” the
law that would permit a private business to act in such a way.
Such media-driven crusades resemble
Islamic intolerance far more than any supposed religious bigotry of the shop
owners. No wonder “progressives” now avoid the label “liberal.” They are
the very antithesis of liberal.
When the U.S. curries favor with other nations, it doesn’t
seek to impose our first religion upon them. It wants you to be our friend. Be
friend to our friends. And give, at the very least, moral support when we oppose our
enemies, such as voting with us in the U.N.
Sure, there’s a whole lot more to it than that. Most
importantly, we want you to open your markets to our businesses. We want to
encourage trade and investment. Investment in your country and your people
that, on the balance, will raise the standard of living eventually in both of ours.
No, your religion is fine—as
long as it does not mandate death for non-believers.
And that takes us full circle. Why “revenge” is the
justifiable reason to take whatever steps are necessary to squash ISIS and the
“Caliphate” before it gains weapons of mass destruction and enters the growing
pack of nations that we are now too scared to antagonize (North Korea, China,
Russia, ...Iran?).
In ancient Rome’s heyday, any foreign state choosing to
willfully abuse the person of a Roman citizen abroad knew what to expect: Shock
and awe. Power is meaningless if it is
not enforced. This is the realpolitik of it. If you are the strongest, but the
recalcitrant adversary sees no real risk in defying you with impunity, you lose
the power to impose your will when it matters.
It is growing increasingly clear that America has crossed
this border into a state of what could graciously be described as "diminishing
capacity."
“Leading from behind = Lack of will to lead.”
After the century of turmoil and civil war that led to the eventual
demise of the Roman Republic, the foundation of the Empire laid by Augustus led
directly to the Pax Romana, a (relative) peace that lasted for two centuries. Your
definition of our Pax Americana may begin after WWII or may exclude the nuclear
tinderbox that existed until the fall of the USSR in 1991, but it is now fraying
at the seams.
ISIS is at war with us!
Whether we like it or not. And ISIS is—by
the way, Mr. President—Islamic. It’s
in their name, for chrissakes; it’s the “I” in ISIS, IS, or ISIL, whichever you
prefer.
ISIS is beheading, crucifying, and immolating “infidels,”
including Americans. The honor of every American who has died in wars past and
present demands that these atrocities not go unpunished, regardless of what happened
in Iraq.
We are the new Rome.
Revenge, and revenge alone, is sufficient cause for us to respond militarily to destroy ISIS.
The heck with “degrade.” And the real benefit: reestablishment of genuine fear in the minds of any enemies—or
competitors—considering resisting our honorable and legitimate interests.
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Copyright 2015
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