“Old” America

Michael J. Czuchnicki

Michael.Czuchnicki@Verizon.Net

March 3, 2003

The destruction of the two World Trade Center towers in New York City has prompted a reaction that is typically American – bold and brash, yet practical.   We’ll build the tallest building in the world – 1,776 feet high – in its place.   This figure, of course, represents the year that the United States came into being – 227 years ago.

What country in the world has had a continuous government for that long, or has created the prosperity for its people that the United States has? 

None.  

This matters in whether to invade Iraq, or not.   President Bush has made a forceful case to invade.   Many countries are opposing this decision.    None believe that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction.  Do they fear war, or just  want to tweak the nose of the most powerful and successful, nation?   Envy remains one of the seven deadly sins.

There has been some commentary on “Old Europe”.   These miss the reality:   America is the “old” country, whose history justifies speaking as “adults” to younger regimes.   What do adults do?  They make tough decisions.   What is the situation in Iraq?   Their government, in power for about 30 years, oppresses its people, uses poison gas against them, tortures them, has twice invaded its neighbors, and is currently flouting United Nations declarations that have been in force for 12 years.  

Those who oppose war, because of the deaths it will cause, choose to ignore today’s Iraqi carnage – of the most innocent.  The UN estimates that 5,000 children under the age of five to die each month – some 720,000 children in the last 12 years – as a result of the sanctions.  Even if this were halved twice, the body count of innocents is 180,000.   The sanctions, thus, are not bloodless, except to those, who, like children, see what they want.

We have chosen to end this regime and its “carnages.”  We plan introduce Democracy into an area where the Islamic Nations’ governments have generally failed, and blame us to distract their populations.   Do we have the right to make them similar to us?  No, but  that is not our plan.  We are simply going to introduce a proven system of government to a region that needs a systematic solution to their many problems.   Arguments about the area’s un-goverability ignore the one Democracy in the mid-east – Israel – resented as an island of prosperity in a sea of hatred.

As an adult nation, we are making a hard decision – as does any adult who insists that his children learn, rather that play –  to secure a better future.   Will we be resented for this?  Yes.  That is why the backing of the United Nations matters.  This we have worked hard to acquire.

The argument against making war ignores another reality.   It is not war.   We bring such overwhelming force against the Iraqi army that some other word must be found.  During the Gulf War in 1991 we had a tank kill-ratio of 900:1, i.e. we lost ONE tank for every 900 Iraqi tanks destroyed.  Since then, our military has increased its potency by a factor of almost 10.   Bombs can be targeted via satellite positioning systems.   We can choose not only which building to destroy, but the window for it to enter.   There is the fear that war might spin out of control.   This the world must work hard to avoid.  

The question of whether it is important to restrain America because of our overwhelming capabilities is based on another fear, “power corrupts.”   This argument ignores our past.   In 1776 we fought the most powerful nation on earth to ensure that “…all Men are created equal…”   The democracy we created remains while monarchies are relegated to history’s scrap-heap: a royal French head in a basket;  the Kaiser fleeing to exile;, the English royal family diminished by tabloid affairs and tourists.

We fought a bloody civil war.  There were over one half million deaths in that war, fought to include “Black Men” in “all Men…”.   The war made “These” United States, “The” United States, a small change with a large impact.

We entered, and ended, the First World War, then turned to isolationism, so the League of Nations failed, with Hitler’s World War II as a result.   At the end of that war, the United States rebuilt the nations who had been devastated – victor and vanquished alike.   The United States won the “Cold War.”  Yet, Russia is again our ally, and the communist block embraces democracy. 

Oh, yes, fear our power.   Look what we have done in the past.

Our president is acting to make the world better.  We should have acted in Rwanda, or in Cambodia.  We did not.   We did act in Bosnia – after both the Europeans and the United Nations delayed.   Our president is today stating that “a government’s actions within its own boarders are subject to the laws of mankind.”   Otherwise, Hitler’s death camps have been acceptable to the nations of the world if he had only gassed “German Jews.” 

Americans, as a race, are different.  Perhaps it is because our nation has always had a frontier.  Perhaps it is because we believe that everyone has the right to “pursue happiness.”   What other nation on earth has offered, and meant, that right to all their people?  Our activism demands that we solve problems rather than, as we did once before, hide behind our ocean walls.

We eschew “tribalism”.  The blasé’ New Yorker is equal to any other American – whether they just got off the boat or had their ancestors come on the Pilgrim’s boat.   Our country is made up of states.  The rest of the world has states that are countries.  Our national government will act to stop genocide in any of our states – and now, hopefully, in any state – and the world’s people, protected by basic laws, will be better for it.

Where other nation can make similar statements, they do so with pride.    To the tribal cultures of the mid-east we are offering the next step beyond the violence and hatreds that bedevil their cultures.   The world has had feuds that have lasted a thousand years.   Democracy, with a constitution that guarantees the rights of minorities, is an important part of that solution. 

We should not be abashed by our power, our success, or our vision of a better tomorrow.   Those who are unable to envision that better tomorrow – one where so many of the poor have had a chance to better themselves, and thus avoid the path that leads to despair and then to terrorism – should ask themselves what alternatives are there.   They should look at the price being paid by the dead and dying Iraqi children – in their thousands – and answer the question “If not now, when, Lord?   If not I,  who, Lord?

Americans have answered both questions, through the blood of our fathers and of our sons.  This is not a religious crusade, though it may be a “Godly” one.  It certainly is an adult course of action to fix a problem.  Now, the United Nations must decide, as must the other nations of the world, whether they prefer to fix problems as adults do, or to simply close their eyes…

as children do.