Saturday, September 4, 2010

The 4,000 Years Old War




When I hear journalists say "We are going to win this war on terrorism," I wonder, "Which war are they talking about?" We're involved in at least three.

World War I and the mistakes of the victors led to WWII. After WW II many Jews moved to the Middle East to found Israel (most people don't know it, but the Nazis were going to eradicate Christianity, too). These survivors, instead of moving into a peaceful land where they could be safe, found themselves in a war that had been going on for about 4,000 years. We became involved in it, even though it's none of our business, and ended up with attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon.

These attacks led to us conquering Afghanistan, even though we were attacked by Saudi Arabians, not Afghanistanis or the Taliban. Our invasion of Afghanistan is a continuation of both WWI and the unnamed millennia-old conflict in the Middle East.

That's two wars we are involved in. The third is the "Great Game," which is the war that's been going on in Central Asia since at least the 16th century, when conquering the khanates of Central Asia became a security priority for Russia. It began to be called "the Great Game" when England and Russia were vying for control of the area in the 19th century.

Those in the media are so ignorant they do not know these things. They understand the great mineral and oil wealth of Central Asia, but not much else about it.

My undergraduate degree is in journalism. I worked on two student newspapers, then three professional papers, first as a reporter, then as an editor. I do not hold most journalists in high regard. I've known too many of them. I call most of them "half-educated halfwits." I find many of them to be ignorant and arrogant people who believe they are intellectually and morally superior to the unwashed masses. Thomas Sowell has a term for these people - he mocks them as "the Anointed."

My opinion extends not only to print journalists, but to the talking heads on TV, and to those on radio. Especially AM radio. I recently heard one well-known commentator on AM radio claim, "We beat the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese, and we'll win this war."

True, we did beat the Nazis and the Japanese, at a terrible cost. (And notice how FDR's WWII ally Stalin has dropped out?) But we're still fighting World War II. When that Chinese pilot bumped our plane and sent himself into the ocean, that was a continuation of WWII. Our screw-ups during W.W.II allowed the Communists to take China. Vietnam, too, was continuation of WWII.

We're going to "win" this war the same way we're "winning" the war on drugs. It's going to go on for decades, and we're not going to have much to show for it except hatred from other countries in the world, the loss of astronomical sums of money, a creaking economy, and a slow but sure slippery-slope loss of our freedoms.

It is because of the ignorance of those in the media that they do not know how many wars we are involved in, or how long these wars have been going on. They also do not understand the American Empire is following in the footsteps of the Roman Empire. Or, for that matter, every empire that has ever existed.

Washington was right in his Farewell Address. Peaceful trade with all, political alliances with none. Unfortunately, his wisdom is being completely ignored.
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