The Face of American Victory

Victory in Iraq is real. Our forces toppled Saddam.

Saddam Hussein killed his first human being when he was 10 years of age. Over 25 years he was responsible for the death and disfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of Kurds, Shiites, opposition and any who opposed an absolute dictatorship (which is the modus operandi of totalitarianism).

He taught his sons to kill and he personally executed his sons-in-law who dared flee the country. He asked for advice from his cabinet. The one who gave advice was executed personally by Saddam, dismembered and sent home in a bag.

He had the Tigris River diverted to dry up the marshlands in southern Iraq because the Madan (Wilfred Thesiger's "Marsh Arabs" or, more commonly, "Cajun Arabs") had not enthusiastically supported Iraq in the first Gulf War.

Thousands of the Madans moved to Iran and many to Sadr City outside Baghdad. Saddam transplanted thousands of Sunnis into Shiite territory to effect some control.

After the fall of Saddam, the mice began to play when the cat was away. We were not sophisticated in foreign matters to know what was happening. The expected struggle for power was one factor, yet the damage has been done by the agent provocateurs and the totalitarian nihilists.

Manfred Halpern described them best: "These are not zealots as Toynbee uses the term, but they recognize instead that they cannot stand where they are, yet will not allow growth, and consequently dedicate themselves to death." And I might add especially the death of others. They are everywhere in the world today -- Congo, Colombia, Somalia, Sri Lanka. Saddam in no way reached their vision of destruction.

Our military represents a great victory in Iraq. I grieve when a soldier is killed or wounded. They don't need some stupid politician describing the troops or the leadership as "losers." I listen to the body report from Iraq which totals the count at either 65,000 or 650,000.

It's about the same in the United States with the variations of "cause." The counters don't suggest how many "death devotees" have been sent to paradise by our brave soldiers.

Sure, all wars have their My Lai, Sabra Shatila and Haditha, and who knows what wars can do to the psyche.

So I keep a clipping of [a Congressman's] eulogy to fallen soldiers from Georgia ("I serve because of those guys to my left and right," Aug. 23, 2005) as a constant reminder of our victory. We must remember that Iraq is only a prototype of what's transpiring in the world and we don't need a "cut and run" such as happened in Korea, Cuba and Vietnam. Remember the words of Mao Zedong: "The media and 'peaceniks' will help us win."

We need no fulfillment of Yeats' "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold." Victory is already ours in Iraq. So it must be.

Posted by N. Beaujon.com, January 11, 2007 Letters to the Editor