More WOT

My comments on the war against terrorism drew a response from Gene Redlin. I will answer his question tomorrow, but first want to respond to his underlying view of the world. Here is what Gene said,

I wasn't comfortable for a while, but they really want to kill us. Kill us all. Nuclear annihilation. I recognize that the Gospel is the weapon that will get us further than any bomb or force. I understand your idea of interchange and communication. I do think this is a war for the ideals, for good and bad of western civilization. Capitulation defeats us all.

Gene, a few of them want to kill you, but if you ignore the posturing, the truth is that they are mostly powerless or incompetent. Most of them just want to survive. They fear that the United States wants to kill them and there is a fair bit of evidence to justify their fears.

The United States assisted the British to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Iran in 1952. They then propped up the Shah of Iran for many years while he ruled with an iron rod. In 1978, the United States helicopters invaded Iran in an attempt to rescue American prisoners. The United States encouraged Iraq to invade Iran in 1980.

At the end of the Kuwait war, the United States encouraged the Shia of Iraq to rebel against Saddam Hussein and then watched in silence while he murdered thousands. The United States currently has a hundred thousand troops in the Middle East. It has powerful aircraft carriers just outside the Persian Gulf. Politicians and think tanks are calling for air strikes on Iran. It has armed its client regime in Saudi Arabia. I am not surprised that the people of Iran think that America wants to destroy them. I am not surprised that they are really afraid, and people who are afraid often fight back.

The people of the United States have very little to fear. You live on a large island that is almost impossible to invade. Even if Iran develops nuclear weapons, it has no way to get them to the United States. Terrorists have found it very difficult to strike against the United States, with only one success in a couple of decades. Far more people are killed by automobile accidents than by terrorists, but there is no war against the automobile.

If Iran had overthrown the Unites States government in the 1950s, or had stationed 100,000 troops in Mexico, or had persuaded Canada to invade the United States, or had several aircraft carriers in the Caribbean Sea, you would have something to worry about. I suspect that American culture has far more to fear from the corrosive growth of state power and the false gospel flowing out of Hollywood.