Opinion on America-

Why we are in Iraq

Last month we reminded our readers that the war in Iraq did not begin with a decision in Washington to go to war, but began when a group of people labeled as terrorists chose to attack two states within the borders of the United States of America. Last month’s article generated a considerable amount of mail from the readers asking for more information and clarification on our situation in the Middle East.

   Although we attempt to provide a fresh perspective to our situation in the Middle East, it is based upon a little research and several discussions with scholars in the United States who have left the Middle East, but are Islamic and were able to provide a better understanding of the situation that may make the it a little clearer. The perspective of these Islamic people made the situation seem a little clearer, but also much more of a concern than previously.

   The business community has been stagnated for about the last four years. Although some people blame the current administration for the economic problems, much of it may be the result of the extensive resources expended in the last months of the previous millennium to address computer problems associated with the year 2000 transition in computers. This extensive drain on business resources, coupled with a lack of investment in new product innovations, may have been a strongly contributing factor in the beginning of the current recession and the collapse of many of the dot com companies.

   Although the situation in the Middle East did not create the current economic stagnation, it has contributed to its continuation. We were seeing signs of recovery in the recession when Islamic Extremists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. The attack on our own soil created tremendous changes within the infrastructure of our country, which resulted in the government and business environments having to make major adjustments to our culture. These kinds of changes always have a strong effect throughout the economy that will lengthen and heighten our current economic woes.

   The economy attempted a recovery after we experienced success in Iraq, but exaggerated media reports of a continuing series of setbacks in the war has slowed the recovery. I believe this recovery will return after the Presidential election next November, but I believe the current economic recovery is being retarded by negative media reports that seem biased against the current administration. The November elections should remove the need to maintain the economic stagnation regardless of which party is elected.

   Some people may wonder how it is possible for me to suggest the media has a biased reporting of the war. Most people learn of events by watching the news on a local network station or by watching one of the many cable news networks. I have seen several events that were covered by the different networks and found the Fox News Network stories to be more supportive of government actions than the other networks. I am not attempting to suggest that one network is better than another, but the fact that some networks tend to cover events in a more positive light does suggest a bias does exist. My own observations suggest the bias is not with the Fox News Network.

   So what does our economy have to do with the war in Iraq, and what is this war really about? The answers are amazingly simple, but one must understand that we are involved in a Jihad, or a Holy War against the west.

   War affects the economy because recessions are caused by the fear of hard times. The widespread fear of a recession will cause people to cut their spending and will often trigger a recession. Bad news on the television often prompts business managers and buyers to defer decisions. Purchasing decisions are delayed, as are decisions to hire or invest. It was only days after the 9/11 attacks on Virginia and New York that I was personally involved in the decision to lay off twenty percent of a company’s workforce, because economic forecasts showed the economy would take another downturn. Our actions, like those being taken throughout the business community, contributed to the economic problem by moving people from the ranks of the tax paying employed to the ranks of the tax using unemployed.

   I believe the economic recovery will be slow until the reports on the war against terrorists until the news media starts to show the positive results that are being obtained. I believe the positive results are already there, but not being widely reported by most of the mainstream media.

   The answer as to what this war is really about is more complex to explain, but simple to understand. Please keep in mind that this explanation is one of many possible interpretations of events.

   Why did Islamic Extremists attack the United States on 9/11? I consider it to be one of a continuing series of attacks in a much longer war. My sources report that Islam is divided into several categories, but the two basic groups of Muslims are the Sunni and Shiite. Sunni Muslims represent those who follow the prophet Muhammad . Shiite Islam originated as a political movement supporting the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, as the leader of the Islamic state.

   Many Muslim teachings divide people into categories of being believers in Islam and non-believers. Recent writings suggest that some Arab countries have tremendous resources educating young people that non-Muslims are sub-humans who deserve no respect.

  Islam is not a religion as we practice in the United States. It is more than a religion; it is a way of life for those who live it. There are over 4,000 mosques in the city of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia alone is believed to have spent more than 100 billion dollars on Islamic causes during the last thirty years. This accounts for the organizational strength and funding of this lifestyle.
 

   The Islamic lifestyle is not separate from the government or schools. Islamic beliefs are the cornerstone of education and government regulations throughout the Muslim society. This results in people being raised with very strong beliefs in the teachings of Muhammad and makes young people susceptible to Muslim Extremists who recruit young people into the more radical followers of Islam.

   Many Muslim Extremists have carried their beliefs further and preach that non-believers need to be eliminated. These Extremists use the mosques to recruit disadvantaged young people to their cause, which explains the large number of very young suicide bombers. These impressionable young people are taught about the perfect life that will be waiting in the their form of heaven after dying for their God.

   Let’s look briefly at two forms of warfare to better understand the semantics of the situation. Conventional warfare is used when two opposing forces are roughly equal in strength and organization. World Wars I and II were conventional wars with two armies battling for dominance on established battlefields with geographic objectives.

   The other form of warfare, known as Unconventional Warfare occurs when there is a mismatch of strength between military forces. Guerrilla warfare is the most common form of unconventional warfare and tends to consist of hit and run tactics to allow the smaller force to strike and leave so quickly that larger enemy forces cannot mount an effective defense. The Viet Nam war had a lot of Guerrilla warfare being used by the forces of North Vietnam. Unconventional warfare requires combat and defense tactics that are often considered distasteful to more civilized nations that rely on conventional military methods, which is what makes it difficult for civilized nations to effectively defend themselves from these tactics.

   A common weapon of unconventional warfare is the use of the tactical terror, or terrorism. We often mistakenly referred to those who use this tactic as terrorists. Unfortunately the word terrorist is a label for the person committing the act and has little to do with the cause or the motives of those who use this weapon of warfare. A better term would be to use their own label and call them Mujahedeen, which means Holy Muslim Warriors. This creates a clear link between Islam and the current warfare we are experiencing.

   So why were we attacked on 9/11? It takes little common sense to figure out why we were attacked by Holy Muslim Warriors on 9/11. We were attacked because our culture of freedom is undermining the fundamentalist Muslim culture. It is our rock music, clothing, food, movies, and pornography that invades their culture and angers them.

   Radical Shiite Muslims in Iran do not allow women to expose any parts of their bodies, including their hair. The Burka, which must be worn by women in fundamental Islamic countries, completely covers the woman’s body and provides only a small slit for looking out. Punishment is swift and harsh for those who allow too much western influence. Compare this to the very revealing fashions worn by women in the western countries and we can see differences that would appear to be invading their culture.

   Pornography and freedom of choice are not part of the radical Islamic culture. fundamentalist Muslims must adhere strictly to the rules of their society or face swift punishment. To the fundamentalist Muslim the clash of western verses Islamic cultures poses a threat to Islam and it angers them. The spread of the western culture also inhibits their own plans to convert the world to Islam.

   Am I saying that all Muslims perceive us as their enemy? No. Most Muslims live a lifestyle that is more western that the fundamentalists. Their form of Islam tends to be more moderate, resembles the religions of the western cultures, and is not the lifestyle of the fundamentalists.

   Fundamentalist Muslims are fighting a war with the United States because we represent all of the factors that are undermining their culture. They have attacked and taken our embassy in Iran, attempted to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993, The USS Cole, and successfully destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon in 2001. A search on Islamic attacks on the west quickly revealed nearly 150 such attacks since 1970. The attacks on Virginia and New York were an action of hostility against America that has been escalating for over thirty years.

  It is evident that the Holy Muslim Warriors of Islam have been waging war against the western culture for over thirty years, but the attacks on New York and Virginia was bold enough to take the war into every living room in the world. Al-Quida and Taliban forces are only a small faction in the war being waged by the Holy Muslim Warriors of Islam.

   Al-Quida and Taliban forces are convenient labels for defining traditional Geographic and Political descriptions of war. This is not a war over geographic or political objectives. It is a war over religious and cultural ideologies that span across many geographies and political societies. Most of the fundamentalist Islamic people are found in Iran, and they took over the country nearly thirty years ago by ousting the western influence from the country.

   With most of the fundamentalist Islamic people being found in Iran, then why have we liberated Iraq instead of Iran? This is a difficult question to answer and requires even more common sense and a little bit of conspiracy theory.

  Liberating Iraq made no sense from the standpoint of defending an Islamic Jihad. Saddam Hussein was reputed to be a strong leader who oppressed the people of his country. While I will not defend him, I will say that the most oppressed peoples in his country were the fundamentalist Muslims. For all of his faults, Saddam Hussein was keeping his thumb on those who wanted to hurt the west, because they were against his adoption of western dress and decadence.

   In whose interest was it to invade Iraq and depose its dictator? It is in the best interest of the Shiite Muslims who were being oppressed by Hussein. These fundamentalist Muslims are now rising up and may be behind most of the attacks on our troops. The chaos generated by the attacks on Iraq may have destabilized the entire region and provided the Holy Muslim Warriors with a ripe battlefield.

   If it was in the best interest of Iran and the fundamentalist Muslims to invade Iraq, then how is it that we targeted this Iraq? It is probably because we were somewhat disposed to wanting to address a continuing series of problems in Iraq coupled with some questionable intelligence information coming from Muslim sources. In other words, Iranian intelligence agents may have fed intelligence information about chemical weapons to the west to help justify an attack on Iraq to depose its leader who was oppressing the Shiites in Iraq. We may have accidentally done Iran’s work for them in removing Saddam Hussein.

   A better theory is to consider the political situation in Iran. Many of the students in Iran want to adopt a western influence in their fundamentalist culture. Much of the Iranian population would like to see the fundamentalist Muslims pushed aside to undo the mistake of about twenty-five years ago when they overthrew the western oriented government and installed the fundamentalist Shiite Ayatollah Khomeini into power. Iran is ripe for another revolution, or at least an evolution of their existing extremist government. All it will take to trigger an attempt at a revolution is a strong signal from the west that success could be real.

   Since Iran is the hub of fundamentalist Muslim beliefs and is creating much of the anti-American hatred against Americans, then Iran will probably be the next target in the war. A war with Iran will be very different than the war with Iraq. Iran is already boiling so it may be only necessary to provide a role model of democracy to trigger either an Iranian evolution or revolution from within. Our greatest weapon in controlling Iran will be to win their friends over to our side and isolate Iran as an island of fundamentalist Muslim beliefs in a more moderate Middle East.

   This is best done by deposing Saddam Hussein and creating a democratic Iraq right on the border of Iran. Such a tactic should have a domino effect with many of the more radical Muslim countries in the Middle East. It should also be noted that a democratic Iraq would draw Holy Muslim Warriors across the boarder into Iraq where they will attempt to disrupt the political process, which is happening now. Such a tactic also allow military engagement with small groups of fundamentalist Muslims who fail to recognize the new government and attempt to spread their Jihad through terror.

   I believe we are winning the war against those who want to eliminate our way of life. The situation has drawn many of the Holy Muslim Warriors into Iraq where more accurate intelligence information can be gathered and they may be engaged on foreign soil where their presence is more difficult to justify. Political pressure in Saudi Arabia is forcing them to evaluate their own position regarding government support of Islamic fundamentalists. Some of the smaller countries in the region are beginning to warm up to the United States and their own positions regarding their support of fundamentalist Muslims operating from within their own countries. The students in Iran who overthrew the government, deposed the Shaw of Iran, and installed the fundamentalist Muslim Shiite government are growing more militant in wanting more western influence in their culture.

   We need a strong presence of democracy in the Middle East to win the war against those who are dedicated to eliminating the American way of life. Iraq has provided that island of Arab democracy, but we have to look at the big picture in this war and understand that it is not a quick hit and run war, but one in which we must remain diligent to our own security by remaining diligent in maintaining our own national security while slowly eliminating those who seek to eliminate our way of life. We must take the war to our enemy and not to allow our enemy to bring the war to us.
As this article is being finalized and uploaded to the web site of The Tracy Business Journal, we are already seeing some of the first signs of relief in Iraq. News reports are coming in that many Saudi Guerrilla warriors are leaving Iraq and returning to Saudi Arabia to wage their war on their home soil. The reports suggest they are returning to Saudi Arabia because of increased pressure coming from Iraq’s new government.

   It will be interesting to see if there is an increase in attacks in Saudi Arabia. Such an increase might signal a shift in the Jihad toward forcing moderate Muslims to convert over to the more radical forms of Islam, which will dilute their support throughout the world.

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