The Christ Church congregation listened in silence as Canon Andrew White talked about one of his parishioners who had been visiting Mosul when Isis overran it. After the jihadis had robbed this widow of her life savings they forced her wedding ring from her fingers. She was lucky. The ring came off. People with stickier rings have had their fingers chopped in half, then been ordered to flee to save their lives.
Many haven’t saved theirs. On his Facebook page Andrew White told of a Christian family of eight who had been shot through their faces after refusing to renounce their faith. A photo that was too horrific for him to publish captured the blood-soaked scene and the family Bible on the couch ”” still open but never to be read by them again. Elsewhere in Mosul there is a park where the heads of children who’ve been cut in half are put on a stick to warn others that anyone, however young, who refuses to convert to Islam will be put to the sword.
Mr White didn’t stay in Guildford for long. He keeps returning to the most dangerous place on earth and his explanation is simple: you can’t abandon the people you love. It is to the enormous shame of Britain and America that we did not live by the Andrew White principle. America stayed in Germany and South Korea for decades to help to ensure they became the stable nations that they are today. Iraq needed a similar level of commitment. It didn’t get it.
Read it all (if you click on the picture it enlarges).
“America stayed in …” That was an earlier generation with a different set of values and sensibilities. Perhaps we may yet see their like again, but not until at least this generation has passed from the scene.
As much as I sympathize with the idea that America should have stuck it out like in Germany, I have to wonder how the Home Front would have handled five years of insurgency after four years of war. Would they have had the fortitude to remain in the face of Nazi die-hards and fanatical Japanese willing to die for their emperor’s honor?
An unanswerable question, but it is one that ought to be considered before painting today’s America as morally weak.
The home front would handle it just fine if there was an adult in charge. BHOs response to the destruction is to go play golf. TS Eliot was a prophet. This is how the world ends; with a whimper.
3. David Keller:
That’s putting the cart before the horse. In 2008, the public chose between Obama and the hawkiest hawk of them all, John McCain. If America had wanted more Iraq, they knew whom to vote for. Obama’s inadequacy since his first election doesn’t play on that initial choice.
I don’t agree about 2008. McCain lost because he conceded the election in September over the AIG bailout–a bailout planned and executed by Tim (don’t pay your income taxes) Geitner. However, he could have left 15,000 troops in Baghdad had he bothered to pick up the phone and tell the Iraquis they WERE going to sign a status of forces argeement, in which case this wouldn’t be happeneing at all. He called ISIS the “JV”, so he lacks any grasp of reality even though the CIA has been telling him for well over a year that they are a nasty threat. Also, he could have done SOMETHING in Libya. He could have done almost ANYTHING is Syria. He botched Egypt. He botched (and is still botching) Isreael/Hamas. But all that aside, the situation has changed since 2008. A leader leads. He could sell the case to the American people if he had the vaguest notion that it is necessary. If he didn’t want the job he shouldn’t have run in the first place. He also is the least prepared man to be President in recent, if not all of, our history and his inability to do ANYTHING is proof. And don’t tell me about the current air strikes. That should scare you more than anything because it IS going to result in uncontrolled mission creep. Young Americans are going to die needlessly, because he refused to negotiate a status of forces agreement. He doesn’t even have an entry strategy, so its going to be pretty hard to have a exit strategy.
David Heller: All good points. I certainly agree that the financial crisis was a major factor, if not /the/ factor that turned the tide against McCain. In my point, I was just thinking about what Obama the Candidate stood for vs. McCain. A clear cut choice, though as you ably point out, only one among many, and certainly not the most important to the voters in that cycle.
In response to the subhead in the article . . . No we did not “betray Iraq” by “leaving early” — what silly and attempted-manipulative rhetoric that is. We spent [i]$60 billion[/i] on that country, and countless thousands of hours training, coaching, and serving the leaders of that country, not to mention the precious lives of many many many men *after war’s end*.
I’m perfectly comfortable with our having determined that invading Iraq in order to establish a base in the Middle East *and* root out the nests of Al Quaeda happily training and taking refuge there was necessary to our country’s defense. I’m *not* comfortable with the whole “let’s guilt America into going and rescuing another country again.”
We more than fulfilled our responsibility to that country — and in a much gentler way than we did in Germany where “keeping the peace” after war’s end meant shooting any German with a gun, forced expelling of Germans from the territory we gave to Poland and Russia, prohibiting industrialization, the use of POWs as forced labor for several years after surrender, the payment of reparations by Germany to the Allies, the giving of a good chunk of the country to Russia [!], and any number of other rather, um . . . “victorious actions” of one country defeating another. So I don’t think appealing to our staying in Germany is any comparison whatsoever — and I suspect people who attempt to manipulate using that comparison haven’t really thought very much about it — they’re just flailing about trying to come up with a reason *other than defense of the country* why the US should go expend its blood and treasure once more on a country that is demonstrably hopeless.
No — what folks really mean by *that* ill-fated comparison is our staying ad infinitum and pumping billions more into a country and propping up various regimes in a country that simply does not have the cultural foundation or leadership or heritage or [ahem] religion that will allow a functional, halfway competent self-governance.
I wholeheartedly agree with David about the gross ham-fisted incompetence of Obama — but we all already know that and I try not to talk about it. I think McCain lost because 1) Obama was The First Black President [which I’ve been so sad about for years now, but water under the bridge, I guess] and 2) there are millions of conservatives like me who will not vote for a non-conservative Republican, ever again [we are all so looking forward to 2016, Republicans — you can renominate Mitt Romney, or go for Jeb Bush, or try your absolute fave Chris Christie, and then we’ll have the first female President — you can be a part of “making history yet again” merely by nominating another undocumented Democrat who doesn’t believe one bit your actual party platform.] Eventually, after the Republican establishment has demolished the country by putting up the Chris Christie’s of this world every four years . . . we’ll actually have a nominee that can be reasonably said to support and believe the Republican’s own platform.
RE: “He doesn’t even have an entry strategy, so its going to be pretty hard to have a exit strategy.”
A *sweet* [i]sweet[/i] line! ; > )
“We spent $60 billion on that country, and countless thousands of hours training, coaching, and serving the leaders of that country, not to mention the precious lives of many many many men *after war’s end*.”
“You” chose how to spend that money. If you don’t like the way it was done, complain to your own employees (from your leaders on down) who did the spending.
That’s a separate issue to whether US chooses to get involved now. If it is smart, it will have some involvement. If it is even smarter, it will limit its involvement because it isn’t always as good at involvement as it thinks it is.