I’ve been thinking lately about how I would really like to get this blog off politics, onto some other interesting topics. As a friend of mine said, politics is the demonworld. But I’m really caught up in it these days. I’m caught up in it, because I think that politics, right now, is really IMPORTANT!. Although I’ve always been a political junkie, I haven’t really thought that politics was that important, since the 60’s. But now I do, since 9/11 I do. This essay entitled “Deterrence” eloquently captures many of the changes I’ve gone through of late.
I would love to live in the world that I actually did believe I was living in for a number of years. My Buddhist training and psychedelic revelations instilled in me a vision of a world where if I got my head together, to coin a phrase, and was nice to everyone, I would be doing all I could to make the world a better place. But now I have to, reluctantly, conclude that there’s more to it than that. Contrary to postmodern and Buddhist teachings, there is evil in the world. Evil is a choice, and some choose it. Now the world watches videos of them beheading their victims. This is a potent threat to the world that most Americans live in, the world where being nice is effective. This is war. We have to kill our evil enemies before they kill us. I wish it were not so. I have never killed anyone. I hope to God I never do. The reality of sending our young men and women into situations where they must kill or be killed is horrific to me. I wish it were not so. But it is.
The people who flew jetliners into the world trade center and the pentagon, and those who are kidnapping and beheading unbelievers in Iraq, and those who shot children in the back in Beslan, are not going to stop. Good vibes will have no effect on them. They dream of an Islamic caliphate where everyone in the world submits to their brand of Islam. They will commit any crime, any atrocity, to realize their dream. They believe that Allah sanctions their evil in the service of the greater good. They are committed to death.
In the old days, the relatively few fanatics that now threaten us, would not have been taken seriously, because a few, rational, nation-states had a monopoly on dangerous weaponry. This is no longer the case, and will become increasingly not the case as time goes by. Nuclear weapons have not yet apparently fallen into the hands of the Islamists, but the possibility is very real and becoming more so. Taking out the Taliban and Saddam was a good first step, but they are the easy, low-hanging fruit of what we need to do to defeat our enemy. The tough nuts are Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and, if Musharraf is assassinated or overthrown, Pakistan.
We have a long row to hoe ahead of us. It will require a mixture of intelligent diplomacy and intelligent use of military force. It will also require a realism and a steadfastness of the American people that has not been asked of them since World War II. This election is a key moment in the war. How it comes out will make a big difference in how the war is conducted and in how many people die. It is as critical as the election during the civil war that Lincoln barely won.
If John Kerry becomes President of the United States, our evil Islamo-fascist enemy will rejoice. If George Bush wins a second term, they will despair. That is the bottom line for me. If you think it’s the other way around, then by all means vote for John Kerry. If you don’t think we’re in a war, and that health care or gay rights or the environment are more important issues, then vote for Kerry, or better yet, Ralph Nader.