Parallels

The Cold War lasted from the end of WWII until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Call it 44 years. The first hot war of the Cold War was in Korea - a proxy fight between the US and Red China. The second hot war of the Cold War was in Vietnam. The outcome of neither of these efforts was satisfactory.

Throughout the '90s there was no overarching philosophy, no unifying geopolitical term to describe the natural and inevitable rivalry, even hostility, inherent in the concept of nationality. The watchword was globalism - or more aptly, Globalism.

But then, 12 years after the Wall fell, from out the blue as it were, one cool September morning, fell the Towers.

Where there was a Cold War, there is now a War on Terror. Both have focused on an alien philosophy, Communist or Islamist. Both philosophies are Totalitarian, all-encompassing, teleological Systems, which claim a destiny to rule the world and claim to know the end of history. Both control an impoverished people, oppressed, exploited, propagandized. The Cold War was really the Communist War. The War on Terror is really the War on Islamism. We can't just say it that way, because many are too stupid to make the distinction between Islamic and Islamist.

The first sorties of this next, generational War were the sundry terrorist attacks carried out throughout the '90s (and of course before) - embassies, Trade Centers, Coles, etc. The first sorties of the Cold War were the imperialist expansions of the Communist Bloc. We stood by, in all cases. The first battlefield of the new War was Afghanistan, when we bestirred ourselves to notice at last that we were at war. The second, following upon its heels, and really a second front of the same war, was Iraq. Where Korea was divided, half still living in utter wretchedness under the insane and anti-human tyranny of Kim Jong-il, Afghanistan, already divided, is coming together under a leader who actually seems to have integrity. Where Vietnam was abandoned and betrayed at the fall of Saigon by cowardly lying pols in Washington - who promised military aide that never came (of course the Democrats had just swept Congress in the aftermath of Nixon's resignation) - Iraq has a chance to unify and resist the urge to anarchy preached by the bombers of mosques and the loppers of heads. In the face of provocation most dire - the wanton destruction of the Golden Mosque, a holiest site, and a move calculated to drive the Shiites mad with grief and rage - they have instead exercised truly amazing restraint. God bless them. So far.

The War on Terror cannot be won. Of course not. How do you "win" a philosophy? But the battles of the War can certainly be won, or lost. We've seen this happen. We've never lost a war. Americans are good at winning wars. We lose the peace. The way not to lose the peace is to win the wars unconditionally. But that may be too hard, nowadays, what with cowardice being a virtue and all. The War on Terror can't be won, but it can end, the way the Cold War ended. By winning battles, by waiting them out, and by letting them collapse under the rot of their own corruption. In the meantime, we fight wars with real men, real blood, real death. It's called sacrifice. Heroism. Nobility.

But it can be lost.

Why do we fight? Nazi, Communist, Islamist. Pagan, atheist, monotheist. Fascist, Totalitarian, Absolutist. Hitler, Stalin, bin Laden. German, Russian, Arabic. These are languages I would learn voluntarily.



J