Free a Country, Save the World

The debate has been great over our involvement in the Middle East. Many see our intervention into Iraq as a wasted venture. The results of this, they claim, are dead soldiers and a soaring operational cost. Hard pressed would you be to find one on the left who supports our efforts and increasingly the same can be said for those on the right. On the right this usually manifests itself in the ideology of the libertarian, paleoconservative, the isolationist. That opinion has a voice in this year's presidential election in the form of Ron Paul. His message is clear, no foreign involvement, we are not nation builders. I have thought about that term nation building and what it represents. Is it our singular goal in the Middle East to create it in our own image? Is our country trying to sow its imperialist roots in Iraq? I think many would say yes and not all of them would come from the left side of the aisle.

I can certainly see where the other side is coming from. No one wants to see good men and women die and certainly not in a fruitless and pointless effort. But that would mean defining our mission as pointless and I am not sure I am ready to do that. That idea runs counter to those suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome, they see the war in Iraq as a campaign for loot and plunder by an imperialist in the form of George W. Bush. I am one who with whole heart rejects that notion and believes that this is a president who believes that all in the world deserve democracy.


And that is really what the problem is, isn't it? We have become a country who has forgotten or taken for granted what democracy is. We have enjoyed it for so long we accept it as a part of our nation's fabric. But how did we get that democracy we all enjoy? We had to fight for it from those that would oppress us and keeps us under a tyrannical thumb. The people in places like Iraq, and unfortunately too many other nations, lived under such a creature. Tyrants, dictators, call them whatever you will, they do much more then keep their own people down. With the increasing flattening of our world, these people pose more of a threats to us and our allies.

Many would say that we should not force democracy of a country that has not accepted it. The problem is that they have not had the chance. They are ruled by those who know we with free society they lose their tight grip over their people. When we talk about democracy not belonging in a country, we are saying that those people do not deserve to live in a society where they do not have to fear what they say. All people deserve that much no matter where they live or god they worship. If we are an equal world with equal individuals we should banner that sentiment. Freedom and democracy does not need to be a commodity unique only to America.

I would also make the point that by a free Iraq that it increases our security and safety. In an increasing radicalization of the Middle East we need stable partners to be rational minds combating radical Islam. The rest of the world will also benefit from such a situation, although not total participants in our efforts. For too long in our recent history have we ignored what is happening off our coasts. That changed in the year 2001 when our country got the wake up call it desperately did not want. We will no longer have the option of sticking head in sand, though I fear many subscribe to this foreign policy. Democracy for the rest of the world does not mean a copycat of our American system, in fact they might benefit from avoiding our model since we seem to have trouble with it ourselves. But societies where people can freely express support and dissent without fear of tyrannical retribution is something we should fight for and champion. It is something that our founding fathers and patriots recognized and fought for, and I for one am glad they did.