[lit-ideas] Don't Panic
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:34:26 +0900
The words "Don't panic" appear on the first page of The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy. They seem to me appropriate when I read
right-wing fulminations on the danger of Militant Islam and the horror
of impending U.S. defeat in Iraq.
I was, you see, born in 1944 and have lived through "the fall of
China" and the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Talk about being threatened by
a devious, fanatical and ruthless enemy driven by an totalizing
ideology dedicated to the destruction of the West, I've been there
before. There was no question, moreover, that our enemies did, indeed,
have weapons of mass destruction. In elementary school I learned the
drill of crawling under my desk, shutting my eyes and putting my face
to the floor to protect my sight from the glare generated by atomic
explosions. Growing up in one of the major centers of the U.S.
military-industral complex, I quickly learned, too, the cynical
version of the drill, "Bend over, put your head between your legs and
kiss your ass goodbye."
That the Reds were out to get us was a constant refrain in the mass
media I grew up with. Half the science-fiction I read projected either
a post-nuclear (now we'd say Mad Max) sort of world or one in which
the Russkies or Chinks had won the space race. When I was in college,
the domino theory was all the rage. Remember that one? Should sound
familiar. If we didn't stop them over there, they'd be in California
or landing troops on Long Island.
Doesn't make me Polyanna, though. Those were dangerous times. George
Kennan's containment memo was spot on. I was glad that the world's
strongest military was standing eyeball-to-eyeball with the bad guys
and making it perfectly clear that anyone looking to destroy the
U.S.A. or its allies better not hope to survive the experience.
There were also a couple of reality checks. The Chicoms and K-coms
fought us to a standstill in Korea. We got to see the last
helicopters lifting off the roof of the embassy in Saigon. We heard a
lot about the suffering of boat people who fled the debacle in Vietnam
and of those who were left behind. It seemed pretty clear that the
military experts who had warned us against a land war in Asia were
right.
Containment was messy. So were all those nasty little conflicts that
kept popping up in places like Angola. But then the Berlin Wall came
down. The USSR imploded. China became a major trading partner. Vietnam
is almost spoiled but still the destination of choice for adventure
tourists looking for a bit of what Asia used to be.
So, is Militant Islam dangerous? Damned straight.
Do terrorists armed with WMD pose a terrifying threat? No question about it.
Do we still need a strong military? Yes.
We also need something like a Marshall Plan for the Middle East and
the help of allies equally committed to a smart, basically police plus
SWAT teams, approach based on good intelligence, to going after the
bad guys. Too bad we didn't learn from the Israelis experience about
th shithole you can fall in trying to do the job with tanks and
fighter-bombers, killing lots of bystanders and stimulating
recruitment to the enemy's side.
What we don't need is panicky voices telling us that to be safe we
need to vaporize half the world. That's just nuts.
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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