Are your ready for WW IV?

September 25, 2002
>
>Neoconservatives are preparing the groundwork for far-reaching and
>interminable U.S. involvement in the Middle East. Neoconservative leader
>Norman Podhoretz makes the case in the current issue of Commentary, the
>influential magazine of the American Jewish Committee, that it is not
>enough
>for the United States to attack only Afghanistan and Iraq. Podhoretz argues
>that "changes of regime are the sine qua non throughout the region."
>
>The challenge that President Bush faces, says Podhoretz, is "to fight World
>War IV -- the war against militant Islam." He identifies the enemies: "The
>regimes that richly deserve to be overthrown and replaced are not confined
>to the three singled-out members of the axis of evil" (Iraq, Iran, North
>Korea). At a minimum, the axis should extend to Syria and Lebanon and
>Libya,
>as well as 'friends' of America like the Saudi royal family and Egypt's
>Hosni Mubarak, along with the Palestinian Authority."
>
>Unlike the Bush administration, Podhoretz realizes that to overthrow the
>Taliban and Saddam Hussein is merely to stir a hornets' nest, while leaving
>in place multitudes of anti-Israeli and anti-American militants. Bush must
>own up to the true task, says Podhoretz, and find "the stomach to impose a
>new political culture on the defeated" Middle East, just as we did
>unapologetically to Germany and Japan.
>
>There is logic to Podhoretz's argument. But do Bush and the American people
>understand that the imposition of secular democracy on Afghanistan and Iraq
>are merely beginning steps in the forceful political reconstruction of the
>entire Middle East by U.S. might?
>
>Americans are indebted to Podhoretz for making it clear that a U.S.
>invasion
>of Iraq is the beginning of World War IV. President Bush and his strategic
>thinkers should ponder this carefully and be upfront with the American
>people. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein will not solve the Israeli-American
>conflict with militant Islam. On the contrary, it will widen the conflict.
>
>How many sons, husbands, fathers, brothers, grandsons, uncles, cousins and
>friends are Americans willing to give to a war, the object of which is the
>social and political reconstruction of the Middle East?
>
>Are the American people prepared to bear the tax and economic burden of
>such
>a prodigious undertaking? Indeed, with significant portions of its
>manufacturing and high-tech capability now located offshore, can the U.S.
>economy bear the burden?
>
>Would such a struggle leave us exhausted, unable to confront the rising
>power of an ambitious China?
>
>A more critical question is whether open borders have turned "the American
>people" into an abstraction. The Washington Post has always favored massive
>immigration because it builds Democratic voting rolls. But on Sept. 15, the
>newspaper called the United States a "Tower of Babel" whose sense of
>community has been shattered by the rise of ethnic media.
>
>The Post reports that the penetration of what we are accustomed to call the
>major media is down to 43 percent of the U.S. population and dropping.
>Increasingly, "people in key metropolitan areas now get their news from
>ethnic newspaper and broadcast outlets."
>
>California has 500 ethnic newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, and
>online publications. The Post reports that there are "15 Thai-language
>newspapers in Los Angeles, several 24-hour radio stations for Pashto and
>Dari Speakers." Orange County has 30 Vietnamese publications, and
>California
>has 7 major ethnic dailies and flourishing Spanish-language TV networks.
>
>The Post asks: "If you can't understand what your fellow subway rider is
>reading, if you can't follow the opinions he or she listens to each night,
>how can you hope to hold a discussion about national politics? Aren't our
>opinions and national discourse likely to become ever more Balkanized?"
>
>Bush should ponder this question before he undertakes to reconstruct the
>Middle East. He must face the fact that his own country has been
>reconstructed by massive immigration from the Third World. Are these
>legions
>of hyphenated-Americans in sympathy with the neoconservative goals that
>control U.S. foreign policy?
>
>Before the United Staets finds itself embroiled in a Middle East conflict
>for which it lacks both economic means and popular support, I propose a
>different solution: Terminate the Middle Eastern conflict by inviting the 5
>million Jews in Israel to settle in the United States.
>
>The entire population of Israel amounts to no more than two years of
>illegal
>Mexican immigration. The Jews can function here, if they wish, as an
>autonomous ethnic enclave just like all the other enclaves created by our
>short-sighted immigration policy.
>
>Despite extreme measures, Israel is unable to defend itself from
>Palestinian
>terrorists. The United States will not be able to defend Israel or itself
>from one billion Muslims.
>
>Trying to create a small Jewish state in a sea of Muslims was a 20th
>century
>mistake. Trying to reconstruct the Middle East would be a bigger mistake.
>Why not recognize the mistake, evacuate the Jews, leave the Muslims to
>themselves and focus on saving our own country?
>
>©2002 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
>