War Concepts
Mister Robin Cook, former UK foreign minister, said another one of those obvious truths that nobody seems to notice or dare to speak out: Bush doesn’t seem to understand that this war on terror won’t be won in a traditional conflict, there will be no military solution here.
Sadly Cook didn’t say another obvious thing: most world leaders have the same problem as Bush.
The Roman Empire had that same conceptual problem here, where Portugal is now. For hundreds of years the people of this peninsula, the people of Iberia, resisted to the Roman invader. True enough that the Romans won the war, but not only due to sheer brute force. The invaders only won the war when one of their leaders was both intelligent enough to understand his enemy and powerful enough to enforce a change of war policy.
With the Portuguese colonial wars the same mistake in not understanding the enemy caused us to lose those wars. That mistake more than any native resistance was our weakness in Africa. If there had been a better understanding about the natives' demands we could have had no war at all, the problem wasn’t even in the ‘battle fields’, it was mostly in the fact we were living a dictatorship in the ‘Metropolis’, as people used to call mainland Portugal at the time, the true claims of the natives were to a certain point the same as the colonialists claims. Other examples could be given, but there is no point to that: those who can get my point from these two examples need no more explanations, those who can’t understand it wouldn’t understand even if every similar occurrence in history was listed here.
Like in any war, we NEED to understand our enemy. The time of an army marching against an enemy is gone. We need to know where our enemy gets support, we must put and end to that support, we must keep the moral high ground and help those that our enemy claims to be oppressed by the west. Only by showing superiority can we deter terrorism. By showing only 'superior force' we can only inspire more wannabe martyrs. Those wannabe martyrs have already proven to be the biggest threat of all.
Still this was one of those times the Brits have stood their ground valiantly.
We must not give in. We can’t give in. We must go on with our lives, no matter what.
The terrorists must be forced to see that they can’t bend us.
Sadly Cook didn’t say another obvious thing: most world leaders have the same problem as Bush.
The Roman Empire had that same conceptual problem here, where Portugal is now. For hundreds of years the people of this peninsula, the people of Iberia, resisted to the Roman invader. True enough that the Romans won the war, but not only due to sheer brute force. The invaders only won the war when one of their leaders was both intelligent enough to understand his enemy and powerful enough to enforce a change of war policy.
With the Portuguese colonial wars the same mistake in not understanding the enemy caused us to lose those wars. That mistake more than any native resistance was our weakness in Africa. If there had been a better understanding about the natives' demands we could have had no war at all, the problem wasn’t even in the ‘battle fields’, it was mostly in the fact we were living a dictatorship in the ‘Metropolis’, as people used to call mainland Portugal at the time, the true claims of the natives were to a certain point the same as the colonialists claims. Other examples could be given, but there is no point to that: those who can get my point from these two examples need no more explanations, those who can’t understand it wouldn’t understand even if every similar occurrence in history was listed here.
Like in any war, we NEED to understand our enemy. The time of an army marching against an enemy is gone. We need to know where our enemy gets support, we must put and end to that support, we must keep the moral high ground and help those that our enemy claims to be oppressed by the west. Only by showing superiority can we deter terrorism. By showing only 'superior force' we can only inspire more wannabe martyrs. Those wannabe martyrs have already proven to be the biggest threat of all.
Still this was one of those times the Brits have stood their ground valiantly.
We must not give in. We can’t give in. We must go on with our lives, no matter what.
The terrorists must be forced to see that they can’t bend us.
posted by DCveR at 5:23 PM
7 Comments:
i agree- i think trying to solve this situation with war is like thinking that you can end world hunger by throwing a few boxes of food out in to the desert, or poverty by givin' the people a few dollars.
I don't have any solutions as to how to fight against terrorists...but I do feel this...we all...every single one of us...have to decide that we must glue together, Democrats, Muslims, left-wing people, whoever, whatever, we must glue together to fight terrorism.
ale: the truth is the enemy is not just there, the enemy is among us
GG: for a second Imagine come into my mind, gosh Lennon sure did grok it all, you are right, we should, we need, we must
tacit: Cook is something absolutely rare in politics: a man of integrity. That is why he left the foreign office, he couldn’t pact with Blair in this whole mess. It’s a pity he is not UK’s PM.
It is unfathomable to me that we would try to solve the problems of the world when we can't even solve our own. Sticking together and pooling our resoures are excellent ideas, however I believe they are embedded in idealism.
Unfortunately we as humans are too divided by the narrow mindedness that a religion can offer. But isnt Robin Cook the guy who rejected the appeal of Dodi's father for a proper investigation?
SE7EN.
bent: idealism is in dire need this days... :(
anoop: Yes, he is the same guy, and he was very right to do so: french authorities did a proper investigation, that investigation was shared with the british, France IS a sovereign nation. It's not like the guy did a cover up, he just didn't try to overrule the french authorities in their own country.
DC, yes, I agree.
Post a Comment
<< Home