One Foot in Front of the Other

I was listening to a live bootleg show of one of my favorite bands the other day, and the message in one of the songs struck me as contradictory.  The group Bright Eyes (reviews here), led by Connor Oberst, was at the forefront of leftist activism in the most recent presidential election, and although I sharply disagree with Mr. Oberst’s political views, I have had a deep respect for his musicianship and his depth of conviction on political issues.  One of the songs he was singing was entitled “One Foot in Front of the Other,” and had a chorus that repeated the refrain, “If you walk away, I’ll walk away.”  This phrase was used to address any number of conflicts, but had an overriding sense that this concept could be applied to all aspects of life.  Its concept offered a social and political appeasement that posed as a solution to problems.  Such an interpretation would apparently be in line with his political ideology, and so I don’t feel too far out of line finding a political interpretation of the songs theme, a song which could fall into the category of being a “protest song.” 

My point is that in the song, one verse states the following: “There’s kids playing guns in the street/ And one’s pointing his tree branch at me/ So I put my hands up and said enough is enough/ If you walk away I’ll walk away.”  In what is sung almost as an afterthought Mr. Oberst, adds, “And he shot me dead!”  I listened to the song on repeat several times because this particular line seemed so opposed to the concept of the song.  Sadly however, it may just be the most realistic line of the song.

I don’t mean to impose upon a single song something as grand as the War on Terror, but I feel the message so aptly describes one of the flaws of America’s anti-war movement.  As Mr. Oberst approaches the children playing with fake guns, he abhors the sight, and attempts to strike an accord of peace with them, dealing from a position of weakness.  In offering to just walk away, he finds himself being shot.  As tragic as it is, isn’t this the way the world usually works?  There is always an enemy looking to exploit weakness, to force the turtle back into its shell, to eradicate those who seek peace but offer no leverage to enforce such peace. 

In the global WoT, I firmly believe that we must use the full force of strength to overcome our enemy, and do whatever necessary to ensure we are not offering a peace accord from a position of weakness or out of the belief that we can get along.  Non-interference is not a peace plan; it is negligent foreign policy and as the 90’s proved, will only lead to more terrorist activity.  This too applies to Operation Iraqi Freedom.  We are in an exceedingly difficult period, one I am willing to accept may be made easier with a larger force in theater.  I will admit however that I am hardly qualified to offer solutions, and am very leery of criticizing the choices our commanders have made thus far.  If we walk away, the terrorists may lead us to believe they will walk away as well.  This will not be the case for long though, and a policy guised in such terms will only lead to more tears and bloodshed in our own nation. 

I submit that we can only walk away when peace is achieved on our terms.  That peace does not need to lead to endless tragedies and destruction in our current battle; it only requires that the ideology of hate within extremist Islamic fanaticism be extinguished.  A lofty and difficult goal indeed, but what other option do we have? 

Comments

[DJ]

Well put, especially your last line, "A lofty and difficult goal indeed, but what other option do we have?". And the answer, as you know, is none. We must confront this enemy right here, right now, as the POTUS says.
God bless you and all of our military and may you have the best Christmas you can and know that your comrades at home are thinking of you and praying for you.
Sincerely,
DJ
Arizona, USA

[daniel kwiat]

Chris,

In my opinion you are categorizing the anti-Iraq war populace in an ideological way. In your view, it seems, this is a war of reasonable people versus jihadis/holy warriors. To me, we've stepped in the middle of a centuries-old civil war--just as we did in Lebanon. This time, we're on the side of the Shia, who are at least the majority; in Lebanon, we entered on the side of the Christian Maronite minority, and made an enemy of the Shia, who created Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. Now, Hezbollah, party of God, was slated to be part of Sistani's List, at least until its Iraqi leadership was assassinated by men shooting from a black BMW a couple weeks ago. So, to me, you are mistaken to imagine that this a fight between right and wrong; this is a fight over power and over the spoils of power. Many Sunni who benefited under Saddam know that they are fat outta luck under a Shiite regime, as Shiite ministries such as Health, Education, and Oil have already demonstrated by only hiring members of the head Minister's party! Chris, just as it's important to respect the ability of your military opponent, in my opinion it's important not to oversimplify the ideas of your political opponents. Most of us don't see this war as a battle of civilizations; we see it as a war that increases rather than decreases the opposition, by putting us smack in the middle of a 13 century old conflict between Shia and Sunni; and we see it as a war that can't be won.

[SparrowHawk]

Chris:

Wow, that was deep. And very profound. I find myself agreeing with you.

Stay safe (or try to anyway!)

[Crowe]

Chris--

Excellent post. You're spot on. The Anti-War left, which includes the UN, France, and Germany, has this ridiculous notion that if we just offer to stop shooting terrorists, the terrorists will stop shooting us. Hooey. They started it in 1979 with the taking of hostages at the American Embassy in Tehran. This is a quarter-century long war that we've only gotten seriously interested in since 9/11/01. The only way to win is to kill those who would kill us, and assist those who do not wish to live under terrorist regimes to get out from under those regimes.

Daniel Kwiat's comments fail to notice some things. First, he says: "This time, we're on the side of the Shia..." Well, no. He forgets one significant thing: back when we were taking care of Muqtada al Sadr in Najaf, the cry we heard coming out of Iraq was that we were there to DEFEND THE SUNNIS! Our efforts in Najaf being chiefly directed against Shia insurgents, the Shia viewed it (or at least some vocal ones with their own agenda viewed it) as the Americans taking over where Saddam left off, oppressing the Shia. Now that we're in Fallujah and Mosul weeding out those predominantly Sunni areas (though the insurgents are by no means all -- or even mostly -- Sunni Iraqis), the cry is that we're oppressing the Sunnis! How 'bout, we're not there taking sides with either Shia or Sunni, but with those who don't want tyranny versus those who do.

Then he talks about how bad it is that we've stuck our nose into a 13-century-old conflict. Maybe, maybe not. He's entitled to that opinion, but it just that, an opinion. The one real piece of evidence he produces is when he said: "Many Sunni who benefited under Saddam know that they are fat outta luck under a Shiite regime, as Shiite ministries such as Health, Education, and Oil have already demonstrated by only hiring members of the head Minister's party"

Daniel, my good man, whom should the man in charge appoint? Members of the opposition party? I'll bet Daniel is also of the opinion that George W. Bush would be wrong to only appoint Republicans and right-wingers (read: people who agree with his general way of thinking about things) to government posts and judgeships... Janet Reno for Supreme Court!

I believe rather than pigeon-hole people based on our views of how they will act, we should let the process play out. I think we will all be amazed when things don't happen exactly as anyone planned.

I also believe that, regardless of whether or not Mr. Kwiat's opinions about whether consensual government can work in a mixed Sunni/Shia area, the alternative (leaviing Saddam in power) was even less tenable. So, short of installing a truly puppet government a la the Soviet sattelite states, we have no other option than to try this liberal government route. Unless Mr. Kwiat has another idea...

God Bless, Chris, and all you guys over there. Keep holding the gun at eye level -- because they sure are.

[devildog6771]

Some History of the region that is impacting..
our efforts. Please read the information at the links below. It will help us all understand why the Iraqi are not fully behind us.
Pay particular attention to the way the allies devided up the region and then also devided up the "oil" in Iraq from the end of WW I until 1958.
Here is a small excerpt of Iraq's history, the URLs follow:

"During World War I, The Ottoman empire collapsed when British forces invaded Mesopotamia in 1917 and occupied Baghdad. Before they succeeded, the British forces suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Turkish army, the siege and surrender of Kut. An armistice was signed with Turkey in 1918.
[edit]The British Mandate Period Iraq was carved out of the old Ottoman Empire by direction of the UK government on January 10, 1919, and on November 11, 1920 it became a League of Nations mandate under British control with the name "State of Iraq".
At the end of the war, ownership of and access to Iraq's petroleum was split five ways: 23.75% each to the UK, France, The Netherlands and the USA, with the remaining 5% going to a private oil corporation headed by Calouste Gulbenkian. The Iraqi government got none of the nation's oil. This remained the situation until the revolution of 1958.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Iraq
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Middle_East
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel-Palestinian_conflict
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab-Israeli_conflict
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_Palestinian
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions"

I found the History of Iraq and Palestine the most interesting.

However, irregardless of what led up to the terrorist movement, we can no longer ignore the issue. I think seventeen years is long enough for any nation to try dialog with an enemy that only wants to destroy us. Iraq did play its part in this in that SH was deeply involved. There is even a case where some 9/11 survivors sued and won and Iraq was found to be involved in supporting terrorism. I truly believe that there will be no world peace until once and for all the major powers in the world and the UN get off their collective butts and work together to end the terrorist threat then fix the mess they caused in the Middle East that led to the rise of terrorism. Helping Iraq set up their Democracy is crucial. Seeing us leave as the occupiers removes the air from the sails of claims that we are only practicing imperialism.. Anyway, I'll get off my soap box. Please check ou those links and my posting will make more sense. Keep up the good work. Keep up the blogging. We need to hear what you have to say!

[michael]

ya irregardless, fricken idiot