Veterans’ Day Remarks
November 11, 2009
On the Square in Denton,
Texas
By Lawrence L. Purcell, COL, USA,
Ret.
Today I want to
talk about why radical Islam hates the West. I will also suggest that we have the best military leadership
in decades, pursuing best courses of action. This will ensure that radical Islamic hate will be dampened
and that our nation’s way of life will not be jeopardized – if we can stay the course.
But first I want to talk about why the events at Fort Hood last week occurred, and the
ambivalence of political correctness that allowed them to happen.
Since my years in Vietnam, I have been uneasy about our senior military
leadership. It always seemed to me that the warriors never got to be senior officers, and by that I mean the three and four
star flag officers. I have concluded that warriors just don’t fit in well with the Washington culture,
where avoiding the risk of offending someone or some group fosters mediocrity, that is necessary in order to play
the game and succeed.
For example, General Westmoreland
commanded as many as 500,000 American troops in South Vietnam, a country of about 17 million at the time. Despite
the fact that we were losing the war, he was promoted to chief of staff of the army upon his return.
Contrast
that with General David Petraeus who commanded the 101st Airborne Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Upon returning to the United States, he developed and proposed a new counter insurgency strategy, proposed a surge
of an additional 100,000 troops to bring total forces there to 240,000. The surge turned Iraq, a country
of 35 million, around in a year.
On the other hand,
his predecessor, General Casey, who lost ground during his time in command in Iraq and opposed the surge, was, you guessed
it, promoted to chief of staff of the army.
We are in a war we must not
lose. We are in the middle of a clash of civilizations with radical Islam. Our avowed
enemies found new uses for airliners on 9/11. Iran, acknowledged sponsor of terror throughout the Middle
East and around the world, is pursuing nuclear weapons that, sooner or later, will be used against our country.
If we don’t stop them, our way of life will be changed forever.
Why is radical Islam so against the United States and the West? Basically,
Islamic societies are 600 years behind the West. In the year 622, Islam was born when Mohammed fled Mecca.
622 years ago, in
1387, the West was in the late middle ages.
Life expectancy was 30 to 40 years. Ordinary people had no rights. Any man in the family could order a woman to do as he wished. If
she refused, she was beaten into submission, as disobedience was considered a crime against god. And women were generally covered up. Sound familiar?
Popes and kings, the only people with real
power then, waged crusades to capture Jerusalem from 1200 to 1400, 200 years, in the name of God. Never
mind that Muslims believe that Mohammed ascended to heaven from the same sacred city. Untold numbers of
peasants from the West were drafted to battle to the death with untold numbers of Middle Eastern peasants. In essence,
many Muslims believe we started it. And they have long memories. It hasn’t helped
that the West carved Israel out of Palestine in 1948.
What
changed the West was the protestant reformation begun by Martin Luther in the 1520’s. Over the next 400 years, the monopoly of power between kings and church was steadily diluted.
Even so, remember that women did not get the right to vote in the United States until 1920.
By the way, it was
my best Muslim friend who reminded me of the importance of the reformation while wishing for similar moderation in Islam.
Although most Muslims are not radical, we can’t wait 600 more years for the Middle East to moderate.
Today, much of in the Middle East is still living in conditions closer to 1400 than 2009 in the West..
Life expectancy in the Middle
East is generally less than 70% of that in the West. In Afghanistan, it is half that of the West, only
about 42 years – where the West was in the 1400’s. The land and climate in large portions of
the Middle East is unproductive, resulting in grinding poverty, especially in the countryside. For example,
Afghanistan’s only major crop is poppy, producing 75% of the world heroin supply, which largely goes to Europe and funds
the Taliban and other radical Islamic groups. No amber waves of grain from sea to shining sea there. Incidentally,
I have seen several reports that when Iraqi troops trained with ours, and ate our rations, their performance improved significantly.
Amazing what a couple thousand more calories a day can do!
Neither has literacy caught up with the West.
Virtually 99% in the West today, only Turkey and Jordan have literacy levels above 70% in the Middle East.
Book publishing could be the best single measure
of a country’s intellect. The total population of the Middle East, including Afghanistan, is about
335 million. Turkey, with 71 million people, publishes about 6,500 books annually, more than all the rest
of the Middle East combined. By way of comparison, the United States, with a population of 308 million,
published 172,000 books in 2008, about 160,000 more than all of the Middle East.
Of all Middle Eastern states, only Turkey
has developed a secular government thanks to Mustapha Kamil Ataturk in the 1920’s. However, Turkey
must still listen to its Muslim citizens and neighbors.
And, religion really does matter. In Christianity,
believers get to heaven through grace, the forgiveness of sins, by a beneficent God. In Islam, to enter
paradise, a Muslim must receive forgiveness from everyone he has sinned against, and even then, entry is not assured.
Only by defending the faith and dying a martyr is an entrance to paradise guaranteed.
Illiteracy, earthly poverty and the promise
of paradise provide the fertile ground upon which radical Islam can produce suicide bombers. It can also
provide motivation for a disgruntled army major to conduct a terrorist act here in Texas.
On November 10th, President Obama
said the following at the funeral of the victims of Maj Hasan:
It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this event. But this much we know – no faith justifies
these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor.
I don’t think our president understands
radical Islam at all. He just doesn’t get it.
So how will the Middle East be moderated? I think only one country
at a time by fostering growth of education and a legal and economic framework that allows commerce to prosper.
I thought and still think that President George
W. Bush’s decision to throw out Sadaam Hussein was strategically brilliant. I know that he honorably
acted on faulty intelligence, because I saw some of the same intelligence during Desert Storm.
Indeed, there were rumors that General Schwarzkopf’s
left hook strategy that sent coalition troops up along the eastern Iraq/Kuwait border was based, in part, on his fear of a
buried Iraqi nuclear device in central Kuwait.
Perhaps Iraq
will prove to be the second country in the Middle East that meets the needs of its people and offers an alternative view to
radical Islam. Once the door has been opened to moderation, it may eventually get easier, but not right
away.
Afghanistan is next and it will require more than just U.S. Armed Forces to succeed there.
It is in Europe’s interest to rid itself of the poison of Afghanistan heroin by contributing to the building
of a modern Afghanistan.
By the way, I am very pleased that General Petraeus commands CENTCOM and LTG McChristal,
who was the terrorist hunter and located Sudaam Hussein in Iraq, has Afghanistan. They are both smart and
are both warriors. Nevertheless, our president will need to be at his persuasive best in order to convince
Europe to participate. He must also give our commanders the troops necessary to carry out their proven
strategy. Or maybe he doesn’t see the strategic danger to our country if we are not successful. We’ll
see.
In
conclusion and on a lighter note, when I began studying Middle Eastern history 45 years ago at the University of Illinois,
my professor was Dr. Ernest Dawn. Dr. Dawn had been in the OSS during World War II and served in the Middle
East. He told me a story that captures that part of the world:
A frog is swimming in the Euphrates River.
A scorpion on a bank of the river asks the frog for a ride to the other side. The frog says, “Why
should I give you a ride. You will sting me and I will die.” The scorpion replies,
“Why would I do something that would ultimately hurt me?” The frog thinks about the scorpion’s
answer for a while and says, “Climb on, I will give you a ride to the other side.” The scorpion climbs on, but
as they approach the center of the river, he stings the frog. The frog, in mortal agony, screams, “Why
did you sting me? Now we both will die.” The scorpion shrugs his shoulders
and says, “But this is the Middle East.”
THE END
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