Mission accomplished
29 August 2010 By Garvan Grant Victory always tastes sweet, but has it ever tasted this good?
On Tuesday, the free world will officially end its war against Iraq and its people.
The last combat soldiers pulled out ten days ago, leaving behind just 50,000 training troops, some bad memories and enough material for at least ten decent Hollywood films.
Once again, we in the free world have defeated oppression and tyranny.
Once again, we can be proud of a job well done.
Most importantly, we can let our children play safely in the streets, knowing that the Iraqis won’t attack.
Remember Germany (twice). Remember Japan.
Remember Korea and Vietnam.
Remember Iraq (the first time).
Remember Afghanistan.
And there are plenty of other great victories worth remembering. Just type ‘free world wins’ into a search engine and you’ll find a long list of all the other memorable times when we brought peace, freedom and democracy to some of the world’s darkest corners.
However, amid all the celebrations at our glorious defeat of Iraq, we should take some time to consider the lessons of this conflict.
By all means let’s party, but let us not rest on our laurels. Let’s use the destruction of Iraq to ensure that we can force democracy on other nations more quickly and efficiently the next time.
Because there will be a next time.
We will most certainly be called upon again to spread our message of peace.
Don’t let the enemy start the war: the most important lesson we have learned from Iraq is not to let the enemy start the war.
If only we had invaded earlier, we could have prevented the September 11 attacks on the US and loads of other Iraqi atrocities, including the Madrid train attacks, Bloody Sunday, the Crusades and Thierry Henry’s blatant handball at the Stsde de France.
Saddam Hussein, the tyrant who ruled Iraq for so long, was a well-known baddy, except when he was our friend and ally.
We should never have let him slaughter his own people, particularly if he messed with our oil.
The enemy always lies: we must also remember that our enemies are all liars.
Hussein and his government lied to us, but worse than that, they lied to the UN.
Of course, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Any fool could have told you that.
The very fact that UN weapons inspectors couldn’t find any proves that they had them.
They probably just buried them under some of their sand to trick us.
That’s just the sort of thing Iraqis do. (Well, not any more obviously, because we have taught them our truth-telling, freedom-loving ways.)
Ignore the anti-war people: it is very difficult being a world leader and sometimes you have to make decisions which the so called ‘people’ won’t understand.
For example, while George W Bush and his cronies were planning the destruction (and subsequent liberation) of Iraq, weak minded, peace-loving liberal hippy types all around the world were telling them that the war was going to be a mistake.
How the hell are you supposed towage a successful war if millions of people keep telling you not to do it because it’s wrong, illegal and based on completely false information?
Get the names right: the one thing that has been done well this time around was the naming of things.
Calling the liberation of Europe ‘World War II’ was a big PR blunder, but calling the destruction of Iraq ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’ was a much smarter move.
Also, calling the early assault on Iraq ‘shock and awe’ gave it a nicer feel than calling it, for example, ‘shoot and bomb everything as quickly as possible’.
Another good example is the ‘War on Terror’.
This meaningful phrase basically gives you the right to do anything you want because you are fighting terrorists.
The enemy is stupid: not only is the enemy generally a liar, but he is also dumb.
No one is saying that the liberation of Iraq was the smoothest and most successful war ever, but the fault for that lies not with us, the peace-bringing west. It lies with the Iraqis themselves.
We swoop in with the gifts of democracy and freedom, and they start an insurgency and a few civil wars.
How stupid was that?
If the Iraqis had just been smart enough to accept what we were giving them, then the war wouldn’t have dragged on for seven years.
In fact, maybe it’s not us in the west who need to learn some lessons.
Maybe our enemies all around the world, the enemies of truth and freedom, maybe it is they who need to learn some lessons. If they don’t, it won’t be long before we will be shoving more peace down their throats.
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