Ignorance and Information

I’ve been following the coming UN resolutions and debates with some interest lately. I now view the situation not as a referendum on war with Iraq, but as an attempt by the UN in general, and Old Europe specifically, to establish sovereignty over the US. Old Europe has neglected its military for years and now wants to steal the US military capacity under the guise of preserving “peace in our time” and the need to follow world public opinion.

Something that many in politics and in the media are afraid to admit is that public opinion is more often shaped by ignorance than it is by an informed population. This isn’t to take the elitist view that the masses are ignorant, I just simply want to point out a basic fallacy of human nature. Until we understand the gravity of a situation, we tend to minimalize its importance.

Before September 11, nobody, except some hardcore hawks, was really all too concerned with Iraq or terrorism. Yeah, it was a problem, but we, as a nation, were ignorant of just how severe a problem terrorism actually was. But, then we gained the firsthand knowledge we needed to become informed and we quickly analyzed the situation, developed a plan and acted.

As we began analyzing the new situation we found ourselves in, we started to look at the traits of our new enemy. No concern for human life, a willingness to lie and deceive for evil ends and leadership by maniacal dictators were just some of the traits we started to use in examining the rest of the world. We quickly found three nations, outside of Afganistan, in which these traits we blatantly obvious: Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Are there other nations where these traits exist? Probably. But since we are ignorant of them, we continue to move along as though there is no big problem outside of Axis of Evil.

Much of the rest of the world has not had to go through the period of analysis and education that we have. As a result, they are for the most part still working under the old paradigm of ignorance. Since our actions and intentions in Iraq are based on the new paradigm under which we operate, we are viewed as aggressive simplistic cowboys. In time, the rest of the world will move from blissful ignorance to being properly informed. At that point, they will come to realize that the US was right, Saddam did harbor evil and his heart and needed to go. In the meantime we need to dismiss the neo-appeasers and exercise our national sovereignty. We are the last remaining superpower in the world. Sometimes the burden of leadership means having to take unpopular actions that are the right thing to do. One of our virtues is being able to make the right decision even when it is viewed by the public or world as the wrong thing to do. History will judge us on the results. I have no question it will be a favorable assessment.

Our military stands ready to visit Hell upon those that want to harm us. The US, if nothing else, is pragmatic. Unlike our allies in Old Europe, we understand that the world has not moved into a postmodern utopia where military might is unnecessary. Old Europe might not believe that we are pragmatic (that whole paradigm shift thing again), but they are starting to understand the importance of a strong military. They have begun the process of analyzation that we went through after 9/11. They’re processing it much more slowly than we did but they’re coming to the same conclusions. Which is why they are attempting to co-opt our military power through the UN. They know that they will need us to defend them, but they’re too proud of their postmodernism to admit they might have been wrong. History will not be as kind to them.