Why We Are Fighting

I’ve spent quite a bit of time today trying to decide what this war is really all about. Sure, on the surface it is about disarmament and deterrence of terrorism, but I can just sense that there is something deeper involved here. As I see it, we really have a war that revolves around two topics: ideas and ideals.

Iraq is all but a foregone conclusion. We are going to go in and we are going to win militarily. And we will do so because we believe that it is the right thing to do. That is also why we will engage in the reconstruction and education of the liberated nation. But this war really isn’t about Iraq. It really isn’t against Iraq.

The upcoming war is going to be aimed more at France and Germany. Since the end of WWII and particularly since the end of the Cold War, the US and its Continental allies have drifted apart ideologically. France and Germany, France in particular, have failed to heed the admonitions of George Santayana; they have failed to learn the lessons that WWII taught us.

At Munich, Neville Chamberlain came away from his meeting with Hitler declaring “peace in our time.” The events of the following seven years proved that appeasing Hitler by caving to his demands had not brought peace. It had brought more demands; unreasonable demands. Britain and France abandoned their ally, Poland; the French abandoned their Jewish population. The British found themselves with their backs to the wall. The French found themselves under the boot.

Nearly fifty years ago, the Americans came to France to fight for an idea. It is the same idea we are fighting for today – liberty. We didn’t go to France to protect business contracts or strategic resources. We didn’t go because we liked the landscape or even because we had some great love for the French people. We buried thousands of our Greatest Generation in the Normandy soil for an idea.

But liberty is just an idea, a concept, a word. By itself, it is nothing. It was our ideals that we brought with us to France that gave our idea meaning. It was our ideal of freedom. It was our ideal of informed dissent. It was our ideal that of equality. None of these ideals existed under the Nazi regime; liberty was just a lofty word. We had to return these basic human ideals to an oppressed people. And we did.

We didn’t stop with bringing our ideas and ideals to France. After we liberated France, we went to Germany. And we spent several years bringing these concepts to the Germans. And the Germans, like the French, took to them. Because they are basic human urges. Everyone, no matter how oppressive the tyrant that rules them, longs to feel liberty. Everyone longs to live his or her life – not to merely exist.

To the credit of the British, they learned their lessons very quickly. After their abandonment of Poland, they actively took part in promoting the idea of liberty. The fall of Britain was not prevented by military might (Battle of Britain notwithstanding), it was prevented by that singular idea – liberty. The British people knew liberty. They felt in their hearts that the idea was worth fighting and dying for. They were committed to liberty; the Nazis were committed to oppression. The idea was the strength needed by the British to fight off a militarily superior foe.

Today we are fighting for the same idea and for those same ideals. Liberty has been the dominant common denominator in every fight the US has ever been involved in. It was the foundation of the Revolution. It was the glue that held the Union together during the Civil War. It was our purpose for joining WWI and WWII. It was why we fought in Korea; it was why we fought in Vietnam. It was why we fought the first Gulf War. And it is why we will fight again.

The twentieth century was one of the most remarkable stretches of history for any nation. The United States fought in four major wars and numerous smaller skirmishes to protect the idea of liberty. But we were always guaranteeing liberty for other people. At no point was our liberty truly threatened with extinction. There were circumstances that could have progressed to that point, but we never actually made it there. Instead, we fought and died in far off lands because someone else’s liberty was threatened with extinction. No other nation-state in history has ever sent so many men off to die so someone else could live free.

When we look at the new fight in Iraq, we see that the United States and Britain (and also the coalition of the willing) are fighting for the same reasons they did during the twentieth century. We are fighting for liberty.

But what are the French and Germans fighting for? They don’t have any ideas or ideals that they’re defending. They are fighting for commercial contracts and hubris. In their battle money is worth more than liberty; pride worth more than human lives. They are willing to support totalitarianism so long as the money is good.

The Continental Europeans (by which I mean primarily France and Germany) have forgotten the blessings we bestowed upon them. They have ignored the lessons of the thousands of silent teachers buried throughout Europe. We did not liberate them because they were nice people. We did not liberate them for commercial gain. We liberated them because it was the right thing to do.

We are seeing the present confluence of radical Islam and Continental Europe because they are both based on the fleeting concept of pride. Radical Islam exists because some in the Islamic world feel as though they have failed. These folks have no ideas or ideals, they only know hatred and failure. They lash out against the more successful because they know nothing else. They lash out and feel better for a while, and then they go back to the misery because they have no reason – no ideas – for which to live. But that short burst of defiant pride is enough to keep them going for a while. France and Germany are currently lashing out in the UN because they know they have lost the war of ideas. Actually they know they have lost; they do not know that the fight was over ideas. But pride prevents them from looking within for the answers as to why they lost. They know that we have triumphed, so they lash back with proud obstructionism.

They will lose this fight also. They will lose because the idea of liberty is worth more than all the oil contracts in the world. They will lose because freedom is a more powerful ideal than pride. The will lose because equality is more powerful than totalitarianism. They will lose because they fight for the wallet; we fight for the hearts and minds. We will win because we are fighting for the most powerful thing in the history of the world.

We are fighting for an idea.