I’ve conducted another radio interview with the BBC. I was pretty tired the night it occurred.
In retrospect, if I could do the interview over, I would try to be more clear about some of my comments – I am truly convinced that this war is about making a compelling case that what the West has to offer Iraq is far superior to what the insurgency has to offer Iraq. And the Army is one of the primary vehicles for showing people what the West has to offer Iraq.
We are – in our hearts – builders. The insurgency is filled with destroyers. They have no Corps of Engineers, they have no sanitation technicians, water purification people, competent medical staff and no educators worth a damn. They don’t value science, technology or consensual, cooperative relationships. They use force first. We use force last.
We value freedom, even if we sometimes don’t value it enough. They value control over everything and the resulting despair and despondency that accompanies taking away basic choices about which direction a person’s life should take. So what if the Army is trying to ensure that its message gets into the public’s bloodstream? As long as it does so honestly, then it is doing what it should to win.
The freedom of an individual to pursue his or her own pathways in life, to a large degree, is what hangs in the balance here. At least in my eyes. We’re not just deciding for Iraqis, we’re deciding for the entire world. The battle for the future of Iraq is one small fight in a much larger war that is being waged worldwide constantly. Most people are oblivious to it but it’s going on here and it’s going on back home. It’s going on in Britain too, where the radio show I talked too is hosted.
I am glad to be in a place in time and space where I was allowed to speak my mind on a radio show listened to by an audience halfway around the world from me. If I had been British, I wouldn’t have been allowed on the show. That’s sad.