Volume 7, Issue 42
The characters and themes of a Shakespearean production are intertwined by the common thread of human emotions, desires, and motives. True to Shakespear's elements, the issues facing America today are the result in part of history having run its course in repeating itself.
The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in 1914 was the spark credited with igniting World War I. The gunpowder that caught fire had been building for decades. Kings and principalities had run their course. The Ottoman Empire had come to an end. Monarchies were yielding to various forms of governments by the people. The arguments of the day were not that day’s arguments. They were evolving conflicts unresolvable to maintain the status quo.
After World War I, by the Treaty of Versailles, lines were drawn for new boundaries of countries that previously had not existed as sovereigns. Iraq and Syria were two such countries. The overreach of the Versailles Treaty is partly what led to World War II. WWII was the final chapter in the “era of monarchies” actually having power to make global war.
The establishment of new countries in the Middle East did not resolve the historical conflict between tribal entities. The Syrians, the Turks, the Kurds, the Persians, the Shiites, the Sunnis, the Saudis, the Israelis, and the Palestinians had been at war with each other for centuries. Drawing new boundaries and calling the countries something other than their ethnic homeland did not solve the cultural conflict.
It has been 74 years since the end of World War II and 100 years since the Treaty of Versailles. The best efforts of government bureaucrats have run their course.
Like Yugoslavia, a composite country of Bosnians, Serbians, Croatians and Macedonians, held together by a brutal totalitarian dictatorship, when dissolved, war and regional skirmishes ensued. President George H.W. Bush, UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and President Bill Clinton provided military assistance to the region, but did not commit troops. Some argue that boots-on-the-ground would have complicated and extended the fighting. Some argue further that, had we committed troops, they would still be there. The strategic decision made was that warring parties would ultimately have to sort this out for themselves. Such long-running animosity could only be resolved by compromise, not by force. Establishing peace and a new order requires several years.
However, Serbia was held in check to prevent ethnic cleansing.
General Vernon B. Lewis was one of the military minds, strategists and patriots involved in the training of forces and security elements in Bosnia and Croatia. He has learned from observing history that a government can provide and protect peace militarily, but there is a time when the troops must withdraw, or forever be trapped in a quagmire of irrational human emotion. As bleak as it appears for the Kurds, it is time for local leaders to redraw the lines of regional autonomous authority in Syria. The United States has a role and an obligation, as in the breakup of Yugoslavia, to keep the playing field level for all parties.
Through the era following World War II, the U.S. military has been the world’s police force protecting freedom with the consent of the liberated. In this era, General Lewis makes a lifelong observation.
“I never fought in a losing battle. And I never fought in a winning war.”
General Lewis courageously led campaigns in Korea and Vietnam. He remembers graphically the pullout of American troops from Saigon. The cries of betrayal echoed through the whirring of helicopter blades as the last remnants were rescued. It is not easy. It is not pretty. But there is a time when the wolves of war must be muzzled. There is still aid and assistance that we can provide for the Kurds. Drawing lines in the sand on the Turks and the Russians is a first step.
General Lewis further extrapolates that military leaders learn from the lessons of history. Politicians never learn from the mistakes of history.
The montage of issues overwhelming society today are not singular in nature or independent. They are intertwined with human emotions, desires, and motives. We must not think of the conflicts we face today as independent of culture, ethnicity or religion. Nor are they personality driven. We are at the end of an era, testing the limits of the ropes that bind us in the cycle of historical times.
In 1914, the premise was to protect the bloodlines and authority of the kings and the nobles. Some historians refer to World War I as a family feud. It was time to change the order.
The protocol, structure and financial systems established following World War II are now beyond Europe’s ability to sustain. China has emerged as a new communist threat to the economic order. They do not recognize Western law or sound monetary management. They are manipulating the capitalist system brilliantly for their own gain. Nike, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and GM have more franchises and employees in China than in the United States. Eight hundred million people watched at least one NBA game in China last year.
This is a viewing audience of over twice the size of the U.S. population. China takes the dollars made by these investments and uses them against the West to strengthen their own communist system, without reciprocity for other U.S. strategic investments, and without respect for the laws and regulations of the World Trade Organization. Yet, in the national press, among the liberal elites, or on college campuses, China escapes criticism. And China conducts their policy of restriction of freedom in plain view of the world by their actions towards Hong Kong.
It is critical that we learn from the lessons of history. And we must respect these lessons in the era and the times in which we live.
In 1945, the premise that began the new age for world peace and prosperity was the attributes of the American economy, constitution, military, and commitment to freedom. It is never time to change this order. In 2019, that foundational premise must be protected with the unrelenting vigilance of the only country in the world capable of such benevolent stewardship…
The United States of America.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?