WWII and Iraq? Give me a freakin' Break…
Comparing the two wars is a disservice to both…

It has become the new Rove/Bush propaganda standard to shout down anyone who questions the war in Iraq with comparisons to World War Two. The standard reply to anyone who demands some sort of reasonable exit strategy (as Sen. John Murtha has done recently) gets the standard reply of, "If we took the same attitude in World War Two, we would all be speaking Japanese and German!"

I have a one-word reply to this…
Doyoureallythinkwearethatfreakinstupidyoupanderingingnorantmorons?

OK… it just sounds like one word when I scream it at the top of my lungs to Rove and any of the political toadies in the Rove Toady Army of Disinformation that is comprised of the talking heads and partisan politicians who do their best to scare "the Greatest Generation" (and most consistent voting block in the nation) into supporting their folly.

The fact is, comparing Iraq and World War Two does a disservice to both wars, and those who fought and continue to fight in them. They are not remotely associated. They are not remotely comparable in scope, commitment or goal. And most important of all, one was a declared war, while the other is political afterbirth of an original actionable enemy.

By framing the history of World War Two, the differences between this real war and the current "freedom spreading exercise gone awry" will become evident.

In World War Two, almost the entire world was clearly at war, with legal articles and declarations between sovereign nations being filed, exchanged and finally resolved with formal articles of unconditional surrender by the enemy. We knew who the enemy was, because they represented sovereign countries and the madmen that thought they could do as they wished in both geographic and political domination of other sovereign nations.

The so-called "Global War on Terror" is not a legally declared war, because there is no clear and definable enemy. What began as a very definable police action in Afghanistan to "hunt down those responsible for attacking us on 9-11" (going after the leadership and command central of al Qaeda), quickly mutated into an effort to "rid the world of an evil dictator" in the name of Saddam Hussein. Even that original effort, once completed, has now become a matter of playing referee and babysitter to three very disparate factions of "free Iraqis" who have decided that the best way to exercise their newly-won freedom is to kill one another.

To compare this scattershot, ill-planned and executed fiasco to the incredible resolve and clear objectives of those who fought against totalitarian regimes in World War Two, is not only laughable, but a blight on the tens of millions of people lost during this global struggle.

There was no way to "Cut and Run" in World War Two. Once attacked by foreign entities on our own soil and the soil of our allies, the only choice we had was to push the armies of the madmen back across the original pre-war borders, and make sure that the madmen in charge were removed from power.

However, the operative words once again come down to a definable enemy, with definable borders. In this mess, we are faced with the reality that our "enemy" is actually an idea. The idea is that we are invaders of the Holy Land of the Islamic people, and that we should be removed. Furthermore, our support of those who have encroached upon their Holy Land by international mandate (the Israelis) must be destroyed. Those are admittedly harsh and arguably insane positions to take against the Western World. However, when it comes to fighting the war against the radicals who would do us and our allies harm, it gets tricky to say the least.

There are more than 1.3 billion followers of Islam worldwide. Of that number, it is estimated that fewer than 325,000 followers can be described as radical Islamic terror suspects. That is less than .025% if the global Islamic population. What makes this figure disturbing is that prior to our invasion of Iraq, the figure was less than 2,500. It is obvious that our "freedom spreading" in Iraq has had the reverse desired effect when it comes to stopping Global Terror.

Under those same definitions, you would have to call the conflicts between Protestants and Catholics, or Israelis and Palestinians legal declared wars. But, nobody with any common sense would do so. Both were armed insurrections against ideas that have raged for decades, because there is no way to define "victory" unless it is the complete withdrawal of "invading forces" from a perceived holy land.

Damn…it sounds like we are going to be in Iraq for a very long time.

Getting back to the comparison between WWII and the GWOT, the fundamental difference comes when defining the enemy. Why is this so important? Because if you can't identify and define the enemy, you can't define your objectives, goals, exit strategy or even something as basic as "victory."

When our administration repeats like a broken record playing the Archie's version of "Sugar, Sugar" that we will "not cut and run, and that we fight until we have achieved victory," it is a great battle cry for one thing…victory in the upcoming political elections in 2006 and hopefully 2008.

What it can't mean is "victory over our enemy," because there is no way to DEFINE the enemy. Of the list of 325,000 terror suspects, they are not from any single country, they are not from any single terror organization, they are not from any definable single religious affiliation other than being Islamic. In fact, the fast majority of these people come from countries that we call allies or countries that we have already "rescued" like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

As has been witnessed with the death of Iraq al Qaeda leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killing the leadership of a terror cell is only cause for celebration for a very short time, as a new leader was quickly announced and put into place. Furthermore, it is becoming increasingly evident that while many of the terror cells support the IDEAS of bin Laden and even go so far as to call themselves al Qaeda splinter groups (the operative word being splinter), they do not take orders from bin Laden, or any other form of leadership or hierarchy, and instead work in small, autonomous groups who attack and kill at random wherever and whenever they choose.

Unfortunately, as has been shown by domestic madmen like Ted Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh, there is little to stop someone who decides to perpetrate a random act of violence, until AFTER the act has been committed.

The inability to define not only the actual enemy but even whether this is a legal war under international law has long-reaching consequences. Unlike World War Two, which was fought for the most part under the laws of definition under the Geneva Conventions for the humane treatment of prisoners, this "war" suffers from an identity conflict. Many argue justifiably, that in a conventional war, once the war is over, prisoners of war are freed and allowed to return to their homeland.

The Bush Administration and the Rove Propagandists argue that those held are legal Prisoners of War under the definition as "armed combatants." However, if that is the case, shouldn't they now be allowed to return home now that the Afghanistan war (during which most of the more than 500 detainees at Guantanamo Bay were captured) be allowed to go home? How about those captured who fought for Saddam? Saddam is captured, Iraqi Freedom in place, shouldn't they be freed as well?

It is these kinds of fluid definitions that make this exercise in futility so difficult to define or compare to any armed conflict (even Ronald Reagan's brave conquering of Granada) especially one like World War Two. It is also the vague, rhetorical goal of "victory" over an indefinable, borderless, leader-shifting "enemy" that makes an end to this conflict impossible to reach.

What Murtha and a growing number of Americans are asking for is a definition of victory. WHEN can we say we have won? As long as the enemy remains a veiled, cloudy threat, and not a definable country or entity, the Rove Propaganda Machine can continue to exploit the fears of "the Greatest Generation" who fought a real war, against a real enemy during a time when the future of freedom really was at stake.

It is not to the Bush/Rove/Lemming/Sheeple crowd's advantage to actually take the time to lay out a clear definition of goals for this indefinable conflict. If they did so, it would mean that there was an actual timetable and the accountability that would come with that timetable for a valid declaration of victory or defeat. If they keep the goals as nebulous as "we won't cut and run," they can continue to use the threat of TERROR for as long as they wish to maintain Bush's cloak of protection as a "War President" and help maintain a Republican control of the House and Senate in the upcoming elections.

Mission Accomplished…Freedom is on the March!