By Wes Pedersen
Here is a fundamental, dirt-basic truth: America prepares for war, not for peace. It always has and probably always will.
Our mighty stockpile of nuclear weapons attests to that fact. When the atom was very new we tried, despite our level-to-the ground bombings of Japan, to hide its deadly nature under the official line, “Atoms for Peace.” We invited atoms into our homes, promising they would produce cheap energy without fear for the ultimate potential disasters they could and would create.
Big business feasted on sales of quiet, “safe” nuclear power. Military forces and arms manufacturers dined on sales of weapons of potential mass destruction.
Today, we see graphic evidence of that dirt-basic fact: America prepares for war, not for peace. Our diplomatic overtures for peace in the Middle East have proved as pointless as they were intended to be. Our goals have been simple and personal: Get Sadam Hussein, Get Osama bin Laden, Get Hosni Mubarak, Get Mouamar Gadaffi.
We have also personalized them under presidential categories: Bush One, Bush Two, and Obama One, with two leftovers he has yet to clean up.
There’s a Bill Clinton war, too, if you remember. In Bosnia, we and our allies actually fought a war against a set of vicious tyrants and scored big league points. Slobodan Milosevic, one of the worst offenders, is before the World Court in The Hague, awaiting charges of genocide. Hillary Clinton has been pursuing that cause as Secretary of State.
Unfortunately, the American press treats Bosnia as a non-story these days.
All of which leads us to these questions: If Gadaffi escapes our serial bombings, and we take him alive, what do we do with him? Turn him over to a League of Arab States for trial for mass murder? Give him to the World Court for unending trials on a string of counts? Or will we fumble around, in an Obama stupor of indecision, and let him find an Elba of sorts where he can live out his life free of retribution?
If he dies, he will be a martyr to thousands in the Muslim world. We will be the bad guys, soon accused of his assassination (and the deaths of innocent Libyans).
We will, of course, be heroes to the Libyans who have fought for the country’s release from Gadaffi’s tyrannical rule. How long will that last when the anti-Americanism endemic in the Middle East begins accusing us of waging war against Libya for Big Oil and the American Empire?
Forget our president’s constant waffling; we have a situation here that must be handled with great finesse. Hillary Clinton has her work cut out for her now as never before.
Handling the peace will be tough. We are not prepared it. We never are.
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Wes Pedersen is a retired Foreign Service Officer and principal at Wes Pedersen Communications and Public Relations Washington, D.C. |