War and PunishmentIt isn't what we DID to the Iraqis and the Afghans that went wrong. It's what we said to them that failed. We wanted, we said, to "give them democracy," like democracy was an ice cream cone with which we intended to reward them if they'd just quit fighting. You don't speak to nations the way you'd speak to an unruly 7-year-old. So, what should we have said? We have said this before the first bomb fell. To The Iraqi People: "God is great! Saddam Hussein refuses to tell us if he has weapons of mass destruction with which he intends to kill our women and children. Because he will not tell us, we intend to destroy his army, hunt him down and kill him. Then we will leave. Don't make us come back." To the Afghan People: "God is great! Osama bin Laden has killed thousands of our people. Children are orphaned and wives sleep alone because of him. Mothers and fathers cry for their sons and daughters. If you will not give him to us, we will invade your country, find him and kill him. Then we will leave. Don't make us come back." To the Iraqi and the Afghan People: "God is great! We do not want to conquer your country. We do not care about your religion. Muslims live freely in our country. We do not care if you don't send your little girls to school. We do not care if you stone adulterers or practice child marriage. Your law, customs and religion belong to you and not to us. We will not help you form a government, and we will not build schools, city halls, post offices or clinics. What we destroy will be in ruins when we leave. We will not leave until we see the body of our enemy." Crude, no? But purposeful and with a clear end to things. If America had said that to the Iraqis, we could have left as soon as we rooted Saddam out of his hole in the ground.
In the 19th century, European powers, who didn't have a tenth the hardware we have, called this a "punishment expedition," a phrase that tells you exactly why the soldiers are going where they're going. If we want to bring the American way of life to the world, we should let TV and Marlboro cigarettes and music do the job, as they did in Eastern Europe, where the mighty Soviet empire sold out Lenin for Ronald McDonald. Teenagers in Kabul and Baghdad may be made to memorize the Quran, but they yearn to memorize the lyrics of Kid Rock. If we want to strike out in revenge, if we want to kill those who would kill or have killed our people, then let us say what we are doing and why and how. And let us say when we will be done. I live in a working-class city with a 14 percent unemployment rate. My neighbors are leaving these cracked sidewalks and corner stores for Iraq and Afghanistan. They are coming home to ride in funeral processions over pot-holed streets. The processions pass men in Harley-Davidson T-shirts and women with missing teeth who watch from the sidewalk, some of them holding small American flags on skinny sticks. The flags are given out for free by 16-year-old kids who belong to the Junior ROTC at the high school. The men watch the processions silently. Some of the women cry, but not many. The Afghans in their hills, the Iraqis in their cities, the men and women on the sidewalks, the kids giving out the flags — everyone deserves to know where America is going and why and how we will know when we are done. To find out more about Marc Munroe Dion and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM 
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