Barry Farber
Thursday, Sept. 4, 2003

Sizing up the landscape – the bombing of the U.N. headquarters, the bombing of the mosque in Najaf, the unending loss of American and Iraqi life, and the fact that the overwhelming majority of the members of my synagogue are liberals – I figured she didn't want my REAL opinion, but I'm afraid I let her have it anyhow.

I couldn't help myself. I over-responded.

"I have never been prouder to be an American," I began. "I am totally in favor of our mission in Iraq. We're in the House of God right now, Ma'am. God loves it when a dictator falls and a democracy is born. We've got to pull together and succeed so we can legitimately hope for a new, improved Middle East and a new, improved world."

I wasn't through. "I don't care about unfound weapons of mass destruction, unproven links to al-Qaeda or lack of a U.N. mandate," I continued. "The fact of 9/11 washed away those 'beyond a reasonable doubt' elegancies the way a tsunami washes away a sand castle. I care only who runs Iraq NOW, and who ran Iraq THEN.

"And I think the NOW crowd is better for America, the rest of the world, Iraq itself, and children and other growing things than the THEN crowd."

The nice lady didn't fight back. Not that she didn't want to. In boxing they call it a TKO, a technical knockout. She was still standing, alright, and still able to talk and even smile.

But she'd been hit too hard and unexpectedly to continue the dialogue. She gasped a kind of a 'thank you' and then probably staggered to the ladies' lounge to stretch out on a couch with a cold compress on her forehead.

I pray the Lord will forgive me for the extra energy I expended in my reply and my semi-sadistic enjoyment of the look on her face. That poor woman undoubtedly expected me to throw myself on the floor and anguish about all the "chaos," "quagmire," "failure" and the rest of the litany of those ultra-liberal racists whose fervent insistence on democracy somehow never applies to people like the Iraqis.

Funny – since the 1930s, those who remarked that "Hitler built great highways" were being ironic, actually ANTI-Hitler. But the people today who say "At least Saddam kept the electric grid working" aren't kidding!

As so often happens in life, the nice lady in the synagogue was not the legitimate target of my rage. It is, I'm afraid, most of the rest of the world, certainly that portion of the world that has problems with America's actions.

Let's start with the simple formulation of the psychopath who whips out a gun or a knife and warns everybody in the bus, the plane, the subway train, the bank, wherever, that one false move and it's their life. The innocent crowd is cowed and paralyzed. Put yourself among them.

If your mentality had the power to rise even slightly above your fear, you'd be saying to yourself: "How disgustingly humiliating! Here we are, twenty people or more. He's alone, but armed. If we all rushed him, one or more of us MIGHT get hurt, or worse. But we'd definitely prevail, pin him down, call the cops, testify in court, and rid the world of a dangerous living receptacle of subhuman scum."

But there's no appetite for such mathmetics. There's no applause for such a sermon. The silent freeze continues.

"Please let this end!" you'd be thinking. "My self-esteem will soon be gone forever. How can I excuse my paralysis to MYSELF, much less to others, if we decent folks in the overwhelming majority just continue to do nothing but STAND here?"

As sometimes happens, one courageous soul eventually leaps upon the villain. Shots ring out. The knife flashes and decends. Maybe the hero is injured. Maybe he's injured fatally.

But AT THAT POINT, civilization wins. After the first courageous victim rushes the predator and they lock in struggle, it's then easy for the frozen multitude to UNFREEZE and smother the criminal under their suddenly active body weight.

After the initial hero's lunge, it was thereupon EASY for the appropriately fearful, the appropriately reluctant, the appropriately cowardly majority to join the side of civilization. That's the emotionally fulfilling part. That's the allegro movement. Not even those pathological phonies who buy medals for heroism from pawn shops and pretend they won them in battle would brag about jumping the bad guy AFTER the lone hero had made his lunge. What man tells his grandchildren about landing on the beaches of Normandy a week AFTER D-Day?

Everybody jumps in after the hero has broken the seige. That's what's SUPPOSED to happen.

As an American who rejoices at the obliteration of dictators and the expansion of democracy, tell me, please, WHY DIDN'T IT HAPPEN IN IRAQ?

I, personally, can't promise I'd be any better than one of the paralyzed-frozen in the scenario. But I can definitely promise I'd be among those charging the pile-up AFTER the hero made his move and the danger was over.

I can forgive France, Germany, Russia, the rest of the no-voters on the Security Council, and everybody else who stood "F and F" (fearful and frozen) as America moved to depose Saddam Hussein.

What I CANNOT forgive is the continued cowardice and petulance of those parties now that Saddam has been removed by the heroic lunger known as the USA. Hey, Germany! Hey, France! Hey, Russia! Hey, Security Council and U.N. in general! You're not in danger anymore. America, characteristically, took care of that. Why are you not now "piling on"?

How dare you saprophyte sons of bitches continue to look on and do nothing because "America acted without the approval of the U.N."?

Back to the "hostage" scenario. Can you imagine the paralyzed-frozen crowd REMAINING paralyzed and frozen AFTER the hero made his lunge and grabbed the gun?

Can you imagine 20 or 30 people STILL standing there WATCHING the battle between the man with the knife or gun and the hero as they anguish through their slow-motion struggle, muscle against muscle, grunt against groan, to gain the upper hand?

I cannot.

I can excuse no other result than the onrush of all the previously frozen victims roaring in to assist in the capture.

The dullest individuals suffer no lack of imagination when it comes to confecting excuses for their cowardice. A man dashes into a bar and yells: "Give me a drink! Please, anything. I need a good strong drink. Right now. It was terrible. It's the worst thing I ever saw."

And what was that, the bartender and his customers want to know.

"Just now. Just up the block. She was very thin and very pregnant and he was a brute of a guy with tattoos and motorcycle muscles and she was lying on the sidewalk bleeding and he was kicking her and stomping her and cussing her like mad."

"Did you try to help her?" a patron asks.

"HELP her!" the man says. "How could I try to help her? I had no idea who started the fight."

That fellow, in my opinion, is on sounder moral ground than France, Germany, Russia, Kofi Annan and all the hapless etceteras. They know good and well it was Saddam who "started the fight," against Iran, against Kuwait, against the Kurds, against Shiite Iraqis, and – to the extent of his growing abilities – against Israel and, in his most likely intentions ultimately, the United States.

They know details of Saddam's cruelty too ghastly to print. They also know, even better than Howard Dean's speechwriters, what a consumer fraud the "inspections" were that gave them all a moral-looking cloud to hide out in while they counseled "patience."

They also know what indecent hypocrites they are using words like "peace" and "diplomacy" as spray deodorants to cover their genuine motives not to boat-rock Iraq – namely, their lucrative business ties to Saddam Hussein.

What do I want? Not some pusillanimous, after-the-fact offer by the strong, silent nations to send troops now to Iraq in exchange for control, partial control, or even one jot or tittle of control.

I want France, Germany, Russia and India – for starters – to show the guts and the gratitude of Poland, Albania, Bulgaria and almost two dozen other countries that don't get the attention of Britney Spears and Madonna in the American media, but all of whose fighters' footprints are in the sands of Iraq.

I want them to send troops, not with demands, but with apologies for not having been there in the first place, shoulder to shoulder with America in a crusade every bit as righteous as the Allied effort in World War II.

Don't countries feel any tug to do the right thing anymore? In 1941 Cuba declared war on Germany six hours before we did. Where is Latin America today when it comes to helping build a democratic Iraq? I'd given Latin America a "zero" in an earlier version of this screed, but an astute reader let me know that El Salvador has a contingent of troops in Iraq. Good.

El Salvador is the smallest country south of the border. Where's the largest, Brazil? Brazil was with us in World War II fighting our way together up the boot of Italy. (On the level: In Italy, Brazilian men who had never seen snow before actually tried to stuff some into envelopes to send home to their loved ones!)

In Korea our "Coalition," in addition to troops from Britain and France, included Turks, Ethiopians, Colombians and others – not because North Korea was a "threat" to them, but because resisting North Korean aggression against South Korea was the thing to do. Even India sent an ambulance, and chronically neutral Sweden sent nurses pretty enough to make the front cover of Life magazine.

When England was threatened with Nazi takeover before America entered World War II, a torrent of American men went north to Canada to enlist in the fight to destroy Hitler. Is there a southbound torrent now FROM Canada – or a flow, or a trickle, or even one single Canadian volunteering to help us overcome the handiwork of an equally odious dictator? If so, I'm missing it.

Hey, world: I've got a deal for you.

You do all that. Do it all right now.

And I'll apologize to the nice lady in the synagogue.

Barry Farber was named by Talkers magazine as one of the top 10 radio talk hosts of all time.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Saddam Hussein/Iraq
United Nations

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