Violence in Iraq is a Sign of Progress

Today’s guest columnist is Earnest Apologist. Earnest is a spokesperson for the Bush Administration. In his own words: “If president Bush is the decider, then I’m the explainer.”

Violence in Iraq is a Sign of Progress
by Ernest Apologist

The nit-picking, nay-saying negativists in this country have got it wrong once again. They hear stories about violence in Iraq and start wringing their hands. Instead, they should be cheering. Why can’t they see that what they call “uncontrolled violence” in Iraq is really a clear sign—visible to anyone without preconceived notions—that Iraq is becoming a better, freer place. How can they deny it?

Think about it! Just a few years ago, Iraq was ruled by a dangerous, paranoid, megalomaniacal autocrat. Only he and his Sunni cronies had the right to torture, maim, and kill civilians. The ordinary Iraqi had no such freedom. Violence was centralized and controlled by an elite. What some people thought was “civil order” was simply apathy. The government had a monopoly on civic violence and no one cared enough to break it.

Today Iraq is free. Anyone who wants to torture, maim or kill someone else can do it. Anyone who wants to blow up a building or destroy a marketplace can do it. Free market forces are bringing the best and most sophisticated explosives within reach of nearly all Iraqis. Iraqis—with no jobs to distract them and with no gasoline for their cars—have the leisure time to create bombs—and to use them.

And most important, for the first time people care enough to get involved. They are speaking out in public; they are voting in elections; and they are blowing up their neighbors. That’s freedom. That’s something to cheer about. That’s progress!

And what creativity! Iraqis can now build, deploy, and trigger Improvised Explosive Devices so creatively and effectively that even best trained and best protected people in the world—the proud men and women of Halliburton— are being killed daily in new and innovative ways. That’s progress! And it’s our doing.

Violence by individuals is the sign of a free and healthy society. Can’t you carping critics see that? Our society is free and healthy; it’s the freest and healthiest in the world. And precisely because of that it’s one of the world’s most violent societies. Whether it’s O.J. expressing himself by killing his wife, or kids in Colorado or in Virginia giving voice to their feelings by slaughtering their classmates, Americans are free—as no other people in the world are free. We can kill whoever we want to; we can kill because we want to make a point; we can kill because we’re angry; and we can kill—just because. That’s the test of freedom. And we pass that test. We’re the freest in the world.

The Iraqis are making progress, but they’ve got a long way to go to be as free as we are. Have any Iraqis carried off an attack to match our Oklahoma City bombing? Not yet. That was done by free Americans. Iraqis are not free enough to do something like that—yet. But wait. With our help, they’ll get there.

And lest we forget: while the planes of 9/11 were flown by foreigners, the plot was hatched, the pilots were trained, and the mission was ultimately accomplished on free American soil. They used American planes as flying bombs and coffins and brought down two American buildings. Our free soil. Our free planes. Our buildings. Just try doing that in China, or Russia, or in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and see how far you get. Violence takes freedom and we’ve got plenty of both.

Freedom is on the march in Iraq. We should all be proud of what we’ve done. And we should look forward to an increasingly free and violent future.