News anchors change but the lead story remains the same: Iraq is a mess. Now, a new challenge has surfaced. Several Iraqi factions and some liberals in this county have expressed the idea that the planned January elections should be delayed because the country is too dangerous. However, that notion does nothing to neither stem terrorist activity nor discourage it.
Alberto Abadie of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government recently released a study in which he took a new and all-encompassing look at what indicated the tendency for terrorist acts to occur. Abadie included acts of both internal (domestic) and external (transnational) terrorism and compared them to political freedom levels of the effected nations. Abadie's results yielded some surprising findings.
Abadie concluded that economic factors were not the key determining factor. Abadie found "that among countries with similar levels of civil liberties, poor countries do not generate more terrorism than rich countries." Rather, Abadie found that political freedom did.
Abadie's most surprising result was that nations most likely to suffer terrorist attacks were not counties with high (democratic) or low (totalitarian) levels of political freedom but those in intermediate stages. Specifically, says Abadie, "As experienced recently in Iraq and previously in Spain and Russia, transitions from an authoritarian regime to a democracy may be accompanied by temporary increases in terrorism." Abadie's results indicate that the increased terrorist activity within Iraq should not be surprising.
Naturally, liberal "nattering nabobs of negativism" will still continue to naively insist we created the terrorism and are responsible for the resulting deaths through our liberation operation. They get half credit solely because the coalition's invasion did create the setting as Iraq is now in a transitional political state. They otherwise deliberately ignore the instigated acts by Islamofascists seeking the opportunity to create the chaos they thrive on.
Within that is the juvenile liberal missive that we had to "win the peace," a phrase that shows poor understanding of the goal. Soldiers are not diplomats; their job is to break things and kill. We went to win the war and then secure the peace. So now the issue is how to do precisely that. Again, Abadie provides insight into how we can secure that peace.
Abadie's study showed that the countries with the highest levels of political freedom are the least likely to suffer terrorist acts. While his study does not go into reasons for this, is would be fair to theorize that this is because terrorists understand that free people are not as likely to be cowed by their naked aggression and hatred. Thus, you defeat terrorism by promoting freedom.
The elections scheduled for Jan. 30 need to go forward on time. They are yet another step towards greater political freedom for Iraq and one more step towards a nation of self-reliant people that can express their collective will freely and demonstrate they do not live by fear but through freedom.
You secure the peace by promoting democracy and political freedom in areas afflicted by terrorism. To delay Iraq's election would be to leave Iraq in the transitional state indefinitely and Abadie's study shows exactly why you don't do that. It's time to let the Iraqi people vote their will and simultaneously send a message to the terrorists.
Write to Jeff at
mannedarena@yahoo.com
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