Hoping war day turns Independence Day

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Demonstrators and the media have been reminding us of the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. This may be the beginning of the fifth year of this war, but it is only one skirmish in a conflict with a lengthier past and a long future. Pundits, politicians and protesters who want to isolate Iraq from the rest of the world war, of which it is just one part, suffer from tunnel vision.

This larger war did not begin on March 20, 2003. The first shot may have been fired in 1968, when three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked an El Al plane bound for Israel. Or, it might have begun in 1948, when Israel was officially reconstituted in its ancient homeland by the United Nations and recognized by the United States and other countries. The goal of Israel's neighbors is its elimination, a goal that has not changed despite promises, assurances and several "peace" agreements signed in the diplomatic equivalent of disappearing ink. Maybe the war started when the American Marine barracks in Beirut were hit with a truck bomb in 1983, killing 241 U.S. servicemen.

This war will not end in the next year, in another four years, or perhaps in 100 years. The "Out of Iraq Now" sentiment is meaningless, because war opponents never say, nor will they take responsibility for, what would come next, which most assuredly would be disaster and a greater threat to America.





Despite the media's regular use of the term "civil war" to describe the continuing, but apparently diminishing violence in and near Baghdad, only 27 percent of those polled described it as such.





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