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Miss Mannerstein, infamous for ripping CNN's Andrea Koppel et al in last spring's "4th Estate or 5th Column" The New Etiquette" is back advising a reader on the finer points of taking and making over the Arab world.

Originally posted at Conservative Truth.org on September 8, 2002

First we occupy, then de-jihad-ify.
Then to Europe we say, "Hi!:
You need oil? From US,
at $50 a barrel, you will buy!"

Miss Mannerstein returns, with answers on Iraq, dejihadification and oil.

Dear Miss Mannerstein,

I recently read a transcript of a conversation between Dr. Daniel Pipes and Pat Buchanan on the pending war with Iraq, and the whole notion of "democratizing" the Arab world. Mr. Buchanan commented that we have to be careful of what we wish for, i.e., that by opening up the Arabs to more "democratic" governments, we would be handing over those countries to those who would be even more antagonistic to the U.S., and to Israel and the West in general.

Dr. Pipes had an intriguing response:

"It's in our interests that they modernize and it's in our interests to help them modernize and I think we know how. We are very modern and we can help them. Look, we've done that elsewhere. Look, for example, at Japan. We defeated the Japanese and then we guided them towards a democracy. We did the same with Germany. We should be doing the same thing with Iraq."

Could you explain exactly what Dr. Pipes was alluding to?

Signed, Darned if we do, etc.

Dear Darned,

Though I can't speak for the noted Mideast expert Dr. Pipes, let me try and explain what he may have been referring to (and my, how times have changed... Daniel Pipes chatting with Pat Buchanan...):

Skipping the hemming and hawing, we must drop the idea of creating an "instant democracy" in Iraq or anywhere else in the Arab world. Dr. Pipes is reminding us is that America had "success" with Japan and Germany because our parents beat the snot out of them, and we then occupied both countries until we had weeded out most if not all of the hard-core German and Japanese followers of Hitler and Tojo.

In other words, we rounded up and jailed or hung all the nut-jobs. We disarmed them completely, we took over responsibility for their defense, their political reorganization, their schools and much of their media. We did this for decades with Germany and for many years with Japan.

During the occupation, all Germans and Japanese who wanted to run for office or work for their respective local governments were investigated and put through interrogation, and where necessary, through "denazification." (And no, it wasn't perfect; we took some perfectly dangerous Nazis and used them for our own purposes to combat Communism, and to develop our nascent missile and space capabilities; was it morally imperfect? Possibly. Did it pay off in the end? Of course.)

If we want to avoid another 9/11 attack (and G-d forbid a worse conflagration) we must commit ourselves to a similar strategy for much of the Arab region. When you hear Congress and the media (and the bleeding-heart hypocrites in Europe and here at home with billion-dollar investments in Iraq) whining and stalling about "going into Baghdad without a well thought-out plan," this should be your response:

America must attack, defeat and occupy Iraq (and any other nation that builds weapons of mass destruction and/or sponsors terrorism) and we must stay there as we did in Germany and Japan; we must remain in Iraq until their current leaders are either dead or locked away, until the generations that have been brainwashed to hijack freedom of expression and political choice have all been “dejihadified,” until all those who would turn their people and their economies against us are completely out of the picture, and until they are forever unable to wage war and sponsor terrorism against us and our true allies. We owe it to ourselves, to our children, and even though they don’t deserve it, to the rest of the so-called “free-world.”

This is the only honest and non-delusional answer about “democratizing” the Arab Mideast. Pull your eyebrows back down, and be thankful we are getting in early with only a few thousand dead from 9/11, instead of the tens of millions it took to conclude WW2.

I know, I can hear some of you now:

"But Miss Mannerstein, something like that could take years, decades! How are we going to afford all that?"

If it takes fifty years, so be it; we can pay for it by selling Arab oil to Europe. (You think we elected two oil men to make chopped liver?)

____