What Would Christopher Columbus Say About Iraq?

Nobody’s Opinion: I decided to take a break from the depressing news of the week, and Alex Baldwin is by all accounts, deranged.

So, here are some other nobody thoughts about a guy every one of us heard about in lst grade…Christopher Columbus, and his look on life.

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In 1493, Christopher Columbus wrote a letter to one of his ‘patrons,’ Lord Raphael Sanchez, treasurer of Aragon.

He starts out his letter: “Knowing that it will afford you pleasure to learn that I have brought my undertaking to a successful termination, I have decided upon writing you this letter to acquaint you with all the events which have occurred in my voyage, and the discoveries which have resulted from it.”

The key word to be noticed here is “successful.” Never mind that Columbus thought he had reached the shores of Asia, but actually found instead, Cuba and the Caribbean islands. Never mind that he really did NOT succeed in what he was looking for, a way past the throat-cutting Muslims, and a new route to China.

In that he failed miserably.

But as far as Columbus was concerned, his voyage was an enormous “success.”

“Success”---a word that our current Democratic Congress would like to outlaw forever into some vast pool of American words never to be used again.

Columbus was successful because, by boldly taking a risk on his vision, to go where no one else had gone, he opened up for decades to come, Spain’s domination of the world…for a while.

Before you start saying, hey Joyanna, “The Spanish went out and plundered, got slaves, stole gold, and destroyed the ingenious population of South America with disease.”

That’s another blog. Let’s stick to Columbus for now, and the meaning of “success.”

“Success” has always been a word Americans have strived for. After all, we pretty much industrialized (along with England) the planet. We have been the most successful country in history. And our innumerable successes have benefited every nation on the earth.

But now, due to a tremendous propaganda machine put in place by the “liberals” it seems the word “success” has been deemed a very dirty word, (much worse than Hoe) and has been replaced with the word, “tolerance.”

We are being told that America must tame our “successful” drives to make way for the new “global citizenships.”

They have redefined America’s success …as imperialism. And now, we must admit we are failures in everything we do.

Harry Reid this week has come out and said that Iraq is a failure, the war is lost. And by all means, in Baghdad, so it seems to be. The civil war has begun.

But if you read Christopher Hitchens piece, “Holiday in Iraq” in the April issue of Vanity Fair, in the North of Iraq, where the Kurds are now thriving, it seems the American’s have done a very good thing. Chris visited Kurdistan at Christmas with his son.

“Walking anywhere at night in any Kurdish town is safer than it is in many American cities,” says Chris. “I was among those who thought and believed and argued that this example could, and should, be extended to the rest of the country, the cause became a consuming thing in my life.”

So yes, our President has at least one strong voice on his side.

But if it was George Bush’s intention to completely democratize all of Iraq, then just
like Christopher Columbus, President George W. Bush has missed his true goal entirely.

It’s a good chance, with half the world against him, he will fail. Columbus after all, did not have CNN nightly news always badgering him about his “failure to find a route.” And unlike the year 1492, in 2007, we have come to realize there are no more routes around the throat-cutting Muslims anymore.

They can now fly to us.

Yes, Christopher Columbus wanted to find a route to China. President Bush says that by promoting democracy in the area for the future, we will have less to fear from a future attack.

Christopher Hitchens believes that, and so does, believe it or not, Bill Clinton.

And who is this nobody to argue? The Democrats have been telling us that it’s President George W. Bush that the world should fear. Still, when we were attacked, the President hadn’t been in power very long.

The liberals have a nasty habit of trying to make everyone think in the emotional moment. Instead of thinking in 3-D, they want you to think only in their one dimensional, world of “vote for me.” I will save you.

Nevertheless---we must ask ourselves: Is there something else that is being accomplished here that, like Columbus’s voyage, will in the future, actually benefits our nation?

Columbus opened up decades of wealth for Spain, and yes, no doubt America stands to gain from the oil. American companies will expand throughout the region in time. It’s no secret that our huge international Corporations want into every single nation on the planet, and that includes all the Arab states.

But this vast imperialism as it is called is not exactly going to hurt all these other nations. On the contrary, it will probably destroy us instead.

Our loss of jobs, is building vast middle classes in India and China, at the expense of the middle class in America. We are actually hurting OURSELVES more than hurting other nations on that account. I wouldn’t call that imperialism.

But…the most important fact we need to think on is that the Muslim religion, as we see now in Baghdad, is not exactly one that any American would want to bow down to.

Not ever.

Yet, we are doing that in this country right now, in our schools and communities.

The premise of religious tolerance, as put forth by our founders, also meant that the religion we tolerate must ALSO tolerate us.

It’s got to be a two-way street.

And that is not in the Islamic belief. They do not believe in this “tolerance” that the liberals want us all to succumb to.

Let’s just suppose for the sake of reason, that Columbus had been a Muslim. When he came upon the naked and vulnerable people of the Islands, would he have treated them so decently?

Here Christopher Columbus, the Christian, described the trading habits of the natives: “They also gave objects of great value (gold) for trifles, and content themselves with very little or nothing in return. I, however, forbade that these trifles and articles of no value (such as pieces of dishes, plates, and glass, keys and leather straps) should be given to them.”

Columbus forbade his men to take advantage of them, in any way. But if he would have been a Muslim, he would have cut more than a few throats, and traded probably little for the gold that they offered. He would have asked for bribes…as has always been the habit of Muslim rulers for thousands of years.

And who know if they would have let the woman live. They were after all, naked to the core.

Columbus was a very devote Christian. One thing our schools don’t tell our kids.

In the ending of letter, after describing the rich and beautiful islands, the building of a fort by his men, and the many wonders he had found, (including that the women seem to do all the work and men and woman were monogamous) he said:

“But these great and marvelous results are not to be attributed to any merit of mine but to the holy Christian faith and to the piety and religion of our sovereigns; for that which the unaided intellect of man could not compass, the Spirit of God has granted to human exertions, for God is wont to hear the prayers of His servants who love His precepts even to the performance of apparent impossibilities.”

It as good thing Columbus wasn’t reporting to Harry Reid, because the Democrats have no clue what the words, “apparent impossibilities” mean.

So, as apparently impossible as the democratization of Iraq seems to be at this moment in time, maybe if the people that represented us, had a little more faith in America, someday there would be a child in Iraq, who would read in a book:

In 2009, the Iraq’s discovered a true peace and stability. Thanks to America.

So, America might ask…where is our Christopher Columbus? And would that Christopher have the vision to ask ,“Whose God do you worship?”

That would be a good start on a success, which beats failure any day.

Nobody’s Perfect: Now, having said all this that still doesn’t let President Bush off the hook for all the other awful things he is doing to us as regards to our border problem.

Nobody Knows: I really enjoyed the video that Mike LaSalle put up on the site---where Christopher’s Hitchens talks at Hart. Surprisingly, I also agree, (as did John Adams) that organized religion has been a curse to humanity in many ways.

On the other hand, the great gift from the Bible, the Ten Commandments, has been the basis for the rule of Law, and in that respect has done wonders for Western Civilization.

Nobody Cares; I am not actually a Christian....although I do beleive the man was God inspired... I was raised a Methodist, and my church ending days came when I went out one Easter to five different churches of different dominions and found each and every one of them locked.

But I do believe in the concept of God …whatever that concept turns out to be. And so did the natives of Cuba, because they thought Christopher Columbus was from heaven. It seems to be a universal feeling, (we even have genes for it) that…we are not alone.

Now, if God would just get rid of Castro, and all his leftist buddies...the apparently impossible.