Editor's View: What About the Cold War?
Dennis O'Brien
Issue date: 4/3/03 Section: Opinion
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There is a great polarization in the world today as nations like Spain and Great Britain align themselves with the United States in a war on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, while nations like France and Germany stand on the other side of this line in the sand.
I was thinking about all of that this morning while trying not to get hit in the face with a racquetball, and suddenly it came to me. We're re-starting the Cold War.Hear me out. This little war with Iraq is going to get ugly before too long when our guys find their way into Baghdad, but in the end, we hope, it will still be a relatively short war. Well, what happens after this war?
Will we build a new Iraq right away or wait a good five, ten years of occupation before that really hits the ground running. Will we be able to repair hurt feelings between us and France or us and Germany, or even us and Russia?
Maybe this current polarization will remain as our troops occupy foreign territory and our nations trade verbal barbs with one another about appeasement and imperialism and all sorts of fun little Reagan era trash-talking.Maybe we're planting the seeds for a new kind of Cold War. Well, thinking about that got me thinking something a little odd, something I never thought I'd ever think or say or write down in a column that nobody's going to read anyway: I think I miss the Cold War.
Okay, stay with me now. I'm not going to say that it was all fun. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and try to tell you that Vietnam was fun, or that Korea was fun, or that the Cuban Missile Crisis was fun, but hey, even the ripest batch of peaches has some bruises, okay.
Would the 1980 Olympic victory of the US over the Soviets in Lake Placid have been as fun if there wasn't a heavy undercurrent of hate pulsing beneath the ice?
Would Rocky IV have had the same "so bad that it's not only good but friggin' great" corny emotional ending if there hadn't hostility between the US and the Soviets? If we'd been all buddy, buddy, Rocky never would have given his stirring, awful address to the grudgingly respectful crowd "If I can change, and you can change, anybody can change."
I was thinking about all of that this morning while trying not to get hit in the face with a racquetball, and suddenly it came to me. We're re-starting the Cold War.Hear me out. This little war with Iraq is going to get ugly before too long when our guys find their way into Baghdad, but in the end, we hope, it will still be a relatively short war. Well, what happens after this war?
Will we build a new Iraq right away or wait a good five, ten years of occupation before that really hits the ground running. Will we be able to repair hurt feelings between us and France or us and Germany, or even us and Russia?
Maybe this current polarization will remain as our troops occupy foreign territory and our nations trade verbal barbs with one another about appeasement and imperialism and all sorts of fun little Reagan era trash-talking.Maybe we're planting the seeds for a new kind of Cold War. Well, thinking about that got me thinking something a little odd, something I never thought I'd ever think or say or write down in a column that nobody's going to read anyway: I think I miss the Cold War.
Okay, stay with me now. I'm not going to say that it was all fun. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and try to tell you that Vietnam was fun, or that Korea was fun, or that the Cuban Missile Crisis was fun, but hey, even the ripest batch of peaches has some bruises, okay.
Would the 1980 Olympic victory of the US over the Soviets in Lake Placid have been as fun if there wasn't a heavy undercurrent of hate pulsing beneath the ice?
Would Rocky IV have had the same "so bad that it's not only good but friggin' great" corny emotional ending if there hadn't hostility between the US and the Soviets? If we'd been all buddy, buddy, Rocky never would have given his stirring, awful address to the grudgingly respectful crowd "If I can change, and you can change, anybody can change."