Mexico’s Pancho Villa was a revolutionary dedicated to overthrowing an illegitimate government.  So, too, was Emiliano Zapata in Southern Mexico; Villa even invaded the United States to draw attention to his fight; he killed some Americans, he killed many Mexicans.  Zapata’s Indian troops kept fighting other Mexicans even after Zapata was assassinated, even as Mexico’s civil war ended and the country entered decades without much violence. Eventually, of course, Zapata’s Indians laid down their rifles and went home.

 

Millions of Mexicans supported Villa and Zapata and the thousands of troops who fought for them. American journalists accompanied Villa and documented his fights, battles and popular support. Of the two, Villa was the most important. Villa was assassinated years after he retired to his ranch.  He was declared a national hero forty years after his death. 

 

None of these historical elements and lessons in our neighbor’s 20^th Century history appears to be present in the current conflict in Iraq or Afghanistan.

 

The current Iraq and Afghanistan troubles are not revolutions. Revolutions have armies and armies have leaders, intellectual and military leaders. Leaders have followers, revolutionary leaders lead.  We know who they are by name and presence.  Examples: George Washington, John Adams, Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata, Mexico’s Father Miguel Hidalgo and South America’s Simon Bolivar are some who have affected all of our lives and countries

 

In Iraq, there is no public support for any Iraq recognized dissident leader; there is no noticeable support, for example, for ersatz Iman Junior Sadr.  That and a monstrous defeat by U.S. Marines forced him to call off his “troops” and to join the Iraqi political process. There is no identifiable Iraqi leader flooding the streets with protesters, with supporters demanding anything much less a new government or the departure of American and Coalition troops.  The only people making such demands are minority Americans and Brits.

 

While it is true that some of these withdrawal exponents hold public office in both countries and are quite vociferous in the press, other than emote they offer no plausible strategies, no ideas and offer little, if any, support for the elected leaders of either Iraq or Afghanistan.  As a general observation, they are nothing but empty clones of themselves, of the 1960s Vietnam Era themselves.

 

In Mexico, people declared their support of the Revolution by picking up rifles and machetes, joining the armies of nationally and internationally known political leaders and generals like Villa and Zapata.  Where are the armies of revolt in Iraq and Afghanistan?  There are none. 

There are isolated secretive little groups of men who skulk in the night like cockroaches.  There isn’t a single public Iraqi or Afghan leader of these terrorists, terrorists who use car bombs to kill their own countrymen, women and children. They have no political goals or ideas to guide them other than radical and fanatic Moslem jihads, “Holy Wars.”

 

Some note that a handful of terrorists are trying to operate in Fallujah, the former terrorist stronghold that was leveled by United States Marines, to which reasonable people will point out that terrorists operate in London. So what is the big deal if a handful of cockroaches operate in Fallujah?

 

Muslim clerics and leaders throughout the world do not help matters when they superficially condemn some Moslem terrorist acts. They never criticize the underlying radical fanatic and defective philosophy that move Moslems to commit murder of innocents for the glory of “Allah” or as a political tool without any – any --popular foundation.

 

We are dealing with fanatic sociopath criminals, not political revolutionaries. Whether they are British citizen Moslem fanatics, or foreign desert terrorists and mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are dealing with criminal terrorists who bomb and kill civilians in an effort to frighten a population. We speak of the ultimate “hate crime.”

 

There are no massive or tiny public demonstrations of support for Saddam Hussein or the Taliban in Iraq or Afghanistan or against the Americans who liberated both countries.  Those only occur in London and San Francisco and other centers of minority dissent.  The protesting numbers pale in comparison to the Mexicans who filled entire armies of the Mexican Revolution almost a hundred years ago

 

We should look to the Mexican experience in judging whether or not we are successful in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Hundreds of Iraqi men women and children have been murdered by anonymous terrorists, not popularly supported armies in uniform led by generals and political leaders with massive public support. Until hundreds of thousands of Iraqis hit the streets to protest American presence, we and our Iraqi and Afghan allies must be judged as the Villas and Zapatas of 2005 Iraq.

 

Contreras’s newest book—THE ILLEGAL ALIEN: A DAGGER INTO THE HEART OF AMERICA published by Floricanto Press is available and reviewed at www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com  -- www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com and www.floricantopress.co  Contact at: sdraoul@att.net