Who believed there was a link between Saddam and Bin Laden's Al Qaeda?

According to this article, even the Clinton administration, way back in 1998, knew that bin Laden was collaborating with Saddam on weapons of mass destruction.
But, of course, many of us have chosen to ignore or forget this, in our zeal to reinforce our anti-Bush ideology.

Max Boot points out that appeasement is nothing new...and still doesn't work.

In his L.A. times op-ed piece, Max Boot points out the obvious--well, what seems to be obvious to people who believe in looking at things through the light of history rather than the dubious light of ideology or the silly light of trying desperately not to offend anybody by saying that all people just want to feel good/understood/accepted/etc.:

Appeasement did not end with the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Even afterward, many in Britain (and even more in the U.S.) opposed active resistance. Conservative worthies like Lord Halifax sought a negotiated settlement. Fascists like Sir Oswald Mosley sought to bring Nazism to Britain. And communists and their fellow travelers opposed fighting Stalin's ally until Hitler invaded Russia.

It is evident to me that even in America, even after Pearl Harbor made us realize we were no longer insulated from the war or reprisal, there were people like these who believed that any war was much worse than a war fought to repel facism. As the old saying goes, if we don't learn our history, we are doomed to repeat it. The immediate question then becomes this: what are we learning instead of our history? Multi-culturalism? Revisionist studies? Our semi-intelligentsia run into the same problem that George Orwell observed, as Max Boot continues:

Even in January 1942, when German armies were at the gates of Moscow, George Orwell wrote in Partisan Review that "the greater part of the very young intelligentsia are anti-war … don't believe in any 'defense of democracy,' are inclined to prefer Germany to Britain, and don't feel the horror of Fascism that we who are somewhat older feel."
As if to illustrate Orwell's point, a pacifist poet named D.S. Savage wrote a reply in which he explained why he "would never fight and kill for such a phantasm" as "Britain's 'democracy.' " Savage saw no difference between Britain and its enemies because under the demands of war both were imposing totalitarianism: "Germans call it National Socialism. We call it democracy. The result is the same."

Surely they jested. Surely they knew that there was a cognitive, measurable distance. But then again, if in our modern world elected Congress-critters from the USA can't tell their gulag from a hole in the ground, why should we blame our young intelligentsia, who are just following their leaders? As Boot reports:

When applied to the embodiment of pure evil, the usual liberal tropes about "understanding" not "condemnation" have an air of Monty Python about them. Yet there are uncomfortable echoes of Savage's sermonizing in the attitude of many modern-day intellectuals toward the Islamo-fascist threat.

Ok, just how do we sit down and understand people who blow up children, and civilians? Usually, of course, what the (inevitably) leftists mean when they talk about such things is gazing into the mirror of themselves. And while we are navel gazing, who will watch our backs while these degenerate humans plant more bombs? "Wait," we cry, "we haven't understood you or your needs yet, but we do know that it was our faul----"

The BBC now refuses to refer to the London terrorists as "terrorists." They are to be known by the more neutral term "bombers," lest the public be deceived by "the careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments." Value judgments about blowing up innocent commuters? How gauche!

Enlightened opinion ranging from Amnesty International to Dick Durbin joins in this moral relativism by suggesting that the United States has become no better than its enemies through the actions it has taken to prevent terrorism. Just as 1940s pacifists could see no difference between Nazi concentration camps and British wartime curtailments of civil liberties, so today's doppelgangers equate the abuses of renegade guards at Abu Ghraib with the mass murder carried out by Stalin or Pol Pot.

Moral relativism--intellectual posturing rather than boots on the ground. The solution to every problem lies in impressing people to death with our mental calisthenics.

There is also an enduring tendency to blame the victim. George Galloway, Saddam Hussein's favorite member of Britain's Parliament, suggests that Londoners "paid the price" for their government's "attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq." The implication is that Al Qaeda has reasonable grievances and if only we could satisfy them — by, for instance, exiting Iraq — we would have peace. The same thing was said about Hitler, who complained that Germany had been wronged by the Treaty of Versailles.

And this, of course, gave him every excuse to target his own civilians and slaughter them. But again, avoiding war is an admirable goal, and is to be sought at all costs, right?
But then there comes this problem, that Boot mentions:

The problem was that Hitler's stated demands were a pretext for his maniacal ambitions. He was unappeasable. So is Osama bin Laden, who wants to avenge centuries of humiliation supposedly suffered by Muslims at Christian hands and who dreams of establishing a Taliban-style caliphate over all the lands once dominated by Muslims, from western China to southern Spain. Pulling out of Iraq would only whet his insatiable appetite for destruction, just as giving up the Sudetenland encouraged Hitler to seek more.

Orwell's words, written in October 1941, ring true today: "The notion that you can somehow defeat violence by submitting to it is simply a flight from fact. As I have said, it is only possible to people who have money and guns between themselves and reality."

It is so easy to criticize the war from so far away, protected by the very acts of violence we abhor and excoriate. "Not in my name!" we cry, as if that absolves us of guilt by association, and will prevent further deaths (including our own). Violence is a last resort--but against violent people who are repeatedly irrational, it is a matter of survival for those who choose violence temporarily in order to preserve a peaceful society to return to later on.

Yes, these people are "freedom fighters," and we would do exactly the same thing...

BAGHDAD -- A suicide bomber in an explosives-laden SUV killed at least 27, including an American soldier, late this morning in the deadliest insurgent attack in more than two months....
Many, if not most of the dead, were children loitering and playing near U.S. soldiers at an impromptu checkpoint in Baghdad al-Jadida, a lower-middle class residential district populated by Shiites, Sunnis and Christians.

Yes, these "brave heroes" and martyrs for their cause are merely fighting for the freedom of "their" country. I am sure that these people are open to negotiation and are ready to stop fighting when their demands are met.

Feh....

No connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda?

Claudia Rosett, in her opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal online, indicates otherwise:

Actually, there were many connections, as Stephen Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn, writing in the current issue of the Weekly Standard, spell out under the headline "The Mother of All Connections." Since the fall of Saddam, the U.S. has had extraordinary access to documents of the former Baathist regime, and is still sifting through millions of them. Messrs. Hayes and Joscelyn take some of what is already available, combined with other reports, documentation and details, some from before the overthrow of Saddam, some after. For page after page, they list connections--with names, dates and details such as the longstanding relationship between Osama bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Saddam's regime.

Messrs. Hayes and Joscelyn raise, with good reason, the question of why Saddam gave haven to Abdul Rahman Yasin, one of the men who in 1993 helped make the bomb that ripped through the parking garage of the World Trade Center. They detail a contact between Iraqi intelligence and several of the Sept. 11 hijackers in Malaysia, the year before al Qaeda destroyed the twin towers. They recount the intersection of Iraqi and al Qaeda business interests in Sudan, via, among other things, an Oil for Food contract negotiated by Saddam's regime with the al-Shifa facility that President Clinton targeted for a missile attack following the African embassy bombings because of its apparent connection to al Qaeda. And there is plenty more.

You can read the original article by Hayes and Joscely, "The Mother of all Connections," online by clicking on the title.
They make this conclusion:

We know from these IIS documents that beginning in 1992 the former Iraqi regime regarded bin Laden as an Iraqi Intelligence asset. We know from IIS documents that the former Iraqi regime provided safe haven and financial support to an Iraqi who has admitted to mixing the chemicals for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. We know from IIS documents that Saddam Hussein agreed to Osama bin Laden's request to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi state-run television. We know from IIS documents that a "trusted confidante" of bin Laden stayed for more than two weeks at a posh Baghdad hotel as the guest of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.
We have been told by Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden's longtime mentor Abdullah Azzam, that Saddam Hussein welcomed young al Qaeda members "with open arms" before the war, that they "entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up an organization to confront the occupation," and that the regime "strictly and directly" controlled their activities. We have been told by Jordan's King Abdullah that his government knew Abu Musab al Zarqawi was in Iraq before the war and requested that the former Iraqi regime deport him. We have been told by Time magazine that confidential documents from Zarqawi's group, recovered in recent raids, indicate other jihadists had joined him in Baghdad before the Hussein regime fell. We have been told by one of those jihadists that he was with Zarqawi in Baghdad before the war. We have been told by Ayad Allawi, former Iraqi prime minister and a longtime CIA source, that other Iraqi Intelligence documents indicate bin Laden's top deputy was in Iraq for a jihadist conference in September 1999.
All of this is new--information obtained since the fall of the Hussein regime. And yet critics of the Iraq war and many in the media refuse to see it. Just two weeks ago, President Bush gave a prime-time speech on Iraq. Among his key points: Iraq is a central front in the global war on terror that began on September 11. Bush spoke in very general terms. He did not mention any of this new information on Iraqi support for terrorism to make his case. That didn't matter to many journalists and critics of the war....

We know that in the context of a decade-long confrontation with the United States, addam reached out to al Qaeda on numerous occasions. We know that the leadership of al Qaeda reciprocated, requesting assistance in its endeavors. We know that ports of meetings, offers of safe haven, and collaboration persisted. What we do not know is the full extent of the relationship. But we know enough to know that there was one. And we know enough to know it was a threat.

So, can we put this ideological stance that is based only on anti-war ideology rather than actual evidence (or non-evidence) to a well-deserved rest?

Hoh Hoh Hoh, to the rain forest we go!

I have lived most of my life in the Pacific Northwest. Mountains and trees are in my blood, you could say. When was young, I saw pictures of the temperate rain forests preserved on the west side of Olympic National Park, and knew that I had to go there someday to pay homage to these unique trees.
Well, I finally made it there, after 30 years of waiting. Trees are patient, though, and didn't mind.
I went with my wife and baby daughter, accompanying a friend who was visiting a relative in a work camp in the area.
I had been to Port Angeles before (to take the ferry over to beautiful Victoria, the capital of the Canada's British Columbia), but never beyond. Soon after leaving the city limits, highway 101 plunges into the mountains, heading west. The large tracts of lowland forests were some of the first resources used by the white man in the region, and many are more tree farms than forests. Constant reminders of logging are all around--old stumps, new stumps, signs telling when the region was first cut, when planted, and when the next cut will be. We ate lunch in one of these forests, marvelling at the tangled forest floor and the huge stumps.
These forests once used to be part of the long string of coastal rain forests stretching from California up to Alaska. I love the redwood country, where my father grew up, and this reminded me a lot of that part of the world.
As we ate, I learned how to identify a Sitka Spruce (they don't grow where I am from), and we ate a few nearby salmon berries as we slapped some mosquitoes (standing water is everywhere in these forests--be warned!).
And then we headed up the road to the Hoh rain forest, perhaps the most famous of the three that are features in the park: Hoh, Quinalt, and Queets. (In reality, all of the western facing river valleys in the Olympics are rain forests, including the Bogachiels.) The Hoh is the most easily accessible, though, and is likely the most crowded. The road sometimes runs by the Hoh river. We could see old logging, and new logging, and old plantings, right up to the park's edge, where suddenly the stumps disappear.
The parking lot has an information center (closes at 4 pm, don't forget!), and three trails: a very short paved trail, and two longer loop trails. The parking lot is also the main trailhead for access up the Hoh valley to Mount Olympus itself, a long and demanding multi-day hike/climb.
But we were only here to spend a short time with the trees, and so we did.
The trees were magnificent--huge and lovely. I have never seen trees to rival the redwoods before, yet here they were. (The difference is that down in coastal redwood country, *all* the trees are huge, and some are more huge.) The light was soft and green, and though we had driven through sunlight at the valley head, it was suddenly raining hard--only to stop raining after 15 minutes. The clouds stayed, though--I would like to come back in the sunlight, although it is very hard to find a dry day in this part of the world.
And yet as I looked at the trees, I realized that most people think this rain forest is found only here, or that parking lot, or that one. It used to be one long, unbroken chain, and here we see the last untouched bit.
I have never seen the full extent--it was gone long before I was born, and it is endangered even now further north in Canada and Alaska, where it is still a wild forest and not a park at the end of a paved road. But what I have seen will be preserved for my daughter to see when she is older, and for her future children as well. That, at least, is a good thing.

Looking at maps of the Pacific Northwest, my eyes keep wandering out to the Queen Charlotte Islands, to the Haida Gwai'i. It's a long ways away, but surely I can get there, too...

How to Appease Terrorists...and Like It

Here is an excellent argument on Strategy Page as to why the 'strategy' of appeasement won't work against terrorists. Sure, it is a very short-term solution, but it is more of an ideology than an actual strategy.
I will quote it in full here:

INFORMATION WARFARE: Selling Appeasement to Europeans

July 8, 2005: Al Qaeda, and Islamic radicals, would not be a world terrorism problem were it not for global Islamic media, and media coverage that treated the goals of the Islamic radicals with seriousness and respect. For decades, Islamic radicalism played in its own backyard, trying to replace Islamic tyrants with Islamic religious dictatorships. These Islamic terrorists didn’t get much publicity, and what they did get was mostly negative. Most Islamic nations were dictatorships, with the local media tightly controlled. That changed, for a while, in the 1980s, when the fight between Moslem Afghans, and atheist Russians, was given ample, and positive, publicity by the media in most Moslem nations, and throughout the Western world. The battle in Afghanistan was considered a jihad (Holy War) by Moslems, and what good Moslem could refuse to heap praise on that. The thousands of Moslems who went to Afghanistan (Pakistan, actually, which was where the Afghan rebels rested between missions), were considered heroes when they returned home. Many of these “Afghanis” soon ended up in jail, for spouting off about how great it would be to have a little Islamic revolution at home. Moslem countries went to war with their Islamic radicals in the 1990s, an event largely unnoticed in the West. There was always some unpleasant violence going on in Moslem countries. Either religion or politics would set things off, and this wasn’t news in the West.

That changed in 1996, when al Jazeera, an international satellite news network began. Now the millions of Moslems in the West could get news delivered using modern, compelling methods, but with a Moslem slant. That slant was quite different from the view of the Moslem, especially Arab, world provided by Western news. The biggest difference was how Israel, and Islamic terrorism, was explained. To Moslems, Israel was a great crime inflicted by the West on the Arab world. To the Arab media, Israel did not deserve to exist, and any Western nations that supported Israel, especially the United States, were enemies of Islam. Extreme stuff, but the sort of line you had to run with if you wanted to succeed as a journalist in the Arab, and Moslem world. This line was supported by most Arab governments, because if took attention away from the fact that most Arab governments were corrupt dictatorships that had never done much for the Palestinian people the Israelis were accused of oppressing.

The only large scale opposition to Moslem corruption and dictators was Islamic radicals, especially in the form of al Qaeda. But this opposition failed in the 1990s, and al Qaeda decided to turn its attention to targets in the West. According to al Qaeda, the ultimate cause of all the problems in the Moslem world (the corruption, the poverty, the dictatorships) was Western influence. Decadent Western media, and political influence in the form of Western support for Israel and current Moslem governments, must be destroyed before al Qaeda could clean things up in the Moslem world. Once the Moslem world was “purified” and united under one religious dictator, the rest of the world could be converted to Islam, and a planet wide Islamic religious government establishment. This is what al Qaeda wants. Does anyone believe they have any chance of achieving it? No one does, except millions of Moslems mesmerized by the al Qaeda message, and the thousands of al Qaeda warriors ready to die for the cause. Many of these al Qaeda supporters were in Moslem communities in the West. Thanks to al Jazeera, the Internet, and other satellite based media, the twisted logic of al Qaeda, was presented as news. The rabid anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic reporting so common in Arab media, but absent in the West, was now available anywhere in the world.

This created an enormous “expatriate patriot” effect. This is what happens when expatriates become more enthusiastic about violent solutions than the folks back home. This was seen rather vividly among Irish immigrants to the United States in the 19th century, where these Irish patriots formed armed groups, and engaged in terrorist acts in North America, in support of liberating Ireland from British rule. After this happened in the 1920s, the expatriate Irish still maintained the most anti-British attitudes. In the 1970s, when Irish terrorism began again, in Northern Ireland, which was still under British rule, much of the monetary support came from Irish overseas. The Irish in Ireland were much less enthusiastic about Irish terrorism than were the Irish overseas. The same thing is now happening with Moslem support for Islamic terrorism. In Moslem nations that have suffered from Islamic terrorists, places like Algeria, Egypt and Iraq, al Qaeda is hated. But among Moslem communities in Europe, there is a rather more idealized and romantic view of these Moslem “martyrs.” Recruiting is easier in Europe, as is raising money. While only a small minority of the expatriate Moslems support the terrorists, that amounts to over a million supporters, and thousands of volunteers for suicide attacks and terrorism.

There is another problem, particularly with Europe. When confronted with a growing Moslem minority, and its enthusiastic adoption of al Jazeera’s breathless coverage of Islamic terrorists, and the usual anti-Semitic coverage of Israel, Europe blinked. Rather than resisting this, Europe again went for appeasement. This didn’t work with the fascists in the 1930s, or the Soviets during the Cold War. But appeasement is a very popular policy in Europe. It isn’t working with Islamic radicals who, like the nazis and communists, want to conquer the world, and are willing to kill millions to get the job done. Appeasement is deeply embedded in the European psyche. Even after the nazis made it clear what they were all about, and had conquered much of Europe, many Europeans preferred to collaborate with the new tyranny. Even after the Cold War was over, many Europeans are nostalgic for the “failed experiment” of Soviet communism. If only someone else could come back and try it again, and do it right this time. This same twisted logic is being applied to al Qaedas mad march towards world conquest.

Al Qaeda lives on Moslem frustration at not being able to deal with cultural, economic and political problems at home. Moslem media, especially the international networks that reach the expatriate community, prosper on reporting al Qaedas propaganda as news, rather than nonsense. Al Qaeda killers are often described as “martyrs” and defenders of Islam. The Arab networks, like al Jazeera, also play international politics. For example, al Jazeera persists in describing Islamic terrorists in Iraq as “freedom fighters,” trying to liberate Iraq from foreign (U.S.) occupation. What al Jazeera won’t admit is that Iraq is mainly a battle between Shia Arabs who, by and large, are seen as allies of Shia Iran and enemies of the Sunni Arab world of the Persian Gulf and Middle East. Officially, Shia and Sunni Moslems get along. Unofficially, Sunni Arab governments (all Arab governments, except Iraq, are run by Sunnis) are terrified of Iran, the most powerful Shia Moslem government in the world, and a traditional enemy of Arabs. Iraqis know that al Qaeda is allied with the Sunni Arab minority trying to regain power, but to al Jazeera, this battle between Sunni and Shia in Iraq does not exist.

While no government on the planet officially supports al Qaeda, the terrorist organization still has the support of several percent of the Moslem population. Al Qaeda maintains the loyalty of those Moslems, especially the wealthier and better educated expatriate Moslems, via the relatively favorable reporting in the international Moslem media like al Jazeera. You can’t shut down this media, which includes the Internet, but you can’t ignore it either if you expect to deal with the terrorism. There are many historical examples of this kind of terrorism, and the only way to deal with it is to infiltrate the terrorist networks, hurt them as much as possible, and wait a decade or more until popular support for the killing fades away. It will be back, under a different banner. But that’s something for future generations to worry about.

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I think the writers are right on the money--it worked for the North Vietnamese, after all, and Al Qaeda has had years to study the Western Media to learn how to work the system.

"We Will Never Surrender..." -- Britain, and Terror Bombings

Here is a comment on a post about the recent terrorist bombings in London from the Sound Politics blog. I include it in full here:

I am angry.

I am angry at a lot of people, so read on, because this could mean you.

First and foremost, I am angry at Islamic fundamentalists and their desire to kill innocent people in the name of their god and their ideology. I am angry at a group that cannot allow others to believe differently then they, who feel the need to demonize their enemies, who marginalize others in their belief that their way is superior and that those who don't follow their way are contemptible. I am angry that they believe children are expendable.

I am also angry at those on this board who, in their anger advocate or speak out in favor of inhumane responses to such actions. I am angry that they cannot see that it is critical that we maintain a higher moral standard despite the cost. We ARE better than these "creatures". I am angry that someone would even suggest that they would prefer terrorists to bomb their political opposites as a punishment for political views. I am angry that anyone would suggest mass killings of innocents in efforts to get the perpetrators. We don't defeat this enemy be becoming like them, we defeat them by being intolerant to what they do. However, we respond in a dignified and moral way. Yes, that includes war, attacking another nation if that is what it comes to, and detaining and interrogating the prisoners. It means that we do capture them, not kill them outright. It means that we treat them AS prisoners, but we treat them humanely. It means that we DO use coercive tactics but we do not torture them. If we were at war with a nation, there would be no debate as to our right to collect prisoners of that nation for detention. Since our enemy knows no flag and adheres to no rules of war, we are forced to use tactics outside of the normal scope, but while we are at war with a borderless enemy, we must neutralize him, for the duration if necessary. This enemy declared war on us a long time ago but we did not "accept" this "declaration" because it did not come from a "nation". That was a mistake. These people consider themselves as a nation and we need to change our perception and treat them as such. If they act as infiltrators and spies, we treat them no differently than captured KGB agents.

Finally, I am angry at those who undermine our efforts to conduct this war. I am angry at people, who through their words, and efforts contribute to the injury and death of our soldiers, who provide encouragement to the enemy, who weaken our efforts and prolong the war, who, for political gain put our soldiers, our people, and our nation at greater risk.

There is a LOT of anger going on. Many times it is inappropriately acted upon. Islamists are angry, so they blow up people. Conservatives are angry so they advocate indiscriminate retaliation. Liberals are angry so they advocate undermining the war. All this anger is misdirected. We can see how the killing of innocents is wrong, but sometimes we cannot see how allowing innocents to be killed is wrong. One should seriously consider the impacts of certain types of dissention in this country before embarking on said dissentious course.

I have many issues with the war in Iraq, but I will focus on just a couple. When President Bush pronounced to the world that he would defeat terrorism, he made a promise. He promised that he would not only pursue the terrorists wherever they may be, but he promised to go after the countries that enable those terrorists. When the UN made resolution after resolution against Iraq those too were promises. The difference comes in whether one follows up a promise or not. You see, no one embarks on a major undertaking with the expectation of losing. The choices any person or group are almost always predicated on the fact that the reward exceeds the price or risk. Hitler would not have invaded Czechoslovakia unless he though he could get away with it. He would not have invaded Poland unless he though he could get away with it. The success of those events and reaction of Europe convinced him that he could press on and take all of Europe. Saddam would not have invaded Kuwait unless he thought he could get away with it. He would not have defied the UN unless he though he could get away with it. In those cases, the acting party decided that they could attain their goals using the methods employed. The same thing goes for the terrorists. They methods they employ are based on the expectation of ultimate success. The methods they employ are also based on their own capabilities, capabilities that stem from the support of governments both passive and active, the support of moneyed benefactors, and the support of powerful influencers such as media and high profile personalities. This brings me back to promises made. Part of the reason these terrorists became so bold is that there were few significant reprisals for their actions. In the same way Hitler moved on Poland and Hussein defied the UN, Al Qaeda flew planes into our buildings. Ultimately it was because they could and that the reprisals had insufficient deterrent effect. Now, when President Bush announced that he would pursue the nations that supported terrorism, he basically set the stage for action. The choice was, rattle the saber and hope it is enough, or draw the saber and demonstrate our commitment to living up to our promises. It is fair to debate whether Iraq was the best choice for an operation, but the stage had also been set there as well. With promises being made at the UN, the choice was to continue to prove that promises meant nothing or to prove that they did. I believe that the lack of consequences in the past was a key factor in the terrorist activity leading up to and including 9/11. Without the resolve to back up our promises, our enemies will be emboldened to act. It does not get any simpler than that.

Iraq was a promise kept. Now, some people want us to renege on that promise and others. That is a dangerous position to be advocating. The thing is, the debate about Iraq belongs BEFORE we took action. And that debate DID occur. It occurred BEFORE the war. And the result was overwhelmingly in FAVOR of action. The congress granted President Bush the authority to act. The fact that they did not like his decision is moot. If they did not trust his ability to act, they were wrong to have given him the authority to do so. NOW they are wrong for challenging his decision after the fact. That brings us back to the concept of one's expectation of the results of one's actions. In many cases throughout history, the winner of a conflict was not always the one with the bigger army, the better equipment, and the best trained, or any of those factors. The winner quite often was the one with the greater will to win. Wars are won by will in far greater weight then in anything else. I would say that will is THE determining factor in success in any conflict. Obviously will is not enough. A greater force can sap the will of another army, but not always. The revolutionary war was won by will, not by military might. Vietnam was lost by will not by military might. And, Iraq will be won or lost by will alone. The consequences of this outcome will have long lasting impacts on the security of our nation. At this point, it does not matter whether we should have gone into Iraq. The fact is we are there now. We either complete the job and fulfill our promises to rebuild that nation and leave it with a stable and free society or we cut and run and have the world know with certainty that our word is null and void and that we have no resolve. That is the stakes. That is the goal of the terrorists: to prove they have resolve, to prove that we do not. Their victory will ensure increased attacks on all nations because the terrorists will have unimpeachable proof that their tactics will ultimately succeed. Bombings, beheadings, gross atrocities will be the weapons of choice in the future. Tactics that have been proven to bring down the mighty.

If will is the factor that determines the outcome, then will is the place where we must consider here and now. As far as our enemy is concerned, we MUST make them believe that they cannot succeed. We MUST make them sure that WE will prevail. We MUST prove to them that their tactics are ineffectual. There is a down side to that. Once an enemy realizes their tactics are not succeeding, they will change them. With an enemy of this nature, that could result in greater atrocities than we have yet seen. Yet, even then we must prevail. We must continue to demonstrate OUR resolve and OUR willingness to see this to the end and DEFEAT them. Since they have shown little regard for decency and life, since they have shown that our very existence is provocation to them, no amount of diplomacy or concessions will achieve an end satisfactory to our nation. The only solution is the demonstration of our willingness to defeat them despite their tactics.

Our goal is to defeat the will of the enemy. His goal is to defeat ours. Any indication that the enemy's will is faltering will bolster our own will. However, the opposite is true as well. Any indication that our will is faltering will embolden the enemy's will. Unfortunately, from the very first minute of this conflict, parts of our country have shouted from the very mountain tops just how little will they have to win the war. They demonstrate clearly for our enemies that we don't want to fight. They give clear indication that enemy tactics are successful. In effect, they give aid and comfort to the enemy and spur them on to continued fighting because they tell the enemy in clear messages that if they continue in their tactics, the United States will be defeated.

As I said before, the debate about whether we go to war is over. We are now at war, and the ONLY debate we should have is on what tactics are most appropriate for prosecuting that war. It is marginally fair to state that you are unhappy about our decision to go to war, but beyond that, anything else will embolden the enemy. Think very long and about what is at stake here. It is almost IMPOSSIBLE to be pro America while actively dissenting on ongoing conflict. It is bordering on treason for a public official to undermine the war effort, the Commander in Chief and the military publicly for all the world to see. We have started down this path, and there are but two choices: to win or to lose. There is no "suing for peace" with this enemy. Now, that does not mean you have to become militaristic and be a war monger. You can be a peacenik, but you need to consider that unless you want to see the United States harmed, you should cease criticism of the war itself until after it is won. There is plenty of time to castigate the people who made what you perceive as errors AFTER we have finished the job. However, if you persist in presenting disunity and a weakened resolve to the enemy, you take direct responsibility for the lives of all Americans, Iraqis and foreign terrorists that will die subsequently. The quickest way to end the war is to be united, to demonstrate unshakable resolve, and to have the enemy surrender. Or, YOU can surrender to the enemy. Anything else will just prolong the killing. This goes infinitely more so for our public leaders. What they do for political gain is completely unconscionable.

Posted by Eyago at July 8, 2005 08:28 AM

I think this is very succint, and right on the money. There is no appeasement wanted by this enemy, and if all people around the world who react in horror to the aims and practices of these people do not band together in purpose (if not method), then these bombings and deaths will continue.
They don't ask if you are muslim, or democrat, or a Bush-hater, or American, before the bombs explode.