Let's have some clarity. Things are going very well in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and have been all along.
And yet that's not the story at home. We've allowed ourselves to be distracted by a bunch of unimportant non-issues, starting with the hoo-hah and inquiry over Dr. Kelly's suicide, and continuing to the current hoo-hah over the supposed "lack" of WMD in Iraq, per the claims being made about David Kay's interim report.
People, stop it. Stop It!
Let's get back to the Big Picture:
We are engaged in a global war against Islamofascist terrorism, and it is a fight to the death for our culture. We win or we die.
And we're worried about why a UK Defense employee killed himself? A tragedy for his family, but otherwise of no significance whatsoever. Backbiting over this does nothing but aid our enemies.
We're upset because we didn't find Iraqi nuclear-tipped ballistic missles, cocked and locked?
HELLO?
The point was whether Saddam had, or was attempting to get, the capability to use WMD against us. Kay's report makes it very clear that the answer to that question is an emphatic YES.
Over and above that, to claim that Saddam "didn't have" WMD is an insult to the Iraqi people. Saddam was nothing but a walking, talking WMD, and hundreds of thousands Iraqi ghosts bear silent, damning witness..
But, when we step back to the big picture, even that is irrelevant.
The war is against Islamofascism. The question is whether operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have aided us and damaged our enemies. The answer is clearly yes.
So let's stop second-guessing the decisions of the past and figure out how we're going to go forward. This war is FAR from over, and the complete pacification of Iraq, when it comes, will not even be the end of the beginning.
Let's keep our perspective. This is early 1942, not late 1945.
Here's an interesting and encouragaing piece about the first Iraqi film project since the war, and indeed only the second feature film since the 1990 sanctions.
I got to thinking about the implications of the Gitmo spy ring. So far we don't know much, but it seems clear they were acquiring info about the physical layout, where individual prisoners were held, etc.
When I first heard that, I sort of chuckled internally, thinking "yeah, right, what are they gonna do with that?"
But today I got to thinking again.
If you were to take a whole awful lot of money and wave it in front of Castro, with the added bonus of bloodying America's nose, would he allow you to slide in a couple hundred terrorists, with medium weapons? Yeah, Castro might do that, he just might. He's getting damn old, and this would be a perfect way to thumb his nose at the US one more time.
Jets waiting at the airport to get 'em out. Large supplies of shoulder-launched missiles, lots of explosives and automatic weapons. Could they raise holy hell at the base, if only for moments? I don't know, but it sure seems plausible. Even if they all die in the attempt, hey, they strike us hard and in public, and send their brother martyrs to Allah, as opposed to leaving them to rot in the jails of America. This might seem a rather reasonable proposition, overall, to al Qaeda.
I hope and trust that they're gearing up security at Gitmo, big-time. We need to look competent right at the moment.
Yeah, I know that's not what a lot of folks are saying. Everyone who was against the war, overtly or covertly, is latching on to every piece of bad news so they can hold it up, and wave, and say "See? I told you so! The Sky Is Falling, The Sky Is Falling!".
To the contrary.
Yes, there is still some small-scale harassment. I don't want to minimize the danger or sacrifice of our troops in facing that (God bless and protect them all!), but militarily, these efforts are pinpricks.
That is not important. What is important is what is going on with the Iraqi people themselves. There are lots of signs that the idea of freedom is starting to take hold with them. They're starting to dare to think for themselves, and once that really takes hold there's no going back.
I read a story about the increase of business for small shopkeepers. This one fellow was talking about how many TV sets and satellite dishes he was selling (a lot).
And it hit me. Satellite dishes. Uncensored. For a people who have never had anything but the most restrictive of personality-cult State media. Wow. That alone says the Iraqi people are becoming a very different people, every single day. You can't go from no media to 100+ uncensored channels and not set off a lot of thinking.
For another datapoint, reference the article in the post below, about the return home of an Iraqi exile.
Yes, we're going to continue to hear ragging from the Axis of Weasels, and the rest of the UN, and the Democrats, and every-freakin'-body whose worst nightmare is for us to succeed at this. It won't matter. Bush has the fine quality of bull-headedness, and by the time any effective pressure can be brought to bear (even as a possibility), things will have progressed so far with the Iraqi people that there will be no turning back.
And then I suspect they're going to stand up and look all those folks in the eye who said they couldn't do it, that the Coalition couldn't do it, that it's all doomed to failure.
When I said "we're" winning the war, you probably thought I meant the Coalition. Uh-uh. I meant the Iraqi People, with the help of the Coalition. We're winning the war.
An important account of a young Iraqi exile's return to Iraq. Read this one.
Steven Den Beste has a commentary on it here. Read it too.
Wow, pretty provocative assertion. But Lee Harris makes exactly that assertion over at Tech Central Station in the article "Returning to the Central Question". And he makes a pretty convincing case, as well as a plausible explanation for why Saddam wanted to maintain the charade.
The existence of WMDs, and who knew what when, while interesting. is not important.
We did not go into Iraq to remove Saddam's WMDs. Nor was his violation of the UN resolution that he "had WMDs". No, the resolution concerned, and what we had to resolve for certain, was finding out whether he had WMDs or not. Saddam refused to prove he didn't. We went in to prove whether he did or didn't. Looks like we have done so. Mission Accomplished and Well Done to the troops.
Point is, we did not know whether he had WMDs or not, and that not knowing, itself, presented an intolerable danger to the USA. In addition, Saddam's desire for WMDs, and attempts to acquire them, had to be ended, for absolute certain, once and for all. We have now done so. Would we do it again, and will we do it again, should it become necessary? You bet.
And yes, I realize I am proposing a US foreign policy here that many will find worrisome, unfair, unilateralist, outrageous, warmongering, you-name-it. Whatever.
Hey group, remember when we said "we are at war"? And that "you are either with us or against us"? We meant it. We still do. We refuse to acknowledge a 21st Century where life is lived at the sufferance of WMD-armed terrorists. Not gonna happen.
The United States will not idly remain under the threat of terrorists using WMD. That's the message. We will do whatever it takes to remove that threat. We regard that as legitimate self-defense.
If the rest of the world wants to help with this, hail and well met, let's get to it. If not, get the heck out of the way or get run over, because we are going to do it.
There are many evils in the world that continue because we speak of them via euphemism rather than calling them by their plain names.
One of them is campaign contributions.
Let's call them what they really are: bribes.
Oh, true, they are a sort of "indirect" bribe. The money does not go directly into the pockets of the recipients. Instead it allows them to get elected. And then they use other factors arising from being in office to line their own pockets. Think not? Then explain to me why a guy will spend millions in his own money to win a job that pays hundreds of thousands. Not because he's stupid, and not because he's running a charity, either.
Campaign contributions are bribes. They are made, not because the giver wants to influence who gets into office, but because they want to buy the votes of the recipient, whomever that may be. As proof, look at the giving habits of PACs and etcetera. They often give about the same amounts to all major candidates in an election. Obviously, they aren't trying to influence the election. They are trying to influence the politician *after* the election. This is political corruption, plain and simple.
It's ironic that the Supreme Court has held that the mere spending of money is somehow "speech", and is protected, but various forms of pure speech are not protected. But let's put rants about the hypocrisy of the Supreme Court off for another day.
The question for today is how to stop campaign bribery, and yet not run afoul of the Court's bizarre interpretation of the First Amendment. I have a simple proposal: make all campaign contributions anonymous, by law. You can give all the money you want, but you cannot do so in any way that identifies you, nor can the receivers attempt to identify their benefactors.
This proposal allows you all the purchased "speech" you want - you just can't put your name on it in the expectation of making a profit later. We break the cycle of political bribery and return this to a Government of the People.
A radical proposal, I know. Mayhaps too radical for some. Ok, in that case let's just start by dropping the euphemism. Let's start calling political "contributions" what they really are: campaign bribes.