The Corner: For All Those Who Don't Have One

Payne and Pleasure 9.6.04
By William Payne

“Bush Lied, Kids Died!” So went the common chant of protestors at the Republican National Convention this week. Prominent Democrats, from DNC Chairman Terry “McAwful” McAuliffe to America’s Favourite Trial Lawyer John Edwards, have essentially echoed the same charge, although they used different words in order to avoid coming of as 1960s Radicals. This is the basic accusation of the Left, from Hollywood Starlets to Michael Moore to the Senate Democratic Caucus, that Bush lied and tricked America into this war, based on false pretenses. However, as we look back on Operation Iraqi Freedom while the Election Season truly gets underway, I am awestruck by how correct the Bush Administration was in its pre-War assertions. From the human rights situation to the now supposedly-“infamous” issue of Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction programs, let’s re-examine the reasons for going to war:

DEMOCRACY IN THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST - Before the War, a widely circulated claim among the mid-level people at the State and Defence Departments was that regime change in Iraq was a key step towards peace in the Middle East. Realistically, they claimed, there could be no peace in the Middle East with Saddam Hussein in power- the Road to Peace in Jerusalem runs through Baghdad. And what have we found? Attacks on Israel fell drastically. Using our newfound bargaining power with the Arabs, we forced the Palestinian Authority to accept a new Premiership, led by fairly moderate figures such as Abu Mazen and Ahmed Queria. Arafat has lost legitimacy and influence, and he sits one political miscalculation away from removal from the West Bank, arrest, or even assassination. The progress we’ve made in the past year is clearly attributable to the leverage we’ve gained as the resolute liberators of Iraq.

HUMAN RIGHTS… OR LACK THEREOF - We knew Saddam Hussein was a brutal murderer, who even killed members of his own family because of his paranoid obsession with power. He had gassed not only his enemies, the Iranians, but used chemical weapons on his own citizens who he thought might rebel against his power (Leftist: So where ARE those Weapons of Mass Destruction??? Right-Thinker: Ask the Kurds. They might’ve seen them…). When we got into Iraq, we found the situation was much worse than we expected. We dug up multiple mass graves each day- bodies of those massacred by the madman Hussein. It struck me as particularly inappropriate, when, at the Republican National Convention when the convention protestors read out the name of the war dead- both Coalition and Iraqi- that have died since the execution fo Operation Iraqi Freedom, in an attempt to protest the President’s Iraq policy. There was no mention of those who we have discovered in mass grtaves, no reading of THEIR names. If we’re going to debater this war in terms of human life, it has net saved many many thousands of lives.

POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY - Today, the government Iraq is a fledgeling democracy, with elections scheduled for the near future. Do yout hinkt hat the Iraqi people would be able to “rock the vote” just as we Americans do had Saddam Hussein remained in power? Would they be in a place to shine as a beacon of democracy I n the Middle East for many years to come with Saddam Hussein still in power? No, ladies and gentlemen, and that is why I am glad that, today, Saddam Hussein sits in a jail cell (writing poetry- talk about bizarre…) and our Great President, George W. Bush, sits in the Oval Office, not the other way around, as the Democrats would like to have it.

IRAQ/TERRORISM CONNECTION - Before Operation Iraqi Freedom, Czech Intelligence purported that Mohammed Atta, famed practicioner of the Religion of Peace, received significant assistance from Saddam Hussein and friends, including a major briefing in Prague in August 2001. Now, Israeli Intelligence- Mossad- and Britain MI6 both support the Czech claim, but, after pressure from Congressional Democrats, the CIA caved and expressed some doubt of the veracity of the Czech claims. Now, who do we choode to believe, the prominent intelligence agencies of the Free World, including Czech Intelligence, the people WHO WERE ACTUALLY THERE MONITORING IT WHEN THE MEETING TOOK PLACE (!!!), or the CIA, which the Left has spent the last year and half, not to mention the entire Cold War, attempting to discredit? The people, again, WHO WERE ACTUALLY THERE and the revered Mossad, or the people who, five minutes ago, liberals tried to convince us were total stooges? Anyone? In addition to the assistance Saddam Hussein provided to the 9/11 Terrorists, there’s also the al Qaeda contingent of the terrorist operation today in Iraq, that friendly group of people who Michael Moore likes to compare to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and company.

In this kooky view of the Media’s darling “Insurgency,” the Iraqi George Washington is the terrorist mastermind al Zarkawi, who runs the suicide bomber contingent who has managed to kill less than 1,000 Coalition troops in nearly two years (You’d think that even John Kerry, WHO SERVED IN VIET NAM, could kill more if he were in al Zarkawi’s position. IT’s hard to take the current perpetrators of violence in Iraq seriously with the operation they’ve got going- it’s pathetically ineffectitive, statistically speaking… to the point that two-bit criminals in Detriot and Washington seem to be more effective at killing people than the “mass insurgency” the media portrays them as.) Anyways, al Zarkawi was one of the figures the US believed was part of the link from Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden- one of al Qaeda’s chiefs who took up residency in Baghdad several years ago and began working with Mr. Hussein. Now, he’s leading the terrorist contingent in Iraq on behalf of al Qaeda. This is the verification if not amplification of one of the main reasons to go to War with Saddam Hussein- now, instead of a terrorist mastermind coroberating with Saddam Hussein, he’s likely to end up soon on the business end of an American M-16. Instead of providing an open connection between the most dangerous terrorist group ion the world, which has successfully infiltrated America many times, and Saddam Hussein, self-professed seeker of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, al Zarkawi is managing a losing terrorist operation, Saddam Hbussein spends his days writing poetry from his jail cell, and Osama bin Laden is on the run from American and Pakistani forces on the Afghan-Paskistani border. The War is fought in Baghdad and Fallujah, not New York and Washington. Improvement, no?

LIBYA - Very simply, a few days after Saddam Hussein was captured, Momar Qaddafi signaled his intention to cooperate with the US and the UK and surrender his Weapons of Mass Destruction to the Great Powers of the 21st Century. Simply, even if Saddam Hussein had not hadf these Weapons, the world has rid at least one nation of these weapons as a result of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Having these weapons sitting in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, rather than for sale on the Islamic Terrorist Black Market is a boon to America, most certainly.

THOSE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION - Now, silly liberals’ favourite example of “Bush Lied” are those pesky Weapons of Mass Destruction. Where are they? Sadly, the answer is not that complicated, and, sadly, it isn’t that the Weapons don’t exist. Worse, the weapons, according to the Department of Dence’s unofficial word and the loud claims of Mossad, were shipped before the War to Syria and Syrian-controlled Lebanon, buried underground. This is perhaps the worst outcome of the War, but a much better position for the World to be in than prior to the liberation of Iraq. Now, instead of Saddam being loosed on the world with these weapons, theyre being hidden in Syria. Whilke it is now unlikely thst these weapons will be used in a conventional; manner against anyone for quite a while, terrorists could still seize even a small number of weapons from this stockpile and wreak havoc upon the civilized world. Hence, this is a pressing case for pressing action against Syria, possibly by Israel. The world must be rid of these dangerous Weapons of Mass Destruction. Nor does this situation speak highly of the wrangling over the possibility of military action in 2002 and the first months of 2003. Clearly, had we spent less time embroiled in the domestic turmoil over the war and launched a surprise interdiction into Iraq, we mfgihtve apprehended these weapons before they were shipped out of the country. This entire case speaks tro the ridiculousness of the Democratic Party. This is not the time for “oversight” and “investigation” by Congress. This si a time for the furious defence of America and her allies by our most noble commander-in-chief. Congress can ask questions later, but, as for right now, this is a time in which the President needs to be given greater authority and more options in order to defend Amerrica. If we spend more time wrangling over specific military actions in Congress, we lose our chance of suprising our enemies and hitting them at the weakest, rather than giving them time to dispose of their weapons and terrorists and time to build up opposing armed forces.

This was a just war. We know so now more than ever. To deny it is to deny reality, to deny that America is threatened by the association between international terror and Islamic strongmen rulers in the Middle East, the most threatening alliance to face America in the history of the Republic. These madmen cannot be negotiated with or contained like the Commuinists coul, nor can they realatively quickly pushed back, like the Nazis. This struggle will not quickly end, but it must be fought- and won. President Bush is the right man for the job, and his decision to attack Saddam Hussein was justified and necessary. If we cut and run as the Democrats plan to if John Kerry is elected, we will be so very close to losing the War on Terror that we may not recover. That, my friends, is why Four More Years is vital to the survival of America, to the West, and to civilization itself.

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