WORTH THE PRICE? (Neal Boortz - 12/22/05 Good Read)

Yesterday we had a caller, I think his name was Hayden, who wanted to know if I thought that 1000 lost American lives was a price worth paying for deposing Saddam Hussein. Good question. Fair question. And its a question that many people would try to finesse. I didn't. The answer was "yes."

We've covered this before, but it bears repeating. Sometimes you make a decision based on the consequences of failure to act. Various types of insurance are an example. You don't buy car insurance because you expect to be in an accident. You buy car insurance because the consequences of getting in an accident without that insurance are something you don't want to deal with. Certainly Saddam Hussein could have been left in the seat of power in Iraq. One could say that the odds might have been pretty strong that no great calamity would have befallen the United States if Saddam had been left alone. We already know the cost of removing Saddam; over 1000 American lives and the deaths of many Iraqis. What, though, could have been the potential worst-case cost of leaving him in power?

We know that Saddam had chemical weapons. He used them to kills tens of thousands of Iranians and his own people. We know that Saddam had biological weapons. We also know that Saddam was working on developing a nuclear weapon. People have conveniently forgotten that Iraqi nuclear scientist who stepped forward and led coalition officials to the equipment Saddam had ordered buried in his back yard ... equipment used to develop weapons-grade uranium.

So let's say we leave Saddam alone. We're just not willing to pay the price to depose him. Almost certainly Iraqis would continue to die at his hands by the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. Saddam's grave diggers would have genuine job security. And, once Saddam figured out that the United States was not going to act against him, he most certainly would have cranked up his weapons programs again. How long would it have been before Saddam managed to build his first nuclear devise? Oh, you say we could have prevented that with UN inspectors and a policy of containment? Containment, you say? Like the oil-for-food program? Yeah, that worked, didn't it? And how many times did Saddam kick inspectors out of Iraq? The only time inspectors were allowed any freedom of operation in Iraq at all was during those periods when Saddam genuinely feared a US military strike. Remove that threat and inspectors are gone.

What might be the price we pay for failing remove Hussein? The 9/11 Commission made it clear that there were contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda. We also know that Saddam openly financed and rewarded terrorist attacks against Israel. Saddam showed every willingness to support terrorist causes, who's to say that he wouldn't have placed some of his chemical, biological or nuclear materials with Islamic terrorists? Could one of Saddam's bombs make it into a container on a ship bound for New York? Can you see that container being loaded on a truck bound for midtown Manhattan? What price would we pay then? What price would our 20-20 hindsight tell us was too much to pay to prevent the100,000 dead that would result from a terrorist nuclear attack in New York?

Saddam wasn't deposed just to avoid the negative consequences of his continuing in power. There were positive benefits to pursue also. Like it or not, admit it or not, but the world is experience yet another world war. This is the war against radical Islam. Islam was once the dominant cultural, military and political force in the world. Islam's slide to degenerate obscurity was partially brought about by its continued denial of even the most basic freedoms to its people. Today a powerful and capable Islamic fundamentalist movement is determined to reinstate Islam to what they believe its God-ordained role as the world's dominant and ruling religion. These Islamic radicals will use any tool, including murder on a scale unimaginatively massive, to achieve that goal.

In the short term the greatest weapon that can be brought to bear against Islamic terrorism is brute, unrelenting force. In the long term the greatest weapon would be freedom. If the United States and its coalition succeeds in Iraq -- and it must succeed -- in taking the largest and potentially wealthiest country in the Middle East and converting it into a showcase of freedom with a government freely elected by its people, the United States would have dealt a devastating blow to the cause of Taliban-type Islamic fundamentalism. The desire to be free is universal (except, perhaps, in the United States). Show the virtually enslaved people of the Middle East that freedom can be theirs and they'll do their part to defeat the cause of the Islamic terrorists who vow to attack and kill us.

If ... hopefully when ... the United States and its coalition partners succeed in creating in Iraq a government freely elected by the people and a government that recognizes and upholds the rights of those people history will show it to be one of the greatest accomplishments for the cause of true world peace and freedom ever achieved by any nation. Many of the men and women who have given their lives in Iraq recognized this. Too bad more American's don't.

Emotions ran strong after that attack on the mess tent in Mosul yesterday. One listener emailed his opinion that the United States just "cannot be the world's policeman."

OK ... fine. Let's go with that. We just have to stop being the world's policeman. Your next job is to pick a replacement. Like it or not, some nation or some entity is going to assume the role of enforcing its version of a world view on the rest of us. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the intensity with which political nature abhors a power vacuum is something to behold. There has never in the history of civilization been any society where someone or something did not dominate and rule, sometimes benignly, often not, over the others. Where this is true for societies and cultural enclaves, it is doubly true for the community of nations. Throughout the history of the world there has always been one nation-state that dominated world affairs. Again, sometimes benignly, sometimes not. This world has been blessed for the past 100+ years by the fact that the dominate nation, the big dog, the 800-pound gorilla has been the United States. There were options. Nazi Germany comes to mind, or the Japanese Empire. Then, of course, there was Soviet Union and its determination to bring about one world living under communism.

Think about this. In almost every war, save two*, in which the United States has been involved the country we were at war with was rebuilt following the conflict and its people were left to chose and elect their own government. Can you name another powerful nation with such a history? Following World War II the Soviet Union robbed the people of how many nations their freedom? I lost count somewhere. Some of those nations are still fighting to this day to regain their independence.

There are people, Americans included, who hate the United States for its strength. These people harbor the naive world view that no nation should be stronger than another, and that no one nation should ever be allowed to dominate world affairs. Somehow, in their convoluted logic-starved minds, these people have forgotten that someone, somewhere, is going to be the top dog. Or, in the alternative, they fully realize that every wolf pack has it's dominant male, and they just want that dominant male to be someone else. And just who would that be? The United Nations? Is that what they're after? They recognize that someone is inevitably going to fill the role of "the world's policeman," and they want that someone to be the hopelessly corrupt and blatantly anti-American United Nations?

There has never been any nation in this history of man's time on earth that has done so much good for so many people as has the United States. There has never been any nation that has done so much to spread the cause of freedom and self-government then has the United States. These accomplishments have come about because the United States is both benevolent and powerful. Take away either element and the positive influence of the United States on the affairs of the world and the lives of people everywhere will be all but gone.

So, for those of you who believe that the United States cannot be the world's policeman, fine. You pick the replacement, because a replacement there will be. Let me know who you think can do a better job.

*The two exceptions are what is commonly called the "Civil War," and the Vietnam War. Some people despised the fact that in Vietnam Americans were killed in a war that the politicians were not dedicated to winning. Today people despise the fact that we're in a war that our leaders are determined to win. You just can't please everyone.

The death toll has been revised downward from yesterday's Islamic terrorist attack in Mosul. Among the dead were 14 American soldiers, 4 U.S. contractors and 3 Iraqi security personnel. Another 72 people were wounded, including 51 soldiers. So what happened?

At about Noon local time (4am Eastern time,) the GIs sat down to lunch in their mess tent at Forward Operating Base Marez. It was at that time that bloodthirsty, hate-filled, jihadist Muslims (or as the media prefers, "insurgents") raised their rocket launchers onto their shoulders and fired four rockets at the mess tent. One rocket hit its intended target, one exploded outside, and two missed the target entirely. Supposedly they recorded video of the attack on the mess tent. If that's the case, you can bet Al-Jazeera will be showing it over and over again.

The Islamic terrorist group Jaish Ansar Al-Sunna claimed responsibility on a website for the murders. These are same vicious bastards that have also taken responsibility for other attacks, including the beheadings of a Turkish truck driver, a Kurdish official and the killings of 12 Nepalese hostages. This group advocates rule by an strict Islamic theocracy, like the Taliban. In short, they hate freedom and liberty. That's what this is about....and what's it's always been about. The terrorists hate us because of our freedom.

Some will look at this terrorist attack and call for the United States to leave Iraq. On the contrary, it's time to dig in and annihilate these S.O.B.'s once and for all. We've been being too nice, and we're paying for it with American lives. These Islamo-fascist thugs won't stop attacking our troops until they start to fear retribution. It's about time we provide it.

There is still one unresolved election that's been too close to call since November 2nd: the Washington state's governor's race. It's become quite the little drama, with the Democratic candidate taking a page from Al Gore's 2000 Florida. The story is the same: the Republican won the initial count and has won the recount. Now the Democrats are trying to steal the election.

Republican Dino Rossi won the first count by 261 votes. He won a machine recount by 42 votes. Refusing to concede, Democrat Christine Gregoire demanded a hand recount. That's right...a hand recount of 2.9 million votes. The results of that hand recount are in, and naturally, Gregoire won. Her margin of victory?

8 votes. That's right, 8 votes. But that's not all....once the latest recount was underway, election workers "found" another 700 ballots in (surprise!) heavily Democratic King County. Rossi didn't stand a chance....the left rigged the recount from the start.

The state Supreme Court is scheduled to hear case involving the 700 "missing" ballots. It used to be that what liberals couldn't win at the ballot box, they tried to legislate from the bench. Now it seems they are resorting to cutting out the middle man and stuffing the ballot box.

So now the Democratic party is trying to steal the election for governor in Washington state. Keep an eye on this one. Meanwhile ... which Democrat do you believe is now in the dog house in Florida for failing to "find" the "missing" ballot box there?

Let's see .. current unemployment figures would be described as "low" --- if there was a Democrat in the White House. We have record home ownership. Minority incomes are rising faster than the incomes of evil white folks. Home ownership is at a record high. More Americans are working right now than at any time in the entire history of our country, and now we read that the DOW is at a 3 1/2 year high. Why? Because American businesses are reporting better-then-expected earnings. The DOW closed yesterday at 10,737.70 ... the highest close since before 9/11. In spite of all of this you will still see talking heads on television talking about how bad the American economy is. I even heard the word "dismal" yesterday. These, my friends, are the people we rely on for news. Aren't you glad you have a hate-filled right-wing, neo-con, reactionary, pseudo-libertarian, bald-headed and overbearing talk show host like me to let you know what's really going on?

Iraq is not worth what the US has put into it. I blame Arabs who don't want peace, muslims who only want to murder in the name of their filthy, violent religion, and a US government that is more concerned with being loved by foreigners and 24 hour news networks than with winning a war and saving the lives of common soldiers.

It must be seriously demoralizing to the average soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan to know that getting caught doing his job (shooting 'insurgents') by a terrorist-sympathizer journalist with a camera (pretty much all of them) will get him court-martialed and jailed.

Let the scum fight it out amongst themselves, I say. We'll buy oil from the winner. Or maybe (just maybe) we'll get smart...and NOT buy oil from the winner.

"OK -- SO YOU DON'T WANT US TO BE THE "WORLD'S POLICEMAN" When asked a similar question ("Should the U.S. be the world's policeman?"), Russian dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn replied "Better the U.S. as the world's policeman than the Soviets as the world's jailers". Since the Soviets are the model for communist repression everywhere, that is generally regarded to mean all communists by extension.

One can make an effective case of that applying to Saddam as well, since the Russian Soviets were his suppliers and military and political (which, under communism, are distinctly connected) mentors for decades. Now to be fair, so were we, but we bailed when we found out what how bad he was.

People in the West don't often see it, because the radical Arab world has done a great job of obfuscating it, but the politics behind Radical Islam are thinly veiled Communist doctrine and dogma. It's been taught in the universities in the Arab world for decades, and it's the root of the "haves vs. the have-nots" mentality of their "struggle". Strip away the religious connotations, and one sees basic dialectic Marxism at the core.

It is how they are able to murder millions of people around the world under the guise of religion.

"Iraq is not worth what the US has put into it."

Couldn't agree more and I'm not jumping on the bandwagon, that's been my view since this war began. If Bush had sold the war as the war to liberate Iraq vs rid Iraq of WMD the Amercan public would have never backed it. That's what we have now American's dying to liberate Iraq while Iraqis protest and tell us to go home. So no Iraq is not worth one American life. Let Iraqis fight and die for their liberation.

Better to fight them there now than here later.

We have lost a 1000+ well trained, good soldiers fighting these murdering punks.

Imagine the lives lost if we had to fight them in America with the resources of the police.

This is no slight against the law enforcement community, but, they are not equipped to deal with what these Islamofascists are doing now in Iraq now.

Never mind that now even the military is having to deal with the likes of the ACLU and the second guessing of the left.

The population of this country lacks the perspective of history to judge the losses and the cost of failing.

Just this week the History channel ran a documentary on the battle of Antietam during the American Civil War. There were 23,000 dead in one day.

One day, on one battlefield.

On D-Day at Normandy, the Americans suffered 2,400 casualties at Omaha on June 6.

That was on one day one of five (Gold, Juno, Sword, Omaha and Utah) sections of one battlefield.

This war was made on us. We have to answer the aggression lest we succumb to it.

To appease these malcontents as France and England did Hitler would be to suffer the same fate.

My liberal co-worker who is just so livid that "everyone hates us" tried to defend the Japanese the other day. His son went to Japan for a visit and he remarked how they hated him and would not let him in certain restaurants. I remarked, "Payback is a bitch". Of course he said "all those women and children". I knew he was going to sympathize with Japan. He would never mention Pearl Harbor nor sympathize with what happened to us. I believe this man is a miserable nut case.

Especially for the Iraqis - they get the freedom (maybe), while someone else is paying the price.

Unfortunately, the whole country will probably devolve into warring religious factions, with the shiite-heads on top and allied w/ Iran.

Freedom is a bargain at any price.

Are you not up to date with reality? Even in the article, NB points out that a: Iraq has had and used both Chemical, and Biological weapons against Kurds, Iranians, Kuwaitis, etc. b: Iraq had a very active Nuc weaps program. Have you forgotten the Nigerian yellow cake uranium? Have you forgotten the weapons convoys to Syria? The only thing prior to Iraq II that prevented Hussein (sp) from actively attacking the continental US was rear of reprisal!

Especially for the Iraqis - they get the freedom (maybe), while someone else is paying the price.

The million + in mass graves is part of the price they have already paid. Since the war has started, many more Iraqis have lost their lives attemting to gain freedom than Americans. We are not the only ones paying the price. Not all Iraqis are enemies.

Freedom is never free. Iraq has it's patriots yearning for freedom too.

Dont' bother, for some history begins when they awake in the morning!

After 9/11, Bush could not fight a war with the Islamic cults with Saddam and Sons over his shoulder. (if not for the deposing of Saddam, his goons would be in Afganastan right now, killing us)

As for the Iraqi population, I saw no refugees before the war, during the intitial war, and I see none leaving now.

I would say that 25 million Iraqi souls now have a chance at a civilized society.

And millions of other Islamics in the ME and their children can see that the way of suicide, murdering innocent infidels, is in the past, and no longer "fruitful" for them as a society.

We knew about the chemicals during the Iran/Iraq war. We backed Iraq so we looked the other way. The Bush administration has publicly stated that the yellow cake story was inaccurate. The Brits are sticking with the story but I have to take the word of our administration. No evidence has ever been presented on "weapons convoys to Syria". Our government has never made that allegation and if we knew it (saw it) we would have stopped it. As for the nuc weapons program, our investigators found that Iraq possessed no nuclear material. So to answer your question Chief, yes I am up to date with reality, as up to date as our government investigations have revealed.

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