Posted on 04/19/2003 2:04:08 AM PDT by kattracks
Last Wednesday, Baghdad fell -- along with bronze icons of Saddam Hussein all over the country. And toppling in quick succession thereafter were the cities of Kirkuk and Mosul in the north, and finally this week Saddam's hometown of Tikrit. By Monday of this week, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal had declared, "The major combat operations are over." The circumstances remain dangerous, though, with pockets of regime loyalists and Jihadi terrorist and death-squad fighters still to be cleaned out, but a major front in our war with Jihadistan has been rendered safe.
And how about that war plan, described by every Leftmedia pundit three short weeks ago as "failed" and inevitably leading to a "quagmire"? The audacious war plan followed the maxim that "speed kills," against odds achieving tactical surprise by launching the ground offensives before the airstrikes, and driving straight for the heart of Baghdad. Saddam and his generals seem to have been following another warrior maxim -- that "generals always fight the last war." And they seemed shocked into inaction by the coalition fighters' boldness, as three weeks into the conflict, from their forward objective at Saddam International -- no, make that Baghdad International Airport -- the Army's 3rd Infantry Division took "thunder runs" through the capital city, killing an estimated 1,000 Iraqi soldiers on one night last weekend.
Gen. Tommy Franks needed a break from successful war planning, so on Wednesday he took a tour -- around Baghdad. He stopped for a cigar smoke and look-see around one of Saddam's palatial estates then met with his component commanders. They briefed Commander-in-Chief Bush from the palace. Nice victory lap for Gen. Franks and his "band of brothers"!
To the dismay of anti-American pundits at home and abroad, free Iraqi citizen-leaders representing Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds convened this week outside the city of Ur (the birthplace of Abraham) to discuss the formation of a new democratic republic. This first meeting produced a broad 13-point plan for self-governance and an end to the Ba'ath Party's reign of terror. Lt. Gen. Jay G. Garner will head the postwar administration for reconstruction until a permanent government can be established by the Iraqi people. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer noted this meeting "...should be always remembered as a day when Iraqis expressed different opinions and weren't shot for it."
When President George Bush's preemptive policy of "regime change" in Iraq was first announced 14 months ago, his administration made clear its post-military commitment to that historic cradle of civilization -- provide humanitarian assistance to civilians; advocate a unified, multi-ethnic democracy which is at peace with its neighbors; assist with economic aid to put Iraq on the path to prosperity; and ensure the territorial unity of Iraq until a new government can be established. Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld reiterated these points the day we crossed Iraq's border: "Iraq belongs to the Iraqi people, and once Saddam Hussein's regime is removed, we intend to see that functional and political authority is placed in the hands of Iraqis as quickly as possible. Coalition forces will stay only as long as necessary to finish the job, and not a day longer."
A significant question now is that of what role the UN will play in the reformation of Iraq. Clearly, as we have argued for years, the UN is totally ineffective. Its sanctions in Iraq have been adhered to only by law-abiding nations. (Kinda reminds us of the adage that if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.) There is mounting evidence that nations like France, Germany and Russia -- those members of the UN Security Council that so adamantly opposed Operation Iraqi Freedom -- have been in flagrant violation of UN sanctions in Iraq for years. They now want to sit in oversight of Iraq's interim administration and reconstruction. No thanks.
Laughably, now that Iraq has been liberated and President Bush has called on the UN to lift all sanctions, the UN is refusing until Hans Blix and his team are back on the ground and can affirm that all of Iraq's WMD programs have been discontinued. (And we thought the UN Security Council balked at Operation Iraqi Freedom because they were already satisfied Saddam had no WMD.)
And why, you ask, does Old Europe insist on controlling the postwar process, via the UN? Simply stated, their vested economic and political interests in Iraq and the region -- including illegal oil and arms contracts and billions of dollars in Iraqi IOUs -- make the more-or-less laisser-faire postwar approach of the Anglo-American coalition seem anything but imperialistic and oil-thirsty.
Speaking of laughable, Jacques Chirac called President Bush this week in what French Ambassador to the U.S. Jean-David Levitte characterized as a "key to reopening the door to friendship. You Americans saved us twice in the last century, and we will never forget it." (He really said that!)
It was Thomas Jefferson who warned in 1801: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none." Significantly, the aftermath of Iraq's liberation is the stage for the future of our "entangling alliance" with the UN. For more on why The Federalist concludes that the time has come for the U.S. to separate from the UN, and lay it to rest along side the League of Nations, see our supplemental essay, "The United Nations: Much Ado About Nothing."
In other news...
On top of the difficult process of establishing a functional democracy in Iraq after years of tyrannical rule, the U.S. also has begun the high-stakes search to determine where Iraq's WMD arsenals are located. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted, "We still have a lot of work to do in finding and securing weapons of mass destruction sites and making sure that those...weapons don't fall in the hands of terrorists."
Assisting in that search are a few captured Iraqi WMD program chiefs who are being "vigorously encouraged" to tell us what they know. Jaffar al-Jaffer, head of Iraq's nuclear WMD program who fled Iraq for Syria last month, is now in U.S. custody along with Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi, Saddam's military WMD and long-range missile chief. Our sources indicate that al-Saadi most likely knows all there is to know about where Saddam's WMD arsenals are located. And the home of microbiologist Rihab Taha, AKA "Dr. Germ," who headed the anthrax-weaponization program, was raided by U.S. Special Forces, and substantial evidence seized.
The overwhelming success of the regime-change in Iraq -- the domino effect of a proposed democracy in the heart of the Muslim world, combined with the U.S. mission to eliminate the Jihadistan WMD threat -- is creating some heartburn for Saddam's former allies. Most notably, last November, The Federalist reported that our intelligence sources believed some of Saddam's biological and nuclear WMD caches had been moved to Syria, though we still think substantial caches remain in Iraq. To that end, Secretary of State Powell put the Ba'athist regime of Bashar Assad in Damascus on notice Monday that if they don't come clean now, they are next in line to get "Saddamized": "As the President noted over the weekend, we are concerned that Syria has been participating in the development of weapons of mass destruction... [T]hey should review their actions and their behavior...especially the support of terrorist activity. And so we have a new situation in the region and we hope that all the nations in the region will now review their past practices and behavior."
To ensure Assad was all ears, the U.S. closed the spigot on an oil pipeline from Iraq estimated to pump 150,000 to 200,000 barrels of oil to Syria daily.
Speaking of "terrorism," there have been numerous discoveries in Iraq to support the terrorism element of the "nexus" between weapons of mass destruction and Jihadis as premier delivery and dispersal systems. And another "smoking gun" was found in Baghdad Tuesday. U.S. Special Forces captured long-sought terrorist Abu Abbas, who led the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship in 1985 and murdered elderly disabled American passenger Leon Klinghoffer.
Of course, Abu Abbas is only the latest of the terrorist smoking guns. In addition to reams of evidence linking Iraqi intelligence to al-Qa'ida discovered in the last month, last August The Federalist reported that Abu Nidal, a leading Jihadistan mastermind responsible for three decades of murder and mayhem, was found dead in Baghdad. Nidal headed the Fatah-Revolutionary Council, which is culpable for hundreds of terrorist attacks and murders.
Quote of the week...
"Our work is not done; the difficulties have not passed; but the regime of Saddam Hussein has passed into history. Thanks to the courage and the might of our military, the American people are more secure. Thanks to the courage and might of our military, the Iraqi people are now free." --President George W. Bush
On cross-examination...
"Our military no longer is just a fighting force per se, but is asked to preserve oil fields, clear waterways, organize oppressed peoples like the Kurds, feed those without food and water, and under fire distinguish killers from innocents. When it clears Iraq of Saddam Hussein, it will have been done more to feed and help the Iraqi people than all the efforts of the UN of the last two decades." --Victor Hanson
Open query...
"How many more thousands of Iraqis dancing in the streets as Saddam's statues are pulled down would it take for the naysayers to admit that they were mistaken?" --David Stolinsky
Mark Alexander is Executive Editor and Publisher of The Federalist, a TownHall.com member group.
I have been screaming at the TV screen for weeks now asking the same question.
The answer is simple. The administration is whistling past the graveyard, and hoping time and space will be arrested and the logical consequence never noticed by anyone.
Let me explain.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Iraq has gone from Stone Age barbarism, rule by terror and politics by disappearance firmly embedded in the culture, to demonstrations against the U.S. liberators demanding their "rights", without a decent interval of civilization.
This patently won't work; can't work.
This will be followed shortly by overwhelming, violent and murderous demonstration throughout the muslim "world". The "mother's milk" of muslim (arab) culture.
This will be accompanied by internecine murder on a continuing basis, for which all armies are ill equipped.
Impossible to put down without significant loss of life.
Kill them now or kill them later.
Or go home and wonder what happened.
How else to fight a society in which the first approach is always to eliminate (physically) the enemy?
Topping all these points is the 800-pound gorilla in the Drawing Room that our administration and our experts continue to ignore:
The extremist violent and intractable "muslims" are not a tiny minority; They are a distinct majority, at least functionally. No evidence of an effective counterweight can be seen. The occasional group of children waving and smiling at our troops is a pathetic counterweight to the tens of thousands of angry spittle-spewing hateful neanderthals, who will equally shoot a rival on the road or at the "suit and tie" nation-building symposium.
To state it as briefly as possible, Islam sucks. And no suggestion will animate the mobs more readily than the suggestion that religion have no part in the center of power in the "new" Iraq.
Unfortunately, that is the one hope at success: to emulate the grand dream of Ataturk, and forge a religion-free Iraq.
Islam is a potentially useful servant and a terrible sadistic master. Again unfortunately, that 800-pound gorilla is not likely to "go quietly into that good night..."
Of course, Abu Abbas is only the latest of the terrorist smoking guns. In addition to reams of evidence linking Iraqi intelligence to al-Qa'ida discovered in the last month, last August The Federalist reported that Abu Nidal, a leading Jihadistan mastermind responsible for three decades of murder and mayhem, was found dead in Baghdad. Nidal headed the Fatah-Revolutionary Council, which is culpable for hundreds of terrorist attacks and murders.
Excellent news!
After 9/11 it has come to depend on us, but only in what we allow it to inflict on us. Its either we face it now, or our future generations will have to face after living under its shadow of terror.
It is simple. They came and kicked a hornet’s nest. We cannot go and do the same because if we do it, we lose. We have to go and squash the nest with the hornets inside and in such a way that if one escapes that thing will fly as far away as possible from any other nest. That may be drastic but is merciful because it cuts it off and saves lives. If I can understand that, a midlife housewife, mother of three, who cleans the house and bake the cookies any one can see it. But they need to be shown the facts.
Maybe they are up to carry it to its end. We are so close to make it ...
I was hoping that you would have given equal time to the central question:
Why are all these telling discoveries not compiled and shown on both domestic and foreign television constantly?
The truth and reality trumps all propaganda, no matter how artfully woven,
It is free.
And it is there in mind-boggling abundance.
Why have we (our leaders) failed to exploit that treasure trove of ugly reality?
It seems that our leaders continue viewing what is happening worldwide through a (PC) straw.
I sent her 35c to call her mother, or anyone else who may care.
How uncivilized of me!
Happy Easter, dear, and all fellow Freepers.
Happy Easter also to all Muslim people of good will.
Logical final sentence censored to avoid disabling an otherwise noble sentiment...
War is a whole lot more gruesome, that is how they are won. The cultures on the Middle East have the stomach for that. You see when their policemen make their looters arrest that it is followed by a series of smacks on the head, I assume some kicking too, but they do not show it. We see that and say "Police brutality". The Iman or Ayatollah that was killed on site at the Mosque, it is reported that he was dismembered. They did it with their bare hands (well maybe a machete or two but you get my point).
I assume that our leaders knowing that we have the potential to become how you say, sick to our stomachs they are doing a balance trick much like walking on a tight rope, but on 9/12 it was not so. People got it and violence started to happen in here against the muslins sectors in certain cities. So I say they have to be careful or they can find themselves caught between 2 fires.
Do I agree with that? Not really. I think if the whole truth comes to surface, the Muslims will feel ashamed and the romantic aura of the “jihadistic” mentality will breake down. Right now, they remain the victims. Absurd as it is, they remain the victims because we have not allowed them to reap what they have sown. We have helped them by concealing their ways and reality. I believe that people in here can be shocked into reality and that is our only hope. Because if they see it as it is, then the public opinion will shift and these Muslims in our midst can be hold accountable for offering moral support and solidarity to a cause as that one is.
That requires a strong hand also on the sector in here that will try to take advantage of the polarization to push their agendas like Farrakhan and the white supremacists. They too need to be shamed with the truth of what they are promoting. The best resource America has is its people, I believe in them. I believe that people can handle and more then that, they need the truth, if they be given it they will surprise many.
Why is it that Fox News is so popular? It is not a phenomena, it is a reality that has gone ignored. People have common sense but sometimes our intelectual elites alienate themselves thinking that common Joe can not think.
Sorry if it takes me a little to answer I am writing while doing laundry and tending the kitchen and watching Fox :-)
Everything I Learned From Leftist Media Is On Its Way To The Sewage Treatment Plant.
France, Germany, Russia and China opposed the war which reveals their complicity with the late Saddam Hussein.
Behold the UN, a nest of writhing maggots exposed when the garbage can is lifted away.
No role for collaborators in rebuilding Iraq.
Next time (North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, etc.) save time: no detour through diplomacy--JDAM the snakehead; full speed ahead.
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