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| Iraq |
| NRO’s Jed Babbin: Only Half Done |
| 2003-08-27 |
| August 26, 2003, 9:00 a.m. The future is in Iraq. EFL That blood is still being shed in Iraq is stated every day with calculated surprise. Voiced by the media, the Dems and our faux-allies in the U.N., the surprise is a criticism of our termination of Saddam’s regime, implying falsely that we promised instant success. What these critics willfully overlook is that while we fight the remnants of Saddam’s regime, we are also at war — quite literally — with Iraq’s terrorist neighbors. Iraq is the stage upon which the future of the Middle East is being fought out. Fighting and exposing innuendo and half-truths is, indeed, worthy of sarcasm... The honey pot / flypaper game is afoot... The truth is more than Gen. John Abizaid said last week when he said that Iraq is the center of the global war on terrorism. Though he and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that terrorists are coming into Iraq from Syria, they both stopped short of stating the undiplomatic but terribly clear fact that the governments of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and others have decided to make a stand against freedom in Iraq. In addition, the Sudan, Afghani Taliban, and Palestinian terrorists have all joined the fight. The president almost confirmed this last Friday when he said that there was a "foreign element" moving into Iraq. Sorry, Mr. President. They aren’t moving into Iraq. They have been there almost since our campaign began, and more are still coming. So we control the killing ground and, if we get smart, we can even control access to it. "Hey you! Hold on there, buddy - take a number and wait your turn!" Military pros know that, properly employed, this can be a non-stop ambush... by us. So let the pros turn it around on the shitheads... On April 10, Oliver North reported from the frontlines that all of the so-called "Saddam Fedayeen" being caught or killed by the Marines, not one of them was Iraqi. All were Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians, Egyptians, Afghanis, and Sudanese. Hezbollah from Lebanon and Syria were there by the hundreds, and more were coming in by the day. Ansar-al-Islam, the Iraqi terrorists known to be linked to al Qaeda (and among whom are Moroccans, Iraqis, Jordanians, and others) were also there, and were being reinforced continuously. Three days later, and weeks before the president declared the major military action over, a Marine was killed at a checkpoint near Baghdad by a terrorist attacker. The attacker, who was also killed in the incident, was found to be carrying a Syrian identification card. As it was then, so it is now. We firmly believe in Equal Opportunity - even to die, if they’re so inclined. It is time to remind ourselves that the Iraq campaign is not a war unto itself. It is a chapter — certainly the most important so far — in the war on terrorism. Iraq holds great promise for its people and the whole Middle East. The promise of freedom for Iraqis is dependent on two things. First, Iraq’s final escape from the brutality of Saddam’s regime will only be achieved by Saddam’s capture or provable death. Second, it is also dependent upon the defeat of Iraq’s terrorist neighbors. Looking past the end of one’s nose is good... Perhaps the Press will consider it. Naw, didn’t think so. None of the despotisms that are among Iraq’s neighbors — Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Syria — can continue if freedom blossoms in Iraq. So those governments are actively involved in funding, supplying, and reinforcing the terrorists and remnants of Saddam’s regime fighting us in Iraq. Iraq cannot be free, and its people finally liberated, unless and until we end the interference of those governments. In the end, it’s Us vs Them. Sorry, but they decided this before they even showed up for the game. So - turn this into an opportunity, instead of eye-rolling and screaming quagmire. The mere thought of further American action in the Middle East gives the Deaniebopper Democrats a case of the vapors. They sing the same song as the EUnuchs and the U.N., who argue that for us to even consider taking further action proves our arrogance and colonial ambitions. They accuse us of wanting to remake the map of the Middle East to suit ourselves. There are three answers to that. The first is: baloney. We are not now, and have never been, a colonial power. Never — from WWI France to 2003 Iraq — have we tried to keep or exploit for our own purposes any nation we have freed from oppression. The second answer is that we are not about remaking maps. The Brits, Russians, Italians, and French have more than once remade the map of the Middle East for precisely those purposes, and created the environment in which we now have to fight. Third, and most important, is that we have no choice but to end the threat of terrorism from these nations. More... This is some good analysis which points out the futility of considering Iraq to be a diversion from the WoT - it’s the primary stage upon which much of the action will take place. Centre Court at the Wimbledon Terror Tournament... Babbin’s closer: "We are half done in Iraq. We will never be done in Iraq until we finish the job in Teheran, Damascus, and Riyadh." Read the whole thing. |
| Posted by:.com |
| #4 Read a discussion that we need to reactivate the two divisions that we deactivated after the Cold War but that it will take 10 years to do so. Is there a quicker way? Could you split a division like the 10th Mountain in two and then fill it out? Could you permanently activate a Reserve Unit and then replace those who wanted to stay Reserve on a one-for-one basis over time? I know very little about army units. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-8-27 1:28:08 PM |
| #3 Ptah - I forgot to put, in vewy vewy small type, "(Commentary!)" after the title - sorry folks. That's 2 posting errors today - I'll desist. |
| Posted by: .com 2003-8-27 9:01:08 AM |
| #2 It may primarily be an opinion piece, but there's some interesting news in it. Like, for example, the Oliver North report that the Saddam Fedayeen were all non-Iraqi. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-8-27 9:00:41 AM |
| #1 This is more opinion than news, which is the focus of Rantburg (My son had to track what was happening in the world in 10 categories for a month. Rantburg made taking care of several of those categories a piece o' cake.) However, it DOES state succinctly the "terrorist honeypot" theory of Iraq that many Rantburgers hold. God bless our men in uniform over there. My only regret is that Bill Clinton acted to give us fewer of them to appreciate, and that George W. Bush is not hiring more of them for us to appreciate. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2003-8-27 8:34:46 AM |