Just watched the President's speech on Iraq.
I wasn't the audience for the speech tonight--my position is clear-- so I don't know if it was all that effective. There wasn't anything new there, since the strategy behind the war hasn't changed.
The operational and tactical problems, alas, still remain, and President Bush didn't really address those. They are definitely below his pay grade, but obviously, they are what cause the most angst to Americans. I think most Americans understand we need to win the war, it's the "how" part that worries them (and definitely worries me).
I'd like to touch on one aspect of the speech: the 9/11 references.
David Gergen remarked on CNN that he was "offended" by all the references, stating something to the effect that, since Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden and 9/11, it was wrong for President Bush to repeatedly associate the latter with the war in Iraq.
Well, regardless of Iraq's lack of a significant relationship with Al Qaeda before 9/11, Al Qaeda is there in strength now, so ignoring their presence is, in fact, ignoring the War on Terror.
Of course, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden tonight on NBC and ABC respectively used this point as a political hammer, preferring to blame the President for the introduction of Al Qaeda into Iraq, as if Saddam's Iraq was a benevolent playland before March 2003, and that Saddam, Uday & Qusay loved America plenty.
Permit me to drag out the analogy I've been using for, oh, five years now. It obviously hasn't worked before, but I still think it's because of a lack of repetition versus a logical flaw.
If you are bit by a snake in the tall grass, you will want to hunt and kill the snake before you head into the grass again. Well, snakes aren't the only animals that bite you-- spiders, scorpions, ants and others do, too. Just getting rid of the snake won't make the tall grass safe. You must get rid of all the animals that can hurt you.
The lesson of 9/11 is that what we ignore can hurt us, and what can hurt us can kill us if it ever makes use of weapons of mass destruction.
We ignored Bin Laden, and he hurt us. Guess what? If we ignored Saddam Hussein, or Iran, or North Korea, even after they've threatened us and our allies, then we were at risk of getting hurt again. Our war was launched to kill the snake, but it makes no sense to leave the scorpions in peace while we hunt through the tall grass.
And, to stretch the analogy a little further, there's no sense in leaving the tall grass to hide the snakes and scorpions. By cutting down the tall grass-- by removing the totalitarian conditions in the Middle East that have bred enemies for decades-- we remove the safe havens where our enemies can hide.
The War in Iraq is part of the War on Terror. It has been so since day one. We thought that Iraq had WMD, i.e. we thought that the scorpion was poisonous. Turns out that we were (thankfully) wrong, but that did not mean the scorpion was harmless. The enemy of your enemy is often your friend, and Saddam and his sons were ready-made allies for Al Qaeda.
Or worse, Saddam and his sons were rich, eager buyers for a nuclear weapon. Why spend billions to develop a Bomb when you can buy one on the cheap from North Korea or A.Q. Khan? Hell, they even deliver.
If we allow ourselves be defeated in Iraq, America will suffer for it. Every victory has its rewards, and every defeat has its consequences. Vietnam, Beirut and Somalia bred Bin Laden. Defeat in Iraq would undoubtedly breed something much worse-- an emboldened Iran, North Korea, or China.
Or a WMD-armed terrorist. Next time, that scorpion may be dripping fatal venom.
We must cut the tall grass.
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UPDATE: Evidently, I wasn't the only one to catch Gergen's preposterous line. Here's what John Podhoretz had to say in The Corner:
Call out the National Guard! President Bush has crossed some kind of a horrid line by offending David Gergen! What did he do -- get between the Gergster and a camera? The last time I remember Gergen getting this upset was when he heard Zell Miller's address at the Republican convention and called it a "speech of hate."
You know what Gergen hates? Principle.
For the record, the perennially irrelevant Gergen has always reminded me somewhat of the leader of the Neutral Planet on Futurama.
Glab: I can think of no better place for this center of diplomacy
than here in orbit around the Neutral Planet. What are
your thoughts on this momentous occasion, your Neutralness?
Neutral: I have no strong feelings one way or the other.
"If I don't survive, tell my wife. . . hello."
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This posting was made on my personal computer.
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