MILNET Opinion In Iraq: Terrorism, Not Civil War, 3/09/2005
A local idiot was standing up in front a dozen other idiots, all with
ice cream in their hands. He was saying that what we are seeing
in Iraq is civil war, the same civil war that he and liberals all
across the U.S. predicted would be the result of invading Iraq. He was
proud of his discovery in verbal chicanery and it showed.
Smug.
I was about to interject when one of the folks who had asked me a week
earlier about the subject spoke up, so I remained quiet.
"Gee, mister, you must have a different dictionary than I have.
Civil War is when two or more factions of people in the same country
are fighting amongst each other, usually for political reasons."
"Exactly," said Smug.
"So what you are saying is that this guy Zarqawi and his followers are a faction of the Iraqi people?"
"Exactly," said Smug yet again, his face even more smug than before.
"So how many people live in Iraq?"
Smug had no clue and that showed to. My young friend didn't
stop. "It's 22 million -- I got that from Yahoo online. You
can check if you like, I think it was a 2000 estimate. Give or a
take a few thousand let's say. Zarqawi's supporters were
estimated by the U.N. at around 10,000 or so. So what you are
saying is that around .04 % of Iraqis are at civil war with the rest
of them. That's like Placerville driving a truck bomb into
Sacramento and calling that a civil war. That's terrorism in my
book, pure and simple. Besides, they are killing Iraqis
indiscriminately. That's not civil war either. Get a clue."
I loved it. Couldn't have said it any better myself. I had
to think about the decimal point, however. But the idea that what
is going on in Iraq is a civil war is like saying Timothy McVey was a
freedom fighter. Kee-Rist!
The point to all this is simple. Too many people run around with
half baked ideas that they heard somewhere and don't stop to think
about the reality of the situation. Just because some left wing
nutcase in the New York Times spouts off with some off-the-wall theory,
does not make it supportable, reasonable, or worth
repeating. Yet, invariably, the drivel gets repeated, and
far too often.
It's like the guy on Fox News yesterday who, when asked if President Bush
shouldn't be proud of the election occurring in Iraq responded with
something like, no, the elections occurred despite Bush's resistance to
the idea.
That, of course, brought me out of my chair. Of all the history
rewriting B.S. The pundit then went on to say that the plan early
on was for elections to happen much later and that Bush was essentially
forced into agreeing.
The facts are this. An election was proposed in the weeks
following the invasion of Iraq, but a date was never agreed on. President
Bush clearly stated in response to a reporter's questions at that time
that the Iraqi Interim Authority would determine what was the correct
time table. He then said that it might take years. Paul
Bremer stayed on that message as well. When the Iraqi Interim
Authority eventually came out with a date, it was far down the road
from January 2005, and the Bush Administration hoped it could be
sooner, not later. When the final date was etched in stone for January 2005, the
Bush Administration was not only supportive but jubilant. When
hand wringers worried the elections couldn't be held as violence jumped
once again, clearly hoping to derail the elections, the Bush
Administration supported the Interim Authority in its resolve to keep
the date in January. That is truth and reality, not the wishful thinking that things would have been different.
Later in the day, a Fox News anchor asked his panelists, "Do you
think we would be seeing Iraqi elections if there had not been a war in
Iraq?" That finally got to the point I was hoping to see earlier.
You have to be in the game to get results. You cannot sit at home
and fling words. Guys like me don't change the world by
much. My young friend can take some pride in felling Smug with a
few facts, but in the greater scheme of things it doesn't make
much of a difference.
What does make a difference is inspired leadership. President George
Bush saw a future of taking the fight to the Terrorists, or running
from them. He saw a future where Terrorism was in the streets of
America or elsewhere. He realized and proposed that
Democracy is the greatest weapon against Terrorism. He also
realized that the most vulnerable terrorist sponsoring state was also
perched right in the middle of the Middle East. He also believed his
intelligence people when they said Saddam had WMD.
People will point at the WMD issue and cry foul, but I certainly
don't. You don't screw around with WMD. When a rogue nation
has them, you take action. I am for going after Iran and North
Korea directly and immediately. I had no problem with the U.S.
action in Iraq based on WMD. It is very easy to come back later
and say, "Hey that was a load of B.S., no WMD in Iraq." To the
contrary, and I can't understand why the opposite keeps being claimed,
but WMD was found in Iraq. From warheads to undeclared missiles
capable of delivering them. And complete evidence of programs and scientists. When we finally settle out the
Syria/Lebanon thing, I suspect we'll find even more WMD that was
smuggled out, perhaps with the help of Russian Spetsnatz special ops
folks. Don't get me started on that one.
The point is that I am much happier that the insurgency in Iraq is
taking place in Iraq rather than Chicago or Atlanta. And I am
very happy to see democracy blooming like flowers all over the
region. Anyone who thinks this would have been the result of Al
Gore being elected has a screw loose. Or John Kerry for that
matter.
In fact, the only effective military leader amongst Democratic
party presidents in the 20th century was Franklin Delanor
Roosevelt. Carter and Clinton created so many problems for our
military, we are still trying to recover. Electing a Democrat to the
presidency has always meant a loss of freedom around the world and a
lowering of the U.S. ability to change the world agenda. Or for
that matter, a Democrat majority in Congress does the rest of the
world no good either. Look at the Congress and Latin America
during Reagan's presidency. The Congress supported radical
socialism and communism! The worst Congress in the history of our
nation. And the claims that America suffers from a Republican majority or President is just plain B.S. as well.
President Bush has chosen to Engage, not Retreat. His people are
out in the world making things happen, not sitting back and letting
diplomacy fail where it has no chance of succeeding. He is also
attacking the Social Security problem BEFORE it becomes a disaster, not
waiting while sitting on hands for it to require Emergency Action.
Back to things outside the U.S. As I said, I'd like to see the U.S. be a lot more forceful -- like
telling Iran "You have 60 days to blow Natanz to hell and gone or we
are going to do it for you. Russia, destroy that nuclear plant
you built in Bashir in 60 days or we will do that for you too!"
Along with that I'd also like to hear "Syria, if your troops,
intelligence officers and Hezbollah are not out of Lebanon by April 15,
we are going to carpet bomb Damascus until we run out of free falls"
and "Any terror group in Lebanon in April 15 will also receive presents
from the United States Air Force."
In any case, the Iraqi insurgency is not civil war. The local
support for Zarqawi and his supporters is a problem to be sure.
If the Iraqi people gave them no refuge, then where would they build
their truck bombs, where would they hide and plan? Certainly some
people in Iraq give them refuge. That is a major problem for the
U.S. led coalition forces there. And of course for the Interim
Government and the newly elected Iraqi Assembly. If the Sunni
Triangle wishes to participate in an Iraqi government, the first thing
the people there need to do is eject Zarqawi and his thugs out into the
street. Drop the Iraqi equivalent of a dime and phone in where
the bomb factories are, lead the Coalition and Iraqi Police to
Zarqawi's hideout.
But so many Iraqis have lived in fear for most of their lives that they
have difficulty standing up to thugs like Zarqawi and that is the
problem. That's not civil war, that's intimidation. That's
not fighting for change, that's fighting against it. That's not
public disobedience, it's violent coercion. It's not freedom
fighters for god's sake, it's terrorists. Calling this civil war
is not only stupid, it gives validity to terrorist murders and in my
book is treason. Like my young friend
said, "Get a clue!"
