Victor Davis Hanson has an excellent analysis of the real story in The Middle East:
"In the larger Middle East, the democratic splash in the Iraqi pond is slowly rippling out, as voting proceeds in Egypt and the Gulf, Syria leaves Lebanon, and Moammar Gadhafi and Pakistan’s Dr. Khan cease their nuclear machinations. Hundreds of thousands of protesters hit the streets in Lebanon and Jordan—not to slur the United States, as predicted, for removing Saddam Hussein, but to damn Bashar Assad and al-Zarqawi as terrorist killers. Walid Jumblatt, the Lebanese Druze leader, now calls for Western pressure to root out the Syrian Baathists.
You’d never know all this from the global media or state-run news services in Europe and the Middle East."
Democracy spreading???? Who would have imagined that? Oh yes, President Bush did.Hanson continues:
"Americans tried to remain idealistic on the principle that Iraqis, if freed and helped, could craft a workable democracy, and that such consensual governments would make the volatile Middle East safer, since elected and legitimate governments rarely attack their own kind. In response, the supposedly idealistic Left charged that we were bellicose and imperialistic — as if being on the side of the purple-fingered Iraqi voter was not preferable to being on the side of the terrorist and insurrectionist, who masked his fascism with national rhetoric."
And this is the most necessary to understand:
"Despite the fact that al Qaedists were in Kurdistan, Al Zarqawi was in Saddam’s Baghdad, terrorists like Abu Abas and Abu Nidal were sheltered by Iraqis, and recent archives disclose that hundreds of Iraqi terrorists were annually housed and schooled by the Baathists, we are nevertheless assured that there was no tie between Saddam and terrorists. Those who suggest there were lines of support are caricatured as liars and Bush propagandists.
"Apparently, we are asked to believe that the al Qaedists whom Iraqis and Americans kill each day in Iraq largely joined up because we removed Saddam Hussein."
The left couldn't be happy about the purple fingers because it was a victory for Bush, but we all know that it really was a victory for America. The left refuses to admit they were wrong about terrorist activities in Iraq before the war no matter what evidence is presented that shows there clearly was, because that would make Bush right, and they cannot have that even though, in reality, it makes America right.
And then Hanson points out why everything Bush did after 9-11 worked at keeping us safe:
"After September 11, many of our experts assured us that it was “not a question of if, but when” we were to be hit again—with the qualifier that the next strike would be far worse, entailing a dirty bomb, or biological or chemical agents.
Yet when we are still free from an assault 52 months later, censors assure that our safety has nothing to do with the Patriot Act, nothing to do with wiretaps, nothing to do with killing thousands of terrorists abroad in Afghanistan and Iraq, and nothing to do with creating democratic Afghan and Iraqi security forces who daily hunt down jihdadists far from America’s shores. And yet, strangely, there is no serious legislation to revoke the Patriot Act, to outlaw listening to calls from potential terrorists, or to cut off funds for operations in Iraq or Afghanistan."
Democracy spreads and we are safe. Simple. Thank President Bush. Thank our troops. It hasn't been easy, but nothing great comes easy.
|