World War III?

TCS Daily has an excellent article on the notion of a WWIII, focusing mainly on Newt Gingrich's contention that we are there. Gringrich has written an article in Human Events entitled "A Third World War."

"In Gingrich's mind, the deadly attacks -- "on an almost daily basis in Baghdad, and previous attacks in New York, Washington, London, Madrid, Bali, Beslan, Jerusalem, Istanbul, Sharm-el-Sheikh, New Delhi, Amman and many other cities" -- make the reality of world war unmistakable."

Gringrich also doesn't care much for Bush's diplomatic policy:

"As he told The Washington Post, "We have accepted the lawyer-diplomatic fantasy that talking while North Korea builds bombs and missiles and talking while the Iranians build bombs and missiles is progress. Is the next stage for Condi to go dancing with Kim Jong Il? I am utterly puzzled."

If the left thinks that Bush is a war monger, they ain't seen nothing yet. Just imagine a President Gingrich. He would make Bush look like a peacenik.

I'll be honest, I don't like Newt Gingrich. I never have. To me he is the Republican version of Bill Clinton. A polished and smart politician who convinces himself of his positions as he makes sure those positions will get him elected. There is no moral grounding in either of these two men.

Do I think we are in the midst or the beginning of WWIII? No. I haven't been convinced of that yet but this sentence in the TCS article struck me:

"No, we aren't going to lose to the likes of Syria or Iran, although it's possible we could lose a city or two to a lucky (from their point of view) nuclear shot."

A city or two????? If we get hit in any way, then all bets are off. The American people will be 100% behind wiping off the face of the earth anyone who did it. Then maybe you could convince me of WWIII.

The one thing Bush understood was to put reponsibility on the shoulders of governments who harbor terrorists. The world (and especially the Middle East) needed to understand that they could not stand by while terrorists trained among them. I'm afraid Lebanon is learning that the hard way.

Americans ignored the Middle East for too long. We live our cushy lives and feel sorry for those who live in that part of the world. In the 90's we showed weakness and we paid for it. Even now most Americans may not recognize the battles we see on TV every night having anything to do with us, but they do. One cannot ignore cancer. It grows. It has to be aggressively treated. This cancer of terrorism touched us on 9-11 and we can never again imagine that it won't return.

But, sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. People like Gingrich seem to want to go too far for me. People like Clinton didn't do enough. Bush seems to be striking the right balance, even if he doesn't get much credit for it.