Endangering Our Troops
By Judson Cox (10/04/03)
The war in Iraq has been a remarkable success. Never in the history of American warfare has a modern military been so swiftly defeated with so few casualties. Consider D-Day, in which 10,000 Allied soldiers died. That was one battle in a six year war that cost the lives of 17,000,000 members of the armed forces of the nations involved.
Saddam Hussein and his socialist regime ( responsible for killing more Muslims than any human force in history) were destroyed so quickly that they had no chance to execute a battle plan. Saddam’s thugs did not have the opportunity to fight, as their commander fled at the first sign of danger. Some in America wonder whether ousting this evil dictator was a good thing; the majority of Iraqis do not. A Gallup Poll of 1,178 Baghdadis found that:
67% say Iraq will be better off five years from now than it was before liberation; only 8% say they expect to be worse off. 62% say ousting Saddam Hussein from power was worth the attendant hardships
Saddam’s handful of loyalists and terrorists, continue to attack our troops. It would be foolish to believe that these fiends should become docile as soon as Saddam fell. Terrorists, torturers and murderers are not nice people. They are being hunted and exterminated like rats; soon they will cease to be a problem. The only strategy left to Saddam is to follow the Ho Chi Mihn’s tactic of eroding support for the war. Saddam releases audio tapes urging continued struggle and calling for terrorists of other nations to come to Iraq. His strategy is not only to increase his small forces; the tapes are a propaganda tool. When he releases a statement, it will dominates the news, convincing people that he is still an active menace.
Reasonable people realize the danger of focusing only on the negative aspects of this war. U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall, D-Ga., a Vietnam veteran, said: ... there will be more Blumbergs killed in action, many more. So it is worth doing only if we have a reasonable chance of success. And we do, but I'm afraid the news media are hurting our chances. They are dwelling upon the mistakes, the ambushes, the soldiers killed, the wounded, the Blumbergs. Fair enough. But it is not balancing this bad news with 'the rest of the story,' the progress made daily, the good news. The falsely bleak picture weakens our national resolve, discourages Iraqi cooperation and emboldens our enemy. ..Yes, Iraq certainly is becoming like Vietnam ... in the astonishing bias shown by Big Media.
Presidential candidates should take heed. Faced with a recovering economy and a successful war on terrorism, the democrats have no issues to run on. Thus far, their only strategy has been to claim quagmire in Iraq and call President Bush names. They have called him a "gang leader", "liar", "miserable failure" and accused him of bribing foreign leaders. As Jay Leno said, Saddam Hussein has released another tape... It’s the same thing. "Bush is a demon, Bush is an evil aggressor. Bush is Satan." Let me tell you something, if this guy wants to insult our president and call him evil, he can just join the Democratic Party and run for president like everybody else.
We celebrate debate, but the tactic of the democrats is not debate; it is hate. Instead of politics "ending at the water’s edge," these irresponsible polemicists attack our president expressly to undermine his policies. They send a mixed message to foreign leaders, perhaps convincing them to withhold aid. They undermine the morale of our troops. Most frighteningly, they send a message to our enemies that America may not have the will to fight this war. Bin Laden watched the movie "Black Hawk Down," and became convinced that America would fold when faced with even a few casualties. How damaging is it when potential presidents send such messages?
What the democratic presidential candidates are doing is not treason, but it is irresponsible. By their words, they encourage our enemies and endanger our troops. Ed Gillespie, RNC Chairman calls it, hate speech.
Donald Rumsfeld said terrorists, take heart in that, and that leads to more money going into these activities ... more recruits ... more encouragement. Dennis Miller’s observation about anti-war protesters now applies to the leaders of the Democratic Party. They compare every Bush administration official to, Hitler, except for Saddam Hussein, the short guy with a mustache over there sticking people into wood chippers.
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