Tag: national security

Hagel Huh?

Chuck Hagel, Senator, Nebraska-D:

“We should start figuring out how we get out of there,” Hagel said on “This Week” on ABC. “But with this understanding, we cannot leave a vacuum that further destabilizes the Middle East. I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the further destabilization will occur.”
Follow the good Senator’s logic with us:
1. The U.S. toppling of the Hussein government in Iraq, and construction of a democratic republic in same, destabilizes the Middle East. (Funny, we thought the fact that a mad dictator known to have invaded his neighbors and gas his own people would have contributed to the already destabilized Middle East.)
2. A continued U.S. presence in Iraq destabilizes the Middle East.
3. If the U.S. pulls out, there will be destabilization in the Middle East.
So according to the good Senator from Nebraska–who cannot be questioned because he has “absolute moral authority” as a Purple Heart-receiving Vietnam veteran–we’re damned if we do, and damned if we don’t, so we may as well damn millions of other people while we’re at it.
What the hell is wrong with people like Senator Hagel, that they wish to condemn millions of people to (a) the constant worry that the dictator’s secret police will whisk them off to a torture room (Saddam’s Iraq), or (b) sudden U.S. withdrawal will plunge them in to a hard-line Islamofascist government (Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Iran)?
The arguments over whether or not we should have gone in to Iraq are over, people. It’s done. There is no time machine, we can’t go back and change it. (And if we could, would you really? Can you honestly say the Iraqis are worse off now than under Saddam?)
It would be nice to bring most of the troops home. (Note, I did not say “all”. We should always maintain a presence in Iraq as we move in to the future.) However, we can not wholly withdraw overnight and allow the fledgling Iraqi republic to implode. The future of the United States is, for good or ill, now tied to the future of Iraq, and for the sons and daughters of both nations, we owe the Iraqis our continued support.
[Prompted and inspired by today’s Best of the Web.]

We should stay in Iraq — for decades…

So sayeth the editors in this past Friday’s Federalist Patriot (link is a PDF):
The usual Demo-gogue suspects — Kennedy, Kerry and company — are increasing the tenor of their demands that the Bush administration commit to a timetable for withdrawing American troops from Iraq. A few misguided Republicans have even signed on to this legislative folly. Insisting that we cap our military support for the new Iraqi government is a dangerous political ploy intended to help Demos rally their peacenik constituency in the run-up to next year’s midterm elections. Dangerous, because challenging the administration to agree to a timetable only emboldens Jihadis, who would very much like to move the frontlines of the Long War from their turf to ours.
The Demos know President George Bush will not agree to such a timetable. As the president has said repeatedly, “Our exit strategy is to exit when our mission is complete.” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld protests that any such deadline for withdrawal would “throw a lifeline to terrorists.” Indeed, but it is always easier to sell anti-war rhetoric like “give peace a chance” than it is to advocate peace through superior firepower, and to use force in defense of critical U.S. national interests.

Continue reading “We should stay in Iraq — for decades…”

Debunking the “chickenhawk” argument

Ben Shapiro takes aim at the anti-war mouth-foamers on the left.

Rabbi Aryeh Spero is mad

The good rabbi isn’t afraid–like so many in our nation, including the President, I’m disappointed to say–to call a spade a spade:

We were victorious during WW II because daily we were fighting a concrete, named enemy: Germany, Hitler, Nazism, and the German people supportive of the above. In contrast, today, those who show the face of the enemy are called racists. Consequently, we have chosen to call it not what it is — a war against radical Islam — but a war against terrorism, a raceless entity.

Though in all other investigations, evidence, history, and “most-likely” are the tools used to stop the next likely perpetrator, today’s political correctness labels such common sense detective work as “profiling” — the latest concoction of racism. Better to remain less protected and maybe die than to be a profiler or be called a racist. That is how silly we’ve become. Silly people do not, over the long run, win wars.

Giving in/up

This is why you cannot give in to terrorist demands. This is why it is pointless to “try to understand why” those who commit horrific acts of violence against innocents to further a religio-political agenda do so.
Hamas vows to continue fight

In a show of force, Hamas founders and political leaders appeared Saturday on a stage together for the first time in 10 years to tell the Palestinian people that the militant group’s armed struggle will go on after Israel’s impending withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
‘Tomorrow Jerusalem,’ Abbas exults
Less than three days after he urged Palestinians to refrain from excessive celebrations over the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Friday presided over a huge celebration in Gaza City where he declared: “Today we are celebrating the liberation of Gaza and the northern West Bank; tomorrow we will celebrate the liberation of Jerusalem.”
The Israeli government acquiesced to the demands of terrorists. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PLO: these are terrorist organizations. They demanded land which was never theirs to begin with–that’s right, the land of “Palestine” has always belonged to some other nation, including Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, so why aren’t the Palestinians sending suicide bombers in to those nations?–through the use of terror. These are not “freedom fighters” or “insurgents,” they are terrorists.
The Israeli government caved, and it got them nothing. The reason is simple: the Palestinians, with the sometimes silent, sometimes vocal, backing of the entire Arab world, want nothing less than the complete and total destruction of Israel. They want all the Jews out of the land, dead or alive, but one could infer preferably dead. They want no Jewish state to exist.
You cannot reason with people like this. You cannot give in to their demands and hope for the best.
You kill them. You achieve total and complete victory, with overwhelming military force. Then you set about dictating the terms of the peace, and you help rebuild. It worked it Japan. It worked in Germany. It will work in Afghanistan and Iraq. It could have worked within the borders of Israel.

Denigrating military service

I felt “The Patriot Perspective” from today’s Federalist Patriot (PDF file) was worth reprinting.

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War, what is it good for?

Well, victory for one thing, as Mark Steyn points out.
[via Hugh]

Are you sleeping?

Tony Blair, British Prime Minister:

“September 11 for me was a wake up call. Do you know what I think the problem is? That a lot of the world woke up for a short time and then turned over and went back to sleep again.”

The Long War or the Short Surrender

This is the third and final part of a series on national security run in the pages of The Federalist Patriot. This part can be found in today’s issue (PDF file), and is reprinted here with permission.

Continue reading “The Long War or the Short Surrender”

Providing the tools for homeland defense

Yesterday’s Federalist Patriot (PDF file) contained part two of the series on U.S. National Security. Titled “Homeland Defense,” it discusses the steps taken since 9/11, including the Patriot Act, and looks forward. I’ve reprinted it below.

Continue reading “Providing the tools for homeland defense”