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Posts Tagged ‘foreign policy’

Alternate reality

Posted by Richard on December 8, 2006

One little excerpt from the Iraq Surrender Group report told me everything I needed to know about it and confirmed the fears and suspicions I had: "No country in the region wants a chaotic Iraq." Ahem. In what alternate reality do these tired old political reprobates reside? In this reality, Iran absolutely, positively does want a chaotic Iraq, and is working 24/7 to create one! And it’s client, Syria, is doing its share!

There is more wisdom, insight, judgment, and sense of history in the head of one young American soldier than in the entire preening, self-congratulatory, self-aggrandizing Baker-Hamilton commission — as evidence, consider the reaction of T.F. Boggs, a 24-year-old Sergeant in the Army Reserve who returned from his second tour in Iraq just last month (emphasis added):

The Iraq Survey Group’s findings or rather, recommendations are a joke and could have only come from a group of old people who have been stuck in Washington for too long. The brainpower of the ISG has come up with a new direction for our country and that includes negotiating with countries whose people chant “Death to America” and whose leaders deny the Holocaust and call for Israel to be wiped from the face of the earth. Baker and Hamilton want us to get terrorists supporting countries involved in fighting terrorism!

What the group desperately needed was at least one their members to have been in the military and had recent experience in Iraq. The problem with having an entire panel with no one under the age of 67 is that none of them could possibly know what the situation is actually like on the ground in Iraq. …

We cannot appease our enemies and we cannot continue to cut and run when the going gets tough. As it stands in the world right now our enemies view America as a country full of queasy people who are inclined to cut and run when things take a turn for the worse. Just as the Tet Offensive was the victory that led to our failure in Vietnam our victories in Iraq now are leading to our failure in the Middle East. How many more times must we fight to fail? I feel like all of my efforts (30 months of deployment time) and the efforts of all my brothers in arms are all for naught. I thought old people were supposed to be more patient than a 24 year old but apparently I have more patience for our victory to unfold in Iraq than 99.9 percent of Americans. Iraq isn’t fast food-you can’t have what you want and have it now. To completely change a country for the first time in it’s entire history takes time, and when I say time I don’t mean 4 years.

Talking doesn’t solve anything with a crazed people, bullets do and we need to be given a chance to work our military magic. Like I told a reporter buddy of mine: War sucks but a world run by Islamofacists sucks more.

HT: Hugh Hewitt, whose assessment of the report is spot-on, including an apt historical comparison:

The report combines an almost limitless condescension towards the "Iraqi sovereign government," even going so far as to lay out a timetable for its exact legislative program for the next six months, with a cavalier indifference to the Syrian death squads operating in Lebanon, and the certain nature of the Iranian regime –still, on this very day, hosting the anti-Holocaust conference.

It is a wonder, this bit of appeasement virtuosity, and I think it will gain for its authors all the lasting fame that has attached itself to the name Samuel Hoare, and his brainchild, the Hoare-Laval Agreement.

I think Dean Barnett may have correctly identified the mindset of these morons:

Yesterday, the self-esteem movement reached its zenith. A nation and a government, eager to feel better about themselves, rounded up a passel of political has-beens to offer policy prescriptions that we could all support. And, other than the brain-dead nature of its policy prescriptions, what’s there not to love about the Iraq Study Group’s report? It’s the foreign policy equivalent of “a chicken in every pot.”

If this vacuous and venal piece of tripe isn’t dismissed and ignored — if its policy recommendations are actually followed, and the United States commits itself to appeasing terror states into being a bit nicer — then a few short years from now, when the nuke takes out Tel Aviv, we should refer to it as the Baker-Hamilton Holocaust.
 

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Baker’s blunders

Posted by Richard on December 5, 2006

I’ve made no secret of my dislike for James Baker, Bob Gates, and their pals from the Bush 41 administration — see Baker, Bush, and the loss of vision and It’s not realism, it’s capitulation. In his latest column, Jeff Jacoby cited some of the specific Bush 41 foreign policy blunders in which Baker had a hand as secretary of state (1989-1992):

One such blunder was the administration’s stubborn refusal to support independence for the long-subjugated republics of the Soviet Union, culminating in the president’s notorious "Chicken Kiev" speech of August 1991, when he urged Ukrainians to stay in their Soviet cage. Another was the appeasement of Syrian dictator Hafez Assad during the run-up to the Gulf War in 1990, when Bush and Baker blessed Syria’s brutal occupation of Lebanon in exchange for Assad’s acquiescence in the campaign to roll back the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.

When Chinese tanks massacred students in Tiananmen Square, Bush expressed more concern for the troops than for their victims: "I don’t think we ought to judge the whole People’s Liberation Army by that terrible incident," he said. When Bosnia was torn apart by violence in 1992, the Bush-Baker reaction was to shrug it off as "a hiccup."

Worst of all was the betrayal of the Iraqi Shi’ites and Kurds who in the spring of 1991 heeded Bush’s call to "take matters into their own hands" and overthrow Saddam Hussein — only to be slaughtered by Saddam’s helicopter gunships and napalm while the Bush administration stood by. Baker blithely announced that the administration was "not in the process now of assisting . . . these groups that are in uprising against the current government." To Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell’s plea that some of the 400,000 US troops in the area put a halt to the massacre, Bush dismissively replied, "Always glad to have his opinion. Glad to hear from him." Then he went fishing in Florida.

If Bush the Elder is remembered for a rather heartless and cynical foreign policy, then much of the credit must go to Baker. And what Baker did for the father, he is now poised to do for the son.

Jacoby went on to argue for adding more troops in Iraq, and he made the best argument for doing so I’ve seen yet. In particular, with the impending Baker report reminding many of us — and doubtless many Iraqis — of the past Baker-Bush betrayal, there’s this (emphasis added):

Sending in significant reinforcements would not only make it possible to kill more of the terrorists, thugs, and assassins who are responsible for Iraq’s chaos. It would also help reassure Iraqis that the Washington is not planning to leave them in the lurch, as it did so ignominiously in 1991. The violence in Iraq is surging precisely because Iraqis fear that the Americans are getting ready to throw in the towel. That is why "they have turned to their own sectarian armed groups for the protection the Bush administration has failed to provide," Robert Kagan and William Kristol write in The Weekly Standard. "That, and not historical inevitability or the alleged failings of the Iraqi people, is what has brought Iraq closer to civil war."

I think that’s about right. I also think he’s on to something regarding why people have become so negative about Iraq: it’s not the casualties or the length of the conflict — "It is *losing* that Americans have no patience for." Of course, three years of relentless media negativity, disinformation, and outright lying have something to do with it, too.
 

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Bolton gives up

Posted by Richard on December 4, 2006

In my opinion, John Bolton is by far the best U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations since Jeane Kirkpatrick excoriated the "blame America first" crowd in the 80s. So I’m very disappointed by this statement from the White House:

President Bush Accepts Ambassador John Bolton’s Resignation as U.S. Representative to the United Nations

It is with deep regret that I accept John Bolton’s decision to end his service in the Administration as Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations when his commission expires.

Over a year ago, I appointed Ambassador Bolton because I knew he would represent America’s values and effectively confront difficult problems at the United Nations. He served his country with extraordinary dedication and skill, assembling coalitions that addressed some of the most consequential issues facing the international community. During his tenure, he articulately advocated the positions and values of the United States and advanced the expansion of democracy and liberty.

Ambassador Bolton led the successful negotiations that resulted in unanimous Security Council resolutions regarding North Korea’s military and nuclear activities. He built consensus among our allies on the need for Iran to suspend the enrichment and reprocessing of uranium. His efforts to promote the cause of peace in Darfur resulted in a peacekeeping commitment by the United Nations. He made the case for United Nations reform because he cares about the institution, and wants it to become more credible and effective.

I am deeply disappointed that a handful of United States Senators prevented Ambassador Bolton from receiving the up or down vote he deserved in the Senate. They chose to obstruct his confirmation, even though he enjoys majority support in the Senate, and even though their tactics will disrupt our diplomatic work at a sensitive and important time. This stubborn obstructionism ill serves our country, and discourages men and women of talent from serving their Nation.

I thank John Bolton for the dedication and skill with which he performed his duties, and his wife Gretchen and daughter Jennifer Sarah for their support as Ambassador Bolton served his country. All Americans owe John Bolton their gratitude for a job well done.

# # #

Yes, indeed — Bolton "articulately advocated the positions and values of the United States and advanced the expansion of democracy and liberty." And that’s a sin that the left cannot tolerate.
 

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It’s not realism, it’s capitulation

Posted by Richard on November 28, 2006

Last week, I said I was "displeased and disgusted" by signs that the Bush administration is preparing to abandon its visionary foreign policy and embrace the Kissingerian realpolitik of Bush 41 pragmatists like James Baker and Robert Gates, by the prospect of dumping Sharansky for Scowcroft. New hints and leaks and off-record remarks suggest that the Iraq Study Group will indeed push us in that direction. And a chorus of voices from Capitol Hill to the United Nations is muttering about the need to "engage" the Syrians and Iranians.

In the new (12/04) Weekly Standard, Robert Kagan and William Kristol looked at this so-called "realism" and found it wanting:

So let’s add up the "realist" proposals: We must retreat from Iraq, and thus abandon all those Iraqis–Shiite, Sunni, Kurd, and others–who have depended on the United States for safety and the promise of a better future. We must abandon our allies in Lebanon and the very idea of an independent Lebanon in order to win Syria’s support for our retreat from Iraq. We must abandon our opposition to Iran’s nuclear program in order to convince Iran to help us abandon Iraq. And we must pressure our ally, Israel, to accommodate a violent Hamas in order to gain radical Arab support for our retreat from Iraq.

This is what passes for realism these days. But of course this is not realism. It is capitulation. Were the United States to adopt this approach every time we faced a difficult set of problems, were we to attempt to satisfy our adversaries’ every whim in order to win their acquiescence, we would rapidly cease to play any significant role in the world. We would be neither feared nor respected–nor, of course, would we be any better liked. Our retreat would win us no friends and lose us no adversaries.

OK, let’s tally that up: Stature of U.S. decreased — check. U.S. neither feared, nor respected, nor liked — check. U.S. gains no friends and loses no adversaries — check.

Kagan and Kristol made these points as if they were devastating critiques of the new "realism" — and for some of us, they are indeed. But for the Democrats, the "moderate pragmatists" like Baker, the Foggy Bottom internationalists, legions of Europeans, and fans of the United Nations everywhere, these consequences are at least tolerable and perhaps desirable.

HT to Neo-neocon, who noted that the Washington Post editors seemed to grasp the problems inherent in trying to reason with Syria and Iran, but fumbled the solution — the power of UN sanctions, she argued, "more closely resembles a small toothpick than a big stick."
 

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Baker, Bush, and the loss of vision

Posted by Richard on November 23, 2006

Events in Lebanon — and what’s sure to be an ongoing struggle to turn it into Hezbollahland — leave me even more displeased and disgusted by the prospect that our policy decisions regarding the Middle East, Iraq, and the War Against Islamofascism are going to be shaped by James Baker, Bob Gates, and their pals from the Bush 41 administration.

Baker has a history of being anti-Israel, and he sucked up to Syria as Secretary of State. Take a look at Ed Lasky’s American Thinker piece about Baker and Ray Close, an ex-CIA "expert" who’s playing a key role in formulating Baker’s Iraq Study Group recommendations. Close is at least extremely pro-Arabist and anti-Israel, and possibly a raving anti-Semite. And Baker’s not much better, according to Lasky:

The American-Israel alliance once again appears to be in the crosshairs of James Baker. Israeli Prime Minister Olmert may not have the strength to defend the American-Israel relationship. …

Olmert is up against an influential man with a long record of opposing the American-Israel alliance and who has a long record of coddling dictators and close business ties with Arab oil potentates. His track record would not seem to justify the influence he wields. As James Hoagland of the Washington Post put it,

[These are the] “policymakers who failed to anticipate and then opposed the breakup of the Soviet Union; who were not realistic enough to see, much less prevent, the Balkans from plunging into flames; and who coddled dictators from Beijing to Baghdad.”

Baker is true to form if his plan for dealing with Iraq will consist of coddling dictators from Damascus to Teheran. What other cards does Baker have up his sleeves? Has Baker stacked the deck against Israel? Based on the evidence so far, the answers are not very comforting.

G.W.B. appears ready to abandon his vision of advancing freedom and democracy in favor of the Kissingerian realpolitik of his father, his father’s associates, and a long line of pragmatists and accommodationists stretching back at least to the people who said "we can do business with Uncle Joe" Stalin. And the irony is that this long line of "realists" is responsible for a long line of failures, miscalculations, and disasters.

We’re on the verge of dumping Sharansky for Scowcroft, and I think it’s a terrible, terrible mistake.
 

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Hanson’s questions

Posted by Richard on November 21, 2006

Victor Davis Hanson’s November 17 column is a must read. He asked the kind of questions and raised the issues that ought to be at the heart of the public debate about Iraq, but that are being largely ignored. Regarding the suggestion that we need more troops in Iraq, Hanson countered that first someone needs to explain exactly how they would help the situation. He doubted that they would unless the rules of engagement were changed — and if those rules were changed, Hanson argued, more troops wouldn’t be needed. He noted that in Vietnam, the U.S. military successfully fought a force well over twice it’s size, and in Iraq:

Even generous estimates of the number of insurgents in Iraq conclude there are about 10,000 active killers — a fraction of just the irregulars in the south of Vietnam alone. Why then, when the numerical disparities are so much more favorable to our cause than during the Vietnam War, are we, rather than our vastly outnumbered enemies, lamenting the paucity of troops? That we have not secured the country may be due to the limitations put on our soldiers rather than their number; and to our preference for conventional rather than counter-insurgency fighting.

Hanson had some tough questions for the proponents of "redeploying" troops, too:

Are Americans ready to accept tens of thousands of refugees into the United States when those reformers who believed we’d stay and protect them are targeted for death? And what would we do if Turkey threatens Kurdistan with invasion once its patron has abandoned it?

And where, in a new region of jihadist ascendancy, are troops to be redeployed to? Other Middle East countries? What Middle Eastern illegitimate autocrat would want to host a retreating and defeated American army, a sort of modern version of Xenophon’s orphaned Ten Thousand? Indeed, the problem would not be redeployment to a nearby host kingdom, but just maintaining Centcom forces where they are now, once the Arab Street smells blood and adjusts to an Islamic victory. If IEDs worked in Iraq, why not also in Kuwait and Qatar?

But perhaps most importantly, Hanson thought we should consider the nature of and reasons for the "unbalanced reporting" of this war. He wondered if it was just the American media’s desire to hurt Republicans and the Europeans’ desire to take the U.S. down a notch, or if there was something deeper:

Or is the bias a more general result of a Western elite so deeply conflicted about its own culture, and so fundamentally unable to define its own civilization, that it either doesn’t care whether it wins, or in fact wishes that the West lose in Iraq?

One can grasp that generic hypocrisy by reviewing all the journalists’ charges leveled against Gulf War I — too much realpolitik; too much pay-as-you-go war thinking; too much Colin Powell and James Baker and not enough Paul Wolfowitz; too much worry about stability and not enough about millions of poor Kurds and Shiites; too much worry about empowering Iran. Then compare those charges to those leveled against Gulf War II — too much naïve idealism; too much expense in lives and treasure; not enough Colin Powell and James Baker and too much Paul Wolfowitz; too little worry about regional stability and too much given to ungovernable Iraqis; and too little thought about empowering Iran.

Whatever the U.S. does, Hanson observed, it’s going to be deemed wrong by the liberal media elites. He had some interesting thoughts about the reasons for that, but it’s something that should be discussed and explored further. As should all the issues and questions Hanson raised.
 

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Those David Zucker ads

Posted by Richard on October 27, 2006

David Zucker is the Hollywood producer/director behind the classic comedy spoofs Airplane! and The Naked Gun. He was a lifelong Democrat until September 11, 2001. Lately, he’s been trying to use his professional talents to help the Republicans, who seem especially message-challenged this year.

Zucker’s Albright ad came out a couple of weeks ago, and I think it’s awesome — it’s not easy to balance zany and chilling, but Zucker does exactly that. According to Drudge, however, "jaws dropped" when he showed it to GOP strategists, who all thought it was "too hot" to use. If you haven’t seen it, here it is:

(If clicking the above doesn’t work for some reason, click this link to watch it at YouTube.)
 

Zucker has a new ad out about taxes. It’s pretty wacky, too. Check it out:

(Here’s a link to it at YouTube in case the embedded player doesn’t work for you.)

It seems to me that the Republican Party could use a little audacity at this point, and blowing off Zucker is foolish and overly timid. I could be wrong — I’m not exactly attuned to the thinking of the average American — but I think one-minute versions of these ads or something like them could provide quite a boost for Republicans.

Apparently, at least some people at the Republican National Committee are OK with a bit of edginess and humor. America Weakly (promoted at the end of Zucker’s tax ad) presents "future history" — the news from 2007 after the Dems take control of Congress — and it’s funded by the RNC.
 

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Jihad Against the West conference

Posted by Richard on October 17, 2006

If you’re in the Boston area this weekend (10/20-10/22), you might want to check out the Ayn Rand Institute’s three-day conference, The Jihad Against the West: The Real Threat and the Right Response.

Speakers include Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer, so this promises to be a really tremendous conference. The descriptions of the events certainly make me wish I could attend.

If you’re a student, the deal is irresistible: all the lectures and panel discussions are free, and the Saturday evening reception is just $15. See the registration page for details of on-site registration and proof of student status.

Non-students are presumed to be greedy, rich capitalists who can easily afford $30-55 for each event.

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Jews don’t matter to mainstream media

Posted by Richard on September 21, 2006

There was a rally in New York on Tuesday protesting the Iraq war. About 2,000 people attended. Apparently, nobody of any significance spoke (well, Jesse Jackson). But Reuters, AP, NBC, and other mainstream media organizations all covered the rally. The wire service stories were widely picked up throughout the world. AP and Reuters did mention that at the same time, about 200 Iranian-Americans protested against Ahmadinejad.

On Wednesday, there was another rally in New York. Across the street from the UN headquarters, 35,000 people rallied in support of Israel and to protest the man who wants to "wipe Israel from the map." Speakers included Gov. George Pataki, Nobel laureate Eli Wiesel, Ambassador John Bolton, and Professor Alan Dershowitz. Did you see anything about it on the TV news or in your morning paper? Me neither. Meryl Yourish searched widely for coverage:

Can you find a news source for the rally against Ahmadinejad at the UN yesterday? Correction: Can you find a non-Jewish media source, or a non-blogger source, for the rally?

I can’t. Except for the New York Sun.

I checked AP. Nothing. Reuters. Nada. I checked Google News. Nothing. 1010WINS. Nothing. I checked WABC, NY1, all the New York media sites. Gridlock alerts are the only thing you can find about the march. After all, it’s not newsworthy. The fact that 2,000 people marched a day earlier to protest the Iraq war? Oh, yeah, that made the news.

If you want to read about the rally, it appears that you have to go to the bloggers who were there, or whose readers sent in pictures. Or the Israeli press. Or the Jewish media. But nowhere else can you find any evidence that 35,000 people protested the Iranian president’s message of hate.

I think some in the media ignored this rally for political reasons — calling attention to it might benefit Bush and the Republicans. But I think there’s something else going on as well.

The mainstream media and the left (but I repeat myself) don’t see Jews as victims anymore they way they used to. Jews aren’t excluded from jobs, schools, and clubs anymore. As a group, they tend to be highly educated and successful. The Holocaust was long ago. Israel is a dynamic, vibrant, successful nation whose very existence is a reproach to its dysfunctional neighbors.

The mainstream media and the left love victims, underdogs, failures, fools, and incompetents — anyone who exhibits the highly desirable (to them) characteristics of dependency and dysfunctionality. But they are at best indifferent — and frequently hate-filled, contemptuous, and resentful — toward those who are competent, successful, high-achieving, and independent.

You know how folks on the left are always reminding us that they — the whole world, in fact — were united behind America immediately after 9/11? True, most of them were — but it only lasted until U.S. troops headed for Afghanistan. While smoke was still rising from Lower Manhattan and the nation was still on its knees and dazed, leftists throughout the world were brimming with sympathy. As soon as we got back on our feet and acted with strength and determination against the scum who attacked us, the sympathy began draining away and the criticism and denunciations began.

Most leftists feel the same way about the U.S. and Israel that they feel about rich and successful individuals — they despise them for their virtues.
 

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Bush in Salt Lake City

Posted by Richard on September 1, 2006

President Bush delivered a pretty good speech to the American Legion’s national convention in Salt Lake City this morning — you can read the whole thing at the White House website. It was the first of a series that — with the fall elections approaching — represent a renewed effort to educate and persuade the American people about the war against the Islamofascists.

The meat of this speech might be called "Bush channels Sharansky." Natan Sharansky’s The Case for Democracy is an outstanding and immensely important book — I highly, highly recommend it. It’s been clear for some time that Sharansky had a profound impact on Bush, and Bush put a pretty good  "executive summary" of the Sharansky thesis into this speech (emphasis added):

In the coming days, I’ll deliver a series of speeches describing the nature of our enemy in the war on terror, the insights we’ve gained about their aims and ambitions, the successes and setbacks we’ve experienced, and our strategy to prevail in this long war. Today, I’ll discuss a critical aspect of this war: the struggle between freedom and terror in the Middle East, including the battle in Iraq, which is the central front in our fight against terrorism.

To understand the struggle unfolding in the Middle East, we need to look at the recent history of the region. For a half- century, America’s primary goal in the Middle East was stability. This was understandable at the time; we were fighting the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and it was important to support Middle Eastern governments that rejected communism. Yet, over the decades, an undercurrent of danger was rising in the Middle East. Much of the region was mired in stagnation and despair. A generation of young people grew up with little hope to improve their lives, and many fell under the sway of radical extremism. The terrorist movement multiplied in strength, and resentment that had simmered for years boiled over into violence across the world.

Extremists in Iran seized American hostages. Hezbollah terrorists murdered American troops at the Marine barracks in Beirut and Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Terrorists set off a truck bomb at the World Trade Center. Al Qaeda blew up two U.S. embassies in East Africa, and bombed the USS Cole. Then came the nightmare of September the 11, 2001, when 19 hijackers killed nearly 3,000 men, women, and children.

In the space of a single morning, it became clear that the calm we saw in the Middle East was only a mirage. We realized that years of pursuing stability to promote peace had left us with neither. Instead, the lack of freedom in the Middle East made the region an incubator for terrorist movements.

The status quo in the Middle East before September the 11th was dangerous and unacceptable, so we’re pursuing a new strategy. First, we’re using every element of national power to confront al Qaeda, those who take inspiration from them, and other terrorists who use similar tactics. We have ended the days of treating terrorism simply as a law enforcement matter. We will stay on the offense. We will fight the terrorists overseas so we do not have to face them here at home. (Applause.)

Second, we have made it clear to all nations, if you harbor terrorists, you are just as guilty as the terrorists; you’re an enemy of the United States, and you will be held to account. (Applause.) And third, we’ve launched a bold new agenda to defeat the ideology of the enemy by supporting the forces of freedom in the Middle East and beyond.

The freedom agenda is based upon our deepest ideals and our vital interests. Americans believe that every person, of every religion, on every continent, has the right to determine his or her own destiny. We believe that freedom is a gift from an almighty God, beyond any power on Earth to take away. (Applause.) And we also know, by history and by logic, that promoting democracy is the surest way to build security. Democracies don’t attack each other or threaten the peace. Governments accountable to the voters focus on building roads and schools — not weapons of mass destruction. Young people who have a say in their future are less likely to search for meaning in extremism. Citizens who can join a peaceful political party are less likely to join a terrorist organization. Dissidents with the freedom to protest around the clock are less likely to blow themselves up during rush hour. And nations that commit to freedom for their people will not support terrorists — they will join us in defeating them. (Applause.)

So America has committed its influence in the world to advancing freedom and democracy as the great alternatives to repression and radicalism. We will take the side of democratic leaders and reformers across the Middle East. We will support the voices of tolerance and moderation in the Muslim world. We stand with the mothers and fathers in every culture who want to see their children grow up in a caring and peaceful world. And by supporting the cause of freedom in a vital region, we’ll make our children and our grandchildren more secure. (Applause.)

Bush went on to sketch out how things have changed in the Middle East in the past five years, explaining again why Iraq is critical to the advance of freedom and democracy in the region. He argued that things have been tough, but are getting better, that the recent violence has been terrible, but stems from a small minority, not from a widespread civil war. He laid out a case for optimism, but didn’t sugar-coat it. In fact, he failed to cite two facts I think he should have emphasized, because no one will ever hear them from the mainstream media: first, because the Iraqi army is more and more taking the lead, U.S. casualties have fallen steadily, month after month, for the past five or six months; second, the joint American-Iraqi security offensive (which Bush did discuss) has already reduced the August death toll in Baghdad to half what it was in July.

But Bush made it clear that his "exit strategy" for Iraq is the only exit strategy that makes any sense — victory (emphasis added):

Some Americans didn’t support my decision to remove Saddam Hussein; many are frustrated with the level of violence. But we should all agree that the battle for Iraq is now central to the ideological struggle of the 21st century. We will not allow the terrorists to dictate the future of this century — so we will defeat them in Iraq. (Applause.)

We can decide to stop fighting the terrorists in Iraq and other parts of the world, but they will not decide to stop fighting us. General John Abizaid, our top commander in the Middle East region, recently put it this way: "If we leave, they will follow us." And he is right. The security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq. So the United States of America will not leave until victory is achieved. (Applause.)

Victory in Iraq will be difficult and it will require more sacrifice. The fighting there can be as fierce as it was at Omaha Beach or Guadalcanal. And victory is as important as it was in those earlier battles. Victory in Iraq will result in a democracy that is a friend of America and an ally in the war on terror. Victory in Iraq will be a crushing defeat for our enemies, who have staked so much on the battle there. Victory in Iraq will honor the sacrifice of the brave Americans who have given their lives. And victory in Iraq would be a powerful triumph in the ideological struggle of the 21st century. From Damascus to Tehran, people will look to a democratic Iraq as inspiration that freedom can succeed in the Middle East, and as evidence that the side of freedom is the winning side. This is a pivotal moment for the Middle East. The world is watching — and in Iraq and beyond, the forces of freedom will prevail. (Applause.)

Bush clearly described the choice we face — a dystopian, dangerous Middle East or his (and Sharansky’s) alternative vision:

For all the debate, American policy in the Middle East comes down to a straightforward choice. We can allow the Middle East to continue on its course — on the course it was headed before September the 11th, and a generation from now, our children will face a region dominated by terrorist states and radical dictators armed with nuclear weapons. Or we can stop that from happening, by rallying the world to confront the ideology of hate, and give the people of the Middle East a future of hope. And that is the choice America has made. (Applause.)

We see a day when people across the Middle East have governments that honor their dignity, unleash their creativity, and count their votes. We see a day when leaders across the Middle East reject terror and protect freedom. We see a day when the nations of the Middle East are allies in the cause of peace. The path to that day will be uphill and uneven, but we can be confident of the outcome, because we know that the direction of history leads toward freedom.

The Bush administration has had plenty of short-comings and policy screw-ups, but I’m solidly with Bush on his vision for the Middle East. There’s no reason Reagan’s shining city on a hill can’t have a few minarets, right? 🙂
 

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Boffo Barone

Posted by Richard on August 29, 2006

Michael Barone has been on a roll recently. First, in Thursday’s Lessons for Tuesday’s Victors (August 14), he connected the Democrats’ rejection of Sen. Lieberman with the revelation of the British Muslims’ airliner bombing plot:

Tuesday was a victory for the angry antiwar Left that set the tone in the Democrats’ 2003-04 presidential cycle and seems likely to set the tone again in 2007-08. Thursday was a reminder that there are, as George W. Bush has finally taken to calling them, Islamic fascist terrorists who want to kill us and destroy our way of life.

Thursday’s lesson was not one Tuesday’s victors wanted to learn. … Here’s the reaction of one of them, John Aravosis, to the red alert ordered here in response to the British arrests: "Do I sound as if I don’t believe this alert? Why, yes, that would be correct. I just don’t believe it. Read the article. They say the plot had an ‘Al Qaeda footprint.’ Ooh, are you scared yet?"

What we are looking at here is cognitive dissonance. The mindset of the Left blogosphere is that there’s no real terrorist threat out there.

Barone went on to contrast the "sterner stuff" of Neville Chamberlain — who realized his errors, built up the British military, and strongly supported Churchill — with today’s left. He doubted that the latter would measure up to Chamberlain. I agree — comparing the MoveOn crowd with Chamberlain is unfair to Chamberlain.

On August 21, he followed up with a brilliant and (uncharacteristic of the soft-spoken, nerdish Barone) rather fiery denunciation of Our Covert Enemies:

Our covert enemies are harder to identify, for they live in large numbers within our midst. And in terms of intentions, they are not enemies in the sense that they consciously wish to destroy our society. On the contrary, they enjoy our freedoms and often call for their expansion. But they have also been working, over many years, to undermine faith in our society and confidence in its goodness. …

At the center of their thinking is a notion of moral relativism. No idea is morally superior to another. Hitler had his way, we have ours — who’s to say who is right? No ideas should be "privileged," especially those that have been the guiding forces in the development and improvement of Western civilization. … Rich white nations imposed their rule on benighted people of color around the world. For this sin of imperialism they must forever be regarded as morally stained and presumptively wrong. Our covert enemies go quickly from the notion that all societies are morally equal to the notion that all societies are morally equal except ours, which is worse.

In A GOP Terror Bump, his August 28 column, Barone looked back at the events of August and the consequences thereof and thought about what they meant:

When asked what would affect the future, the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously said: "Events, dear boy. Events." The event this month that I think has done most to shape opinion was the arrest in London on Aug. 9 of 23 Muslims suspected of plotting to blow up American airliners over the Atlantic.

The arrests were a reminder that there still are lots of people in the world — and quite possibly in this country, too — who are trying to kill as many of us as they can and to destroy our way of life.

Barone noted that there were many other reminders this year — the films United 93 and World Trade Center, the upcoming 5th anniversary and all the commemorations and retrospectives associated with it. Then he looked at the trends in the polls and the recent positive developments in Iraq. The man who is arguably America’s most astute political analyst concluded:

Earlier this summer, I thought that voters had decided that the Republicans deserved to lose but were not sure that the Democrats deserved to win, and that they were going to wait, as they did in the 1980 presidential and the 1994 congressional elections, to see if the opposition was an acceptable alternative. Events seem to have made that a harder sell for Democrats. A change in the winds.

I hope he’s right. I, too, think that most Republicans deserve to lose. I’ll spare you the recitation of the ten thousand reasons why most Republicans deserve to lose. But then I think about today’s leadership of the Democratic Party in control of Congress, and I shudder.

Never mind that the Dems would make the drunken sailors of the GOP look like Reaganites — rolling back tax cuts, fixing the "underfunding" of scores of domestic programs, regulating up a storm. The scary thing is that most of them think like (or pander to those who think like) John Aravosis — they simply don’t believe that there’s a serious, global, deadly Islamofascist threat to the existence of Western Civilization. They reject the notion that we’re in a war for our survival, whether we want to be or not. They believe that we can be at peace if we simply choose to.

And because they believe that, returning them to power will get a lot more of us killed.
 

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Beinart skewers Democrats

Posted by Richard on July 28, 2006

In Friday’s Washington Post, liberal columnist and TNR editor Peter Beinart delivered a scathing critique of Democrats’ recent foreign policy moves:

After years of struggling to define their own approach to post-Sept. 11 foreign policy, Democrats seem finally to have hit on one. It’s called pandering. In those rare cases when George W. Bush shows genuine sensitivity to America’s allies and propounds a broader, more enlightened view of the national interest, Democrats will make him pay. It’s jingoism with a liberal face.

As a first example, Beinart cites the shameless denunciations — by Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and others — of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for failing to side with Israel against Hezbollah. Mind you, half the Democrats in the blogosphere were guilty of the same crime, along with most of those sophisticated and nuanced Europeans that the Democrats want us to emulate. Mind you, the same Democrats had criticized al-Maliki’s predecessor, Iyad Allawi, for being a Bush puppet.

Beinart noted that al-Maliki’s position on the Israel-Hezbollah conflict was not only unsurprising, but a good sign:

Iraq is not only a majority-Arab country; it is a majority-Shiite Arab country. And in a democracy, leaders usually reflect public opinion. Maliki’s forthright disagreement with the United States was a sign of political strength, one the Bush administration wisely indulged.

How, exactly, publicly humiliating Maliki and making him look like an American and Israeli stooge would enhance his "leadership" was never explained in the missive. But of course Reid’s letter wasn’t really about strengthening the Iraqi government at all; that’s George W. Bush’s problem. It was about appearing more pro-Israel than the White House and thus pandering to Jewish voters.

As another example of Democrats abandoning their own beliefs to score political points, Beinart cited the Dubai Ports deal:

The Bush administration, playing against type, argued that America’s long-term security required treating Arab countries with fairness and respect, especially countries, such as the UAE, that assist us in the struggle against jihadist terrorism. One might have thought that the Democrats, after spending years denouncing the Bush administration for alienating world opinion and thus leaving America isolated and weak, would find such logic compelling. But what they found more compelling was a political cheap shot — their very own Panama Canal moment — in which they proved they could be just as nativist as the GOP.

Beinart cited another example: the Democrats’ political posturing against al-Maliki’s attempt to negotiate with the Sunni insurgents, possibly including some kind of amnesty:

Obviously the prospect was hard for Americans to stomach. But the larger context was equally obvious: Unless Maliki’s government gave local Sunni insurgents an incentive to lay down their arms and break with al-Qaeda-style jihadists, Iraq’s violence would never end. Democrats, however, rather than giving Maliki the freedom to carry out his extremely difficult and enormously important negotiations, made amnesty an issue in every congressional race they could, thus tying the prime minister’s hands. Once again, Democrats congratulated themselves for having gotten to President Bush’s right, unperturbed by the fact that they may have undermined the chances for Iraqi peace in the process.

Personally, I think Beinart is being too kind to his Democrat friends here. It’s not that they don’t care about harming Iraq’s peace prospects — I strongly suspect that they do care, that harming Iraq’s peace prospects is one of their goals! A peaceful, democratic Iraq is not at all in their interests. They desperately want the Bush doctrine to fail.

In any case, Beinart delivered the coup de grâce in his closing (emphasis added):

Privately, some Democrats, while admitting that they haven’t exactly been taking the high road, say they have no choice, that in a competition with Karl Rove, nice guys finish last. But even politically, that’s probably wrong. The Democratic Party’s single biggest foreign policy liability is not that Americans think Democrats are soft. It is that Americans think Democrats stand for nothing, that they have no principles beyond political expedience. And given the party’s behavior over the past several months, it is not hard to understand why.

Bravo, Peter!

(HT: Clarice Feldman in The American Thinker)
 

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Albright: wrong then, wrong now

Posted by Richard on June 23, 2006

Remember when American politicians of all persuasions refrained from publicly criticizing their country while abroad? Nowadays, lobbing rhetorical bombs at the U.S. from foreign soil seems to be a Democratic hobby. The other day in Moscow, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright blamed the U.S. invasion of Iraq for Iran’s and North Korea’s eagerness to pursue nuclear weapons.

What nonsense. Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons so it can annihilate Israel, bring back the 12th Imam, and create a global caliphate — the triumph of Islam and extension of the ummah throughout the world. I don’t think U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would make Ahmadinejad and the mullahs lose interest in those goals.

As for North Korea, Ms. Albright and her boss, Bill Clinton, bear much of the blame for that country’s nuclear weapons and long-range missile programs.

In 2000, Secretary of State Albright visited North Korea and gushed about what a wonderful host Kim Jong-il was. I believe her visit came near one of the periodic peaks of the horrific famine that’s been going on for more than a decade and that’s claimed millions of lives.

While Ms. Albright strove to "normalize" relations with — and praised the lavish banquets and parties of — this monstrous ruler of a ghastly slave state, she was apparently oblivious — or indifferent — to the abject horror by which she was surrounded: People driven mad by hunger, trying to survive by eating roaches, tree bark, undigested bits picked out of animal and human feces, and grass soup. People digging up the recently buried and consuming the decaying flesh. People exchanging babies with their neighbors so that it wasn’t their own flesh and blood that they killed and ate.

But, hey, that Kim threw a great party! And the Clinton administration wanted to demonstrate its respect for the concerns and aspirations of Kim’s glorious people’s republic.

I’m not much interested in the foreign policy advice — or moral judgments — of Madeleine Albright.
 

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Patriotism

Posted by Richard on April 5, 2006

I attended the Advocates for Self-Government 10th anniversary conference in Atlanta — was it really 10 years ago? — and thoroughly enjoyed it. Great crowd, great speakers, organized and presented well by Sharon Harris and her staff and volunteers. I’m sure they do a nice job every year, but it’s not cheap flying from Denver to Atlanta, staying at the hotel, etc., so I’m not a candidate to attend just any old year.

I was, however, a prime candidate to attend the recent 20th anniversary conference. I didn’t go, though, and it wasn’t just that I was pretty busy. I also wasn’t as enthusiastic about spending a weekend in the company of a whole bunch of libertarians as I had been ten years ago.

I suppose I was afraid that I’d meet people who were proud that they attended the Badnarik2004 September 11 Meetup, wearing black to mourn the victims of the U.S. government. Or people whose rhetoric on the war is indistinguishable from that of the leftist rabble, with talk of "U.S. occupation," "imperialist war-mongers," "the U.S. armed Saddam, the CIA created al Qaeda," and so on. If that happened, I’d either start screaming at them, "How can you be so stupid?" or I’d just walk away shaking my head and go get another drink.

So, I didn’t try very hard to find the time or the money to attend. According to David Aitken, a lot of other people didn’t try very hard, either. I’m sure most of the other non-attendees had reasons other than mine, but there’s no question that a lot of the air has gone out of the libertarian movement’s tire in the past two or three years, and I’m convinced that the prevailing libertarian views on the war and foreign policy — and patriotism — have something to do with it.

I know I’m not the only libertarian bothered by those prevailing views. I’m not even the most bothered — heck, I’m still a registered Libertarian. I spoke with a former Denver LP chair this past Saturday — in fact, the most successful chair the Denver LP ever had, who regularly drew 50 or more people to our monthly meetings. She’d just come from the Arapahoe County GOP convention. She was a delegate, and will be a delegate to the GOP state convention, too. She left the LP in disgust over what she perceived as its greater animosity toward the Bush administration than toward Islamofascism.

Aitken observed that "most libertarians are libertarians first and Americans second," and that that’s a problem:

I’ve been a member of the Libertarian Party for about 20 years and I don’t ever recall seeing any public displays of patriotism or love of country at any official function of the party, either state or national. None of our candidates express that; they all talk about what needs changing or what’s wrong, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard a candidate say "This is the best country in the world", or something to that effect (I’ve been a candidate and I’m guilty). I am not saying "my country right or wrong" and I’m not a nativist, but we hear NOTHING except bitch, bitch, bitch, and that doesn’t attract voters.

He then linked to a beautifully written Peggy Noonan column (I think Noonan’s columns are always beautifully written, even when I disagree with them) that starts out talking about some of our living Medal of Honor recipients and ends up talking about immigration, and somehow it relates importantly to Aitken’s point. Noonan thinks we’re assimilating immigrants culturally and economically, but that’s not enough:

But we are not communicating love of country. We are not giving them the great legend of our country. We are losing that great legend.

What is the legend, the myth? That God made this a special place. That they’re joining something special. That the streets are paved with more than gold–they’re paved with the greatest thoughts man ever had, the greatest decisions he ever made, about how to live. We have free thought, free speech, freedom of worship. Look at the literature of the Republic: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist papers. Look at the great rich history, the courage and sacrifice, the house-raisings, the stubbornness. The Puritans, the Indians, the City on a Hill.

(God, that woman can write.)

Do we teach our immigrants that this is what they’re joining? That this is the tradition they will now continue, and uphold?

Do we, today, act as if this is such a special place? No, not always, not even often. American exceptionalism is so yesterday. We don’t want to be impolite. We don’t want to offend. We don’t want to seem narrow. In the age of globalism, honest patriotism seems like a faux pas.

And yet what is true of people is probably true of nations: if you don’t have a well-grounded respect for yourself, you won’t long sustain a well-grounded respect for others.

I don’t think it’s just the immigrants — after Viet Nam, Watergate, and the triumph of post-modernism in academia, we largely stopped teaching our own children the legend, the great thoughts, the traditions — the love of country not out of some blind, irrational "nationalism," but out of deep admiration and respect for the people and ideas and values that brought it about and that still set it apart from all others. People and ideas and values that are unique, powerful, and soul-stirring.

Aitken and Noonan are right — America always has been and still is an exceptional place. If you don’t believe that, you need to get out more — learn more about the rest of the world and about history. Libertarians of all people should recognize that.

Instead, too many libertarians just bitch, as Aitken said. Even if they still admire America’s founders and history, they see only negatives in their own lifetime — taxes are higher, regulations more onerous, the police state is creeping closer, we’re losing our liberties all the time, yada, yada, yada. Well, granted, the Federal Register is a depressing document for a libertarian.

But in my lifetime, liberty has made more gains than retreats — people no longer fear jail (or worse) for drinking from the wrong water fountain or sitting in the wrong bus seat. The Lenny Bruces and Al Goldsteins of today aren’t being hauled off to jail. Yes, McCain-Feingold is an abomination, but on the whole, no people on earth are or ever have been more free to express themselves. Significant strides have been made in restoring some of the economic freedoms given up in the first half of the 20th century. Thirty-nine states (up from half a dozen) now recognize that our inherent right to self-defense, if not absolute, at least puts a significant burden on the state to demonstrate why we should not be able to go about armed.

I could go on. And we could argue endlessly about which pluses balance out which minuses and what the net score for liberty is from year to year. But that’s not the point. The point is that there are always things to criticize and things to praise, but at the end of the day, America as an idea and an institution and a heritage is worthy of our love and affection. Libertarians of all people should recognize that.

Just as we admire and love people who personify and concretize virtues and traits of character that we think are noble and worthy, it’s appropriate for us to admire and love institutions that embody and concretize ideals and principles that we think are noble and worthy.

Libertarians of all people should get choked up when they hear the Star Spangled Banner, when the fireworks go off on Independence Day, when an immigrant weeps at a naturalization ceremony, or when a Medal of Honor recipient, asked why he performed his great act of heroism, struggles to express himself clearly:

He couldn’t answer for a few seconds. You could tell he was searching for the right words, the right sentence. Then he said, "I get emotional about it. But we’re a free country." He said it with a kind of wonder, and gratitude.

Instead, too many libertarians have lost all sense of perspective and have adopted their own version of the sick moral equivalence game played by the left, which says that we’re no better than the people who attack us. Witness the libertarian who left this comment on one of my posts about Jay Bennish, the geography teacher  who indulged in the "Bush is like Hitler" classroom rant:

Actually, I think Bush is somewhat like Hitler – but what president in recent history hasn’t been? They are all after more power and more police-statism, and a bunch of nanny-statism to boot.

I responded:

Dick: Thanks for dropping by, but your first paragraph exemplifies what’s wrong with far too many libertarians.

George W. Bush is "somewhat like" Adolf Hitler in the same sense that a shoplifter at Target is "somewhat like" Genghis Khan because both took things that didn’t belong to them.

Well, that was Dick’s second paragraph, but I think I otherwise nailed it with my rejoinder.

To a lot of my fellow libertarians, I want to shout, "What the hell has happened to your sense of perspective? You rant about the Patriot Act — have you been to Britain or France or any of a 150 places far worse? You rail against Kelo (as did I) — did you know that in Egypt, according to Hernando De Soto, about 90% of all property owners don’t have a legal title and could lose their home or business at the whim of an unbribed bureaucrat? You carp about regulations and bureaucracies — did you know that starting a small business, which takes at worst a few days here, can take years in many countries? When was the last time you took a break from complaining and criticizing, and said, ‘I’m so grateful that I live here and not there, I’m so glad to be an American’?"

If you can’t see the huge gulf that separates "America isn’t perfect" from "America is no better than any other statist hell-hole," you need to seriously re-examine yourself and your values.

Linked to: TMH’s Bacon Bits, Blue Star Chronicles, third world county, Adam’s Blog, Conservative Cat

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Blair on the battle of ideas

Posted by Richard on March 24, 2006

Tony Blair and his Labor government have many faults, but I’ll give the man his due — he understands the nature of the current global conflict and articulates it better than anyone. Mary at Deane’s World and Harry at Harry’s Place (whose observations and comments you should go read) quote approvingly from Blair’s March 21 foreign policy speech, and with good reason. It was the first of three planned foreign policy speeches, and in it, Blair discussed global terrorism and the importance of democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was on fire:

This terrorism will not be defeated until its ideas, the poison that warps the minds of its adherents, are confronted, head-on, in their essence, at their core. By this I don’t mean telling them terrorism is wrong. I mean telling them their attitude to America is absurd; their concept of governance pre-feudal; their positions on women and other faiths, reactionary and regressive; and then since only by Muslims can this be done: standing up for and supporting those within Islam who will tell them all of this but more, namely that the extremist view of Islam is not just theologically backward but completely contrary to the spirit and teaching of the Koran.

I don’t know if Blair’s right about the Koran, but he sure nailed it on the backwardness and the need to confront those backward ideas directly. Blair went on to reject the notion that we should ask ourselves why they hate us and the idea that this conflict is one we can choose to avoid:

This is not a clash between civilisations. It is a clash about civilisation. It is the age-old battle between progress and reaction, between those who embrace and see opportunity in the modern world and those who reject its existence; between optimism and hope on the one hand; and pessimism and fear on the other. And in the era of globalisation where nations depend on each other and where our security is held in common or not at all, the outcome of this clash between extremism and progress is utterly determinative of our future here in Britain. We can no more opt out of this struggle than we can opt out of the climate changing around us. Inaction, pushing the responsibility on to America, deluding ourselves that this terrorism is an isolated series of individual incidents rather than a global movement and would go away if only we were more sensitive to its pretensions; this too is a policy. It is just that it is a policy that is profoundly, fundamentally wrong.

Blair touched on an important point regarding the elections in Iraq and Afghanistan:

The fact is: given the chance, the people wanted democracy. OK so they voted on religious or regional lines. That’s not surprising, given the history. But there’s not much doubt what all the main parties in both countries would prefer and it is neither theocratic nor secular dictatorship. The people – despite violence, intimidation, inexperience and often logistical nightmares – voted. Not a few. But in numbers large enough to shame many western democracies. They want Government decided by the people.

Blair touched on something very important above, but didn’t fully pursue the thought. It’s a crucial idea that the Islamofascists seem to understand clearly, but the critics and pessimists just don’t get: once the vast majority of the people buy into the concept of democratic government — even a Sharia-based or Shia-dominated democratic government — the reactionary theology of the Islamofascists has already lost. Their version of Islam can’t tolerate people choosing, period — even if you make the "right" choice, the very idea that it’s up to you to decide between competing ideas undermines their entire belief system and will eventually destroy it.

Eventually. But we may have to be patient, and we’re not very good at that. Granted, it’s not easy to be patient with a new, democratic government that threatens to execute someone for changing his religion.

Blair expressed his frustration with the critics, nay-sayers, and defeatists, and called on us to have patience and courage:

That to me is the painful irony of what is happening. They have so much clearer a sense of what is at stake. They play our own media with a shrewdness that would be the envy of many a political party. Every act of carnage adds to the death toll. But somehow it serves to indicate our responsibility for disorder, rather than the act of wickedness that causes it. For us, so much of our opinion believes that what was done in Iraq in 2003 was so wrong, that it is reluctant to accept what is plainly right now.

What happens in Iraq or Afghanistan today is not just crucial for the people in those countries or even in those regions; but for our security here and round the world. It is a cause that has none of the debatable nature of the decisions to go for regime change; it is an entirely noble one – to help people in need of our help in pursuit of liberty; and a self-interested one, since in their salvation lies our own security.

Across the Arab and Muslim world such a struggle for democracy and liberty continues. One reason I am so passionate about Turkey’s membership of the EU is precisely because it enhances the possibility of a good outcome to such a struggle. It should be our task to empower and support those in favour of uniting Islam and democracy, everywhere.

To do this, we must fight the ideas of the extremists, not just their actions; and stand up for and not walk away from those engaged in a life or death battle for freedom. The fact of their courage in doing so should give us courage; their determination should lend us strength; their embrace of democratic values, which do not belong to any race, religion or nation, but are universal, should reinforce our own confidence in those values.

Read, as they say, the whole thing.

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