Great Britain's William Shawcross is unimpressed with Cindy Sheehan and the other "anti-war" demonstrators who gathered recently in Washington, D.C.
You did not see in those demonstrations, after all, many banners reading, "Support Iraq's New Constitution," "No to Jihad" or "Stop Suicide Bombers." The crimes committed daily against the Iraqi people by other Arabs who wish to re-enslave them seem to be of little interest to Michael Moore, Jane Fonda and their followers. Rage against the daily assaults on children, women, anyone, by Islamo-fascists and ordinary national fascists is not fashionable. Only alleged American crimes are cool to decry.It's hard to think of a more graphic illustration of the horror the U.S.-led coalition is fighting in Iraq than the mass murder on Sept. 26, in which terrorists disguised as policemen (a New York Times headline called these butchers "fighters") burst into a primary school in Iskandaria, south of Baghdad, seized five teachers (all Shiites) and shot them dead. Children stood weeping through this atrocity.
Why do crimes like this make so little impression on those Americans and Europeans who want the coalition to abandon Iraq? The demonstrators think of themselves as moral, but it is hard to think of any policy more amoral than abandoning Iraq to such an enemy.
Iraqis are dismayed by the mistakes made by the coalition. They don't like the continued presence of foreign troops. But they like the prospect of being abandoned prematurely to the terrorists even less.
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U.S. soldiers are being killed not by romantic nationalist insurgents (as some liberal journalists and marchers like to pretend) but by an unholy grouping of Saddamite gangsters furious at losing power, Syrian and Iranian agents intent on creating mayhem and then theocracy, and Islamo-fascists who want to enslave the world and whose local Pol Pot, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, boasts of seeking to murder as many of Iraq's majority Shiite population as he can.
Al-Zarqawi has also declared that if he is victorious, he will use Iraq as a base to drag down other regional governments and to mount attacks on the United States. Osama bin Laden has said that "the Third World War is raging in Iraq. The whole world is watching this war." All of which makes the antiwar opposition in the United States and Europe remarkably shortsighted and self-indulgent. We in the West have a vital stake in delivering on our promises and ensuring that terrorism does not move on to other victims, with even greater bloodlust.
The sacrifice of U.S. soldiers, of their coalition allies and of Iraqis is horrifically painful. But if we can stay long enough to enable the Iraqis to lay the firm foundation of civil society, their deaths will not be in vain. We should leave when the elected Iraqi government asks us to do so.
In the face of such cynical and self-centered opposition from the Left, it's tough to see that President Bush's public support continues to languish. A new Wall Street Journal opinion survey indicates:
Looming over Mr. Bush's second term is what [Republican pollster] Mr. McInturff calls a "very difficult, sour" public mood. Just 28% of Americans say the nation is heading in "the right direction," the lowest figure in nearly 10 years, according to the Journal/NBC survey.The biggest cloud may be the war in Iraq. By 58%-34%, Americans say U.S. troop levels should be reduced once elections scheduled for December are held, up from 48%-42% before the previous elections in January. A 51% majority says removing Saddam Hussein from power hasn't been worth its human and financial costs, and 56% feel less confident the war will end successfully.
Inept public relations work like President Bush's clumsy teleconference Thursday with U.S. troops in Iraq doesn't help maintain public confidence, nor does the rapidly building distraction of the doomed Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers.
Bush needs to re-trench and re-focus himself, his team, and his agenda before his support at home erodes the nation's willingness to stay on the offensive against terrorists. There's still a hard, hard war to win.
Posted by Alan at October 14, 2005 12:37 AM