Pushing the Left's Buttons (Part II)

The one statement made by Whitty in his article that truly had me wincing when I read it was where he stated, “One’s ability to support the troops but oppose the war seems no different then one’s ability to maintain a friendship with someone who may have different habits, opinions, or values”. Sorry if I fail to see the relevance of your point here Patrick but when was the last time anyone, yourself included, organized protest rallies or obstructed roommates from going to work by lying in the doorway to oppose their particular habits? I am assuming never, though in all honesty the left has been accused of engaging in more bizarre actions then this – stuffing confidential memos and documents from the national archives into their pants and socks being just one of them. This is not merely about a difference of opinion as Mr. Whitty would suggest but instead a clear distinction as to whether we allow evil to continue degrading society as Saddam Hussein had done in Iraq or take action to stop it. Nowhere within the context of my article, you can reread it for yourself, did I ever claim, let alone suggest, that protesting against the war was criminal. The point I was attempting to make, which clearly didn’t get through either to you or any of your fellow leftists, was it was all fine and dandy prior to the invasion to bitch out the Bush Administration to your heart’s content but once our soldiers became engaged in combat was the exact moment in which to shut up.

Patrick went on to state that he had been unhappy “with the way it [the Bush Administration] planned, or failed to plan, for what would happen in the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad”, a complaint that has become quite abundant in the arguments of America-bashers. Following the attacks on September 11th, all the left could do was clamor about what WE had done to THEM that resulted in this horrific event, instead of blaming the cowardly bastards that did this to us. This is no different. True, I will admit that the aftermath following the fall of Baghdad is not running as smoothly as the invasion and occupation had been, but no one, especially within the Bush Administration, has ever stated that it was going to be a walk in the park. They explicitly stated that we were going to be in there for the long haul and that the terrorists would do everything in their power to deter us from our mission but we must never give in to our resolve to establish an independent democracy in Iraq. The left, still hung-over from the effects of the Somalia syndrome, wants to high-tail it and run when ever a single shot is fired. I hate to play the role of the harsh conservative but I will give it to you straight – people die in war. Sad, but true. This is just a simple fact of life that we must come to grips with even though we may not like it. What we as Americans must realize is that those soldiers who sacrifice their lives in combat are doing so for the greater good, not only for the safety and security of America but for the freedom and opportunity given to the people of Iraq. Sometimes blood must be spilt and money must be spent in order to preserve democracy; in order to achieve peace you must be willing to make war.

I would have to adamantly disagree with Whitty’s assumption that the Bush Administration “bent over backwards to find evidence of a solid terrorist connection and came up short”, as others who have read the 9/11 Commission Report can clearly attest to as being untrue. In July 1998, according to the report, “an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin”. This meeting, along with several others, was arranged by Bin Ladin’s right-hand man, Zawahiri, “who had his own ties to the Iraqis”. Hell, even recent Bush-basher Richard Clarke, former terrorism czar under the Clinton Administration, admitted within the contents of the 9/11 Commission Report that if Bin Ladin were to escape into Iraq it would be “virtually impossible” to find him. Now I do not know about you, but that clearly wouldn’t be the case if no connection between the two existed. And though the report does not reveal a cooperative arrangement made between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda concerning the attacks on September 11th, you would have to be a complete dunce, in other words a Howard Dean backer, to not see the connection between these two (or at least their interest to collaborate together) and their deep-seated hatred against America. In any event, it doesn’t take much digging to discover ties between Saddam Hussein and terrorism seeing as how, as I stated within my previous Viewpoint article, he offered compensation payments to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and harbored infamous terrorists such as Abu Abbas, the man who pushed a wheel-chair confined man off a cruise-liner his terror group had held hostage. Yes Patrick, how dare we go about removing as respectable and amiable a ruler as Saddam Hussein who clearly had no linkage whatsoever with terrorism. Shame on us!