The war started with 9/11

Nick Land writes in the Shanghai Star that:

Having suffered an assault more murderous - and certainly more despicable - than the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour, [the U.S.] no longer has the luxury of beginning this new world war, but only the implacable resolve to prosecute it to the end... War is no longer a "last resort" once it has been flagrantly initiated by hostile action.

Those who maintain that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein has no connection to the international war on terrorism are in most cases the same people who deny that the anti-terrorist struggle is in fact a "war" at all. This is yet another symptom of the international dismissal of 9/11...

Few seriously doubt that Iraq is a determined enemy of the US and a deceitful terrorist state, one manifestly obsessed with procuring weapons of mass destruction. Its alignment in the already ongoing world conflict is therefore beyond serious dispute...

Much of the world has deliberately blinded itself to the depravity and menace of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Hopefully this cocoon of self-deception will be among the early casualties of the campaign.

via Tim Blair
posted at 11:00 PM


Ledeen: France and Germany in “a deliberate act of sabotage against America in time of war.”
Michael Ledeen reports in The New York Sun that the reason the U.S. and Britain were forced to abandon Turkey as a staging area for a second front against Saddam’s regime “was not an Islamic protest against the American-led coalition, but an act of anti-American intimidation by France and Germany.”

He reports that “Primary blame for the defeat of the measure lies with the opposition — the secular, Kemalist parties that have governed the country since Ataturk,” who were informed by France and Germany “that if they voted to help the Coalition war effort, Turkey would be locked out of Europe for a generation. As one Turkish leader put it, ’there were no promises, only threats.’"

This is only one of a serious of actions by France and Germany that can be seen “only as a deliberate act of sabotage against America in time of war.”

Others include ”exertions of French diplomats to 'convince' African countries to vote against us in the U.N.” and “first joining with us to give Iraq a ‘really, really, last chance’ and then preventing us from acting as if the language of Resolution 1441 meant what it said.”

Ledeen observes that “To take such action, Mr. Chirac must have conceived of a French future not only independent of the United States, but in open opposition to us.”

via The Corner
posted at 10:23 PM


Politically correct rules of engagement
"We don't want to hurt people if we can avoid it but now it has got to be that if you have got a weapon you have become an Iraqi soldier and we can kill you. This rules of engagement crap is making me lose men." – Capt. Waldron, 3rd Brigade Combat Team

“When Rome is strong, the provinces are orderly.” – a Shiite Muslim in Beirut after 9/11

Writing in today’s Times, Michael Gove gets to the core of what’s wrong with how the war is being prosecuted:

As Jacky Fisher, the architect of Britain’s naval superiority at the turn of the past century, put it, “the essence of war is violence, moderation in war is imbecility.” No matter how brittle President Saddam Hussein’s regime may appear, it will not be coaxed into collapse by noises off. It must be smashed. I had hoped that Tony Blair, who has been so admirably resolute in making the case for war, would appreciate that. But I fear that progress towards crushing Saddam’s tyranny has been hindered by the politically correct manner in which he and President Bush have prosecuted this war so far…

As far as the Iraqi population is concerned, any alms we dispense now could become tickets to a torture chamber in future, unless they can be certain the Baathists have gone for good. Once the regime has been smashed we can, and must, turn all our energies to reconstruction of the country. But until then, effort, however well-meaning, diverted from victory is perfume wasted on the desert air.

Reports are that Saddam’s thugs are using hospitals and mosques as staging areas and forcing people to fight at the threat of reprisals to their families. Capt. Waldron reports that most of the Iraqi combatants he’s captured are in civilian clothes. In Basra, Saddam has turned his cannons on his own people.

Rules of engagement are necessary, but we won’t win the hearts and minds of those who hate the United States by imposing absurdly limiting rules on our military. Simply put, they will result in more, not fewer, unnecessary casualties by prolonging the war. The proper and humane thing to do is to win this war as quickly and decisively as possible, and then help the Iraqis build a prosperous, democratic and peaceful future. Neither the war, nor the peace, will be won through half measures.