The Way Forward in Iraq

There is at last some truly splendid news from Iraq. The Iraqi people have defied their enemies and detractors, and adopted a constitution. Their courage in the face of threats, and the fortitude of our troops in the face of cowardly murder and complete disregard for the laws of war on the part of our barbarian common enemies, opens the way forward to complete victory in Iraq. By December, Iraq, uniquely in an Islamic world governed by petty tyrants; corrupt and murderous dictators a la Saddam; barbarian mullahs and jumped-up tribal-chiefs --will have a fully functioning republican government, and the beginnings of liberal institutions.

Of course, the US mainstream press: mouthpiece of our craven opinion elites, our quisling academics and various and sundry defeatists and crypto-fascists -- can talk about nothing but the 2,000th US casualty in Iraq. In any normal historical context, the conquest and complete regeneration of a xenophobic foreign state of 29 million people for the cost of 2,000 dead would be a stupendous military achievement. Napoléon himself never did that.

Nothing has been impossible for the American soldier ! (I include his Marine, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard comrades). Our armies defeated a big, reputedly tough foreign enemy, dispersed their armies, occupied their capital, and captured their tyrant-leader, who now awaits hanging. Our armed forces have gone a long way towards establishing public order (which never in our sense has ever existed in Iraq). Our military engineers have restored (and in some cases established) basic public services, assisted the sick, and are training and building a new Iraqi Army that, in years to come, will be a solid American ally in the Persian Gulf. Finally, they are, bit by bit, terrorist by terrorist, putting paid to verminous barbarian enemies who make war on women and children when they aren't using them as human bombs. All this has been accomplished on a shoestring.

When the history of these years is truly written, its readers will stand in awe of the accomplishments of our uniformed brothers and children. Our children will see that the heroes of Baghdad, of Fallujah, of Nasiriyah are worthy heirs to their fathers of the Argonne, Bataan, Normandy, Iwo Jima, the Chosun Reservoir, of Khe Sanh and the A Shau Valley.

Every American and allied casualty in this war is a tragedy and a shame. No words or prayers of ours, no monument we may build, no help we can give can console the parents, the children and loved ones so bereaved. But do not be deceived by the too clever by half blandishments of those who say they support the troops, but not the cause they died for. If these political exploiters of pain and suffering are allowed to prevail, they will render the blood sacrifices of so many meaningless, and they will hand millions of innocent people: the voters of Iraq who showed by exercising their franchise that they want a better, peaceful way forward -- over to barbarism, to codign punishment for supporting us and to a worse than Egyptian bondage. They will go back to their newspapers, their tree-lined campuses and their BMW's, safely insulated from the tyranny they will cheerfully see imposed on others. When you listen to the traducers of our war effort, never, never forget their earlier work: the boat people of South Vietnam.

Let those who would use the dead to besmirch the cause they died for, or to weaken our resolve to win the war -- go crawl back under whatever rock they live under. There, they can preach the same noxious defeatist nonsense they have been preaching these past forty years. America, and liberty, are moving forward in Iraq. There is no substitute for victory here. There never was.