Missed Connections

The Left still doesn't get it. In a couple of columns today we see the same inane arguments that we shouldn't have attacked Iraq because, as the 9/11 commission stated, there were no ties there. There is a lot of purposeful obfuscation of this issue. As numerous others have written, the 9/11 commission found that Iraq was not directly involved in 9/11, but it did find that there were plenty of links between bin Laden and Hussein's Iraq. For the Left, the only reason to have attacked Iraq is that if they directly participated in 9/11. What they still have not grasped, as evidenced by their statements, is that this is not a war against bin Laden the person, or even al Qaeda the group. It is a war against an ideology that has permeated the Arab world. And the only way to stop this ideology from spreading is to defeat it at its source, the Arab Middle East. Ellen Goodman perfectly illustrates this lack of understanding in her op/ed.

From the outset, I was dismayed that the Iraq war was not only launched and defended but accepted in the name of 9/11. Osama and Saddam, a religious fanatic and a secular despot, were morphed into terrorist brethren. Afghanistan and Iraq merged into one war on terror.

Yes, they were merged because they emanate form the same source; from the same failed society that can only blame others (Americans and "Zionists", primarily) for all their misfortunes, and whose goal is to spread their ideology through conquest. We have let this ideology fester and metastisize during the last 10 years (and maybe more) of inaction. That was the status quo, and after we were attacked, we decided that such "stability" was dangerous. Maureen Dowd, meanwhile, is upset that we are changing the status quo.

Once again, Mr. Wolfowitz conflates 9/11 and Iraq. Instead of finishing off Osama in Afghanistan, the neocons dragged us into an Iraq adventure, which has ended up destabilizing the Middle East. So much for the "status quo."

To paraphrase P.J. O'Rourke, in the last 60 years a "stable" Middle East has been the source of 5 wars against Israel, a brutal Iraq-Iran war, the invasion of Kuwait, hijacking of civilian airliners, suicide bombers, and numerous fascistic tyrants. Can Maureen Dowd, or Ellen Goodman, or any of their ilk explain why it is that we would want a continuation of such "stability"?