e. magill's Intrigue

Understanding the Stakes without a Partisan Spin

The politicians, newsreporters, and spin doctors are all making a big fuss over this new National Intelligence Estimate. The Democrats eagerly cite the part that talks about how the War in Iraq has increased international terrorism on a global scale, essentially pointing their fingers at it at screaming, "See?! You see?! I told you so!" while secretly relieved that nobody's brought up the large bipartisan support for that Congressional approval to use force that nobody wants to discuss. Meanwhile, the Republicans are returning with citations of the part that mentions how success in Iraq is vital to success in the War on Terror, largely ignoring the fact that we are the ones who turned Iraq into the so-called central front.

Those who've been reading my opinions on the matter since an invasion of Iraq was first proposed are well aware of how I feel about it. And, for me, this new National Intelligence Estimate is an entirely moot argument. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of the whole legitimacy of an invasion of Iraq debate, because everybody made up their mind a long time ago and nothing's going to change it. We've all heard the arguments, and we've all been swayed into our particular corners.

But, more importantly than that, the debate accomplishes nothing now. We have to live in the present, a present in which we did invade Iraq and in which we are fighting a very difficult and taxing war with terrorists. To throw our hands up in the air, concede defeat, and bring the boys back home would be the most catastrophic thing we could ever do. The reason is simple.

If we leave, we legitimize terrorism as an effective means of creating political change. Once we do that, we have set the final props onto the Armageddon stage. Everyone with a political beef will suddenly realize that killing innocent people works as long as you do it for a long enough period of time, and then we'll have mass murder taking place in every corner of the globe while the greatest military machine on the planet would be impotent to fight it. Al Qaeda, especially, will see our departure from Iraq as the greatest victory they could achieve and that would, naturally, make their recruitment percentages quadruple overnight.

And let's face it, regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the initial reasoning, you have to admit we owe it to the civilians of Iraq to fix what we broke. We destroyed their government and a good bit of their infrastructure. Leaving now would be like a surgeon in the middle of a heart bypass suddenly deciding to leave the room without stitching up. Even if the bypass were unwarranted, not finishing the surgery once it has begun would kill the patient. We just can't do it; this is NOT Vietnam, no matter how much the peaceniks wish it were.

The facts have not changed, and they are as follows:

FACT #1: Before the U.S. invasion, Iraq was a threat to national security, for the simple reasoning that she failed to prove that she had disarmed, was unwilling to cooperate with international inspections (once Chirac said that France would vote "no" to any resolution authorizing an invasion), and supported international terrorism against Israel and the United States. This is fact, not opinion. The facts that WMDs were not found in large quantities after the invasion and that relations between Iraq and Al Qaeda were flimsy at best do not change how much of a threat Iraq was.

FACT #2: Terrorist activity against the United States is now focussed far more heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan than it is on U.S. soil. In other words, U.S. civilians are safer here at home. Again, this is a fact, one that is repeated in the Estimate.

FACT #3: If we had not invaded Iraq, the threat she represented would be exponentially worse, and we would still be uncertain as to the fate of her WMD programs.

FACT #4: While terrorism has increased there, the general standard of living in Iraq for its civilians is better than it was under the Ba'ath Party. She now has a democratically elected government and a wide range of newly formed checks and balances to the distribution of power. She has her own volunteer police force, national guard, and army. There are strict prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment. Women can vote. Minorities have a voice in politics. People are not disappearing into torture chambers for disagreeing with the government. Wealth is being more evenly distributed instead of being pumped into Hussein's opulent palaces. Et cetera.

FACT #5: The United States has not plundered a single drop of Iraqi oil and has no plans to do so. THIS IS A FACT.

FACT #6: Even the Democrats in Washington know that we can't leave now. Their rhetoric is just that: rhetoric. (Oh, and don't get all paranoid when they ask the president to declassify the rest of the Intelligence Estimate and he comes back saying that he can't. They know he can't, which is why they're asking him to do it.)

In closing, I quote Andrew C. McCarthy when he wrote, "It is bad enough when the Muslim charlatans opportunistically use American policies they don't like for militant propaganda purposes. It is reprehensible when American politicians do it."

-e. magill 09/27/2006