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Maybe They're Wrong After All
by Dale Brown, 2007

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT TheBigFiveOh.com Blog @ Yahoo.Com, Sunday March 4, 2007

So let's tally the results so far of the Democratic Congress's attempts to tell the Commander-in-Chief what he can and cannot do:

First: On Friday 16 February, the House of Representatives voted in favor of a non-binding resolution opposing the "surge" plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq;

Second...oops, that's it. No other House or Senate bills have been passed. There are several more still on the docket, but so far the Democrats are 1 for 2, and the bill they passed is a weak, watered-down, nonsensical non-binding resolution that House leaders never had the guts to submit to the President for his signature.

If there is such widespread opposition to the war in Iraq, why hasn't there been any successful efforts made to stop it? Certainly the Democrats with their supposed "mandate" have the power to cut off funding for the war?

How's this for a radical notion? Maybe the surge continues and the war goes on because the American people and, yes, even a majority of the members of Congress, despite their bluster about how incompetently it's been conducted, really APPROVE of the war?

The cynical may say that the Democrats want the war to continue because more American casualties in Iraq mean more votes against Republican candidates in the 2008 elections--it's George Bush's war after all, and anyone even remotely linked or aligned with the President will suffer politically.

I think there's a lot of truth in that. But I think the real reason is that a majority of Americans and even a majority of those in Congress want the war to be a success, no matter what the cost.

Americans are finally starting to realize that we are under attack by corrupted Islamists that want to destroy the West and set up a network of nations united under a radicalized version of Islamic law, and if we don't fight them in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Somalia, and a dozen other countries in the world, we'll end up fighting them over here.

We are starting to understand that the war against radical Islam will be a long-term battle that will require enormous sacrifice and determination, but the cost of failure will be much, much higher.

Folks are finally starting to accept the idea that the war on radical Islam is an undeclared but very real war, like the Cold War against the threat of militaristic Communism, and it will span generations. It will require the creation of vast bureaucracies and military units designed specifically to search, detect, track, and neutralize the threat, and it will require new laws to enable these units and agencies to effectively do their job, at home as well as abroad. Everyone will eventually be touched by this new reality.

There will be those that deny that this new war exists. They will say that creating new agencies and units to combat this "threat" is just an imperialistic power and money grab by ideological madmen in the White House. If the Islamists strike again, they will say, it will be because America provoked them--that we have marginalized and ignored most of the rest of the world so badly and for so long that the oppressed have no other recourse than to lash out with asymmetrical weapons and tactics that government propagandists will call "terrorists" and "insurgents."

But despite the left's paranoia and rhetoric, I feel most Americans believe that we ARE at war--not a war like the "war on drugs" or the "war on poverty," but a war like the Cold War, where failure could lead to societal annihilation.

No war is good, even with the most noble of intentions. Casualties of war should never be dismissed as statistically insignificant--every casualty is a tremendous loss for the families and for the whole nation. But some wars need to be fought and won, and the war on radical Islam is definitely one of them.

Is the war in Iraq the war that needs to be fought? Only history will answer that question. Whatever its outcome, military or political, the war in Iraq will be seen as one of the first major battles between the West and radical Islam. Maybe it didn't start out as such--Saddam Hussein was definitely no wide-eyed Muslim fanatic, although he tried to portray himself as a defender of Islam--but it has certainly devolved into one.

A major criticism of the Iraq war is that it has changed into a civil war that we didn't plan to fight, didn't sign on to, aren't equipped to fight, and doesn't threaten America, and therefore we should pull out. Not true. The civil war in Iraq is a struggle between Muslim fanatics for control of Middle East oil--and not just Iraqi fanatics but aggressors from Iran and other Islamic nations and factions. America needs to stay engaged and in contact with these radicals to prevent our interests from being controlled by these extremists, because if they get control of the oil they'll have the monetary and ideological resources to increase their numbers, change or destroy governments, and attack at will all over the globe with even more sophisticated weapons.

My brother is headed to Iraq at the end of this month for his second tour in Operation Iraqi Freedom and his sixth deployment to the Gulf--and separation from his family--since 1990. The danger, the sadness, and the fear are all real, and it's really hit home, again, for me. I may quibble with the way some American forces are being utilized, but I believe in our mission and our presence in Iraq, and I hope we stay strong, resolute, and committed to victory, despite the danger and the very real possibility of a tragic personal loss.

I'm not angry because he might be hurt or killed in Iraq. He's a soldier, and that's the danger every soldier faces. I'm angry because a lot of politicians aren't being honest with the American people, and their rhetoric is hurting our troops who volunteer to place their lives in jeopardy for America.

If you don't like the war, don't vote for the funding. If you lose and the money is appropriated, shut your mouth, draft a new resolution, and try to get it passed. If that one loses, draft another. If what you say is honest and true, maybe more will listen to you, and perhaps one day you'll be successful and cut off the funding. You'll have to live with the consequences of your decision, just as the President must live with the consequences of his decisions each and every day our troops are in harm's way.

But if your resolutions keep on getting defeated, maybe you should start to understand that there are wars that must be fought, and now is the time to start fighting them.

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