If you have not yet bookmarked the blog by Omar and Mohammed Fadhil, "Iraq the Model," do it now. Day after day it has the courageous merit of posing the clear choices facing Iraqi politicians, and also those facing ours. In the March 23 post, for example, "The Real Front in the War on Terror," the blog dismantles the justification given for the recent House of Representatives vote to extricate America from Iraq by this time next year. Our media herald a largely political victory for Speaker Nancy Pelosi--who was all smiles on our front pages over the weekend--and for her ally, Rep. Jack Murtha.
Mohammed, following all this closely, challenges the US "peace" advocates to say what exactly they propose to do with the chaos that would follow a US retreat. He skewers the euphemism of Reps. Pelosi and Murtha that the US troops should merely "redeploy" to some more suitable locations. "Walking away from the main war is not redeployment," he states, "it's quitting."
Quitting won't work. Iraq as a new al Qaeda state-base would be an enormous and imminent risk for us at home in our beds in Pennsylvania or San Francisco as much as for the poor souls left to terrorist depredations in the Middle East.
There was a choice for the opposition party to make a while back when the going got rough in Iraq. First, it could have settled for criticizing the management of the war. That would not have been very damaging to the country. In certain tactical respects, it would have been warranted, and, therefore, even helpful.
Instead the left has made complete opposition to the war the leitmotif of its political score. The only conflict within the liberal band is conducted off-stage between those who want to get out of Iraq right away and those who want a timetable set a bit in the distance. Either way, it is a message that is being heard world wide, and maybe not in the manner that the Democrats intend.
The domestic reaction, meanwhile, is mediated by organizations like MoveOn.org and CAIR (the Council on American Islamic Relations). To a remarkable and largely unnoticed degree, they are public relations creatures of the far-left Fenton Communications group. In a just world the media by now would be looking into these groups and asking about their activities, funding, etc. If they were conservative groups, that certainly would be happening, wouldn't it?
Still, those of us who support the war in Iraq at least can ask the opponents, repeatedly: What do you propose to do when you pull out American troops (or "redeploy" them)? How then should America react when Iraq becomes a killing field for terror and mass murder? What will we do when al Qaeda International adopts Iraq as its new headquarters?
Let us discuss real choices, not fantasies.
The choice for America has never been, Should we war against the terrorists in Iraq or not? It is (and has always been), Should we war against the terrorists in Iraq or run the high risks of facing them here in America and in other regions where America has vital interests?
General David Petraeus' Surge is generally a success already, and it is not yet in full force. If the left had had its way, however, none of the past six weeks' progress in the war would have happened. The Surge would have been stopped in its tracks.
Ask the war opponents about it. Granted, the greatest work is ahead, but since the Surge in Baghdad so far is reducing US casualties and increasing relative Iraqi security, why do you still oppose it?
It would be nice to hear some of the presidential candidates and congressional leaders asked such questions rather than quizzed breathlessly about their television advertisements, personal lives and fundraising prowess.
There's a war on, folks.