Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Reality Check on Global War on Terror

Two notable opinion pieces published today provide just the right contrarian check on the conventional wisdom that we need a new approach to Islamofascism.

The first, by Bret Stephens from the indispensable WSJ opinion page, notes that Iraqis are troubled by the prospect of an Obama presidency. The reason is simple and obvious: a precipitous US withdrawal, the obviously declared plan of the Democratic candidate even if it is not his intention to carry it out, leaves Iraq, currently enjoying its most peaceful period ever, subject to the same sectarian warfare and ultimate domination by the extremist mullahs of Iran that seriously threatened it not so many months ago.

The second is not so remarkable in its message--that the world is safer thanks to the actions of one George Walker Bush--as in its source, Britain's left-wing Guardian. From a marvelously terse column by one Oliver Kamm, we quote this gem of a paragraph:

The most fundamental decision in western security policy in the past seven years has not been the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. It has been the recognition that the most voluble adversaries of western society are not merely a criminal subculture, and still less an incipient liberation movement. Rather, they are a reactionary, millenarian and atavistic force with whom accommodation is impossible as well as intensely undesirable.

And so, Kamm concludes:

Whoever succeeds Bush as president will benefit from some decisions well conceived if often badly executed. So will America's allies.


Which takes us to the latest polling. Obama, despite his many political advantages, currently leads He Who Will Be Bush's Third Term by an average of merely four percent. In our view the race is close because, uncomfortable as people are with Bush's legacy, they don't trust that the solutions are as painless as the Democratic left insists.

3 comments:

Matt Coulter said...

So I'm watching the local news last night and I see the report about the car bombing in Baghdad. The graphic behind the reporter is a U.S. soldier in front of an American flag with the caption Battle in Iraq. I do not think the story is related to the U.S. involvement in war. It is people in Iraq trying to kill people in Iraq because the killers are evil people that think everyone else is evil. But our media loves to make it all look like our fault. What ever happened to "don't believe everything you see on TV".

Guy named Courtney said...

To continue that, the video shown whenever there is a story on gitmo is all at least 5 years old. The press can't possibly show how nice gitmo looks now, because that could show those staying there might be being treated a little better than reported.

Anonymous said...

absolutely. It has been increasingly difficult for me to listen to anything that any of the candidates say in regards to the war and whether or not to withdrawal. Alot of what Obama says sounds good to me, but I cannot escape the feeling of unease in my stomach that simply will not allow me to believe that ANYONE will be able to solve the problems we face today. And, as easily as I find myself swayed against Mr. Bush at times, I still have to agree with a quote that one Dennis Miller said some time ago, "I'm not saying that I like or agree with everything that Bush has done, but the fact remains that since 9/11, no one has attacked this country..." In my humblest opinion, that is one of the president's most important jobs, to keep our country safe.