Jay Reding.com

After reviewing all the evidence about the latest developments in the case of Karl Rove, Valerie Plame, and the media, I’ve come to the following conclusion:

I just don’t care.

If I hear the lefties throw around idiotic arguments that Rove committed “treason” once more, I’ll puke. If I hear the right engage in Clintonian word parsing, I’ll also puke. Therefore, I’ve stopped caring.

Yes, what Rove likely did was a slimy political move. So what? To borrow a quote from the great Casablanca, I’m shocked, shocked that Karl Rove is a partisan. He more than likely didn’t break the law, but he did engage in an operation to discredit Wilson - then again, the fact that Wilson was a liar who was trying to use his position to sabotage national policy, I can’t really get upset about that. And while Rove did “out” a person engaged in covert activities, Plame’s activities weren’t sufficiently covert that everyone in Washington didn’t know who she was and where she really worked. A pox on both their houses.

And as for the speculation about why Judith Miller is sitting in a jail cell, no ulterior motive beyond the endless moralism of the journalistic chattering classes are required. By refusing to reveal her sources (and if it’s Rove, she already had carte blanche to spill the beans) she gets the opportunity to play the martyr for the journalistic faith. No doubt that after a few weeks of squalor, she’s in for a large book advance in which she gets to be the poster child for “journalistic integrity” and other oxymorons.

Instead, this entire sordid and stupid affair is a massive partisan circle jerk. The lefties get their chance to go after Karl Rove, the righties get to note how viciously and mindlessly partisan the left is, and the rest of the country doesn’t give a damn. God willing, this whole story will soon fade away into irrelevance like SandyBerger DocumentPants, the ANG memos, and all the other various and sundry scandals du jour as the country gets on to things that actually matter like the future of the Supreme Court, preserving Social Security, and winning the war.

One of the goals of this site was to focus on longer, more in-depth articles on a given topic rather than shorter pieces containing little more than a link and a quite note. I’d rather be a “thinker” rather than a “linker”.

However, there are times when all I can do is provide a quick note or aside, and that’s what The Daily Impromptu is all about. The Daily Impromptu is where you’ll find quick notes, links, and other bits of mental flotsam that doesn’t quite have enough to make the front page, but still is worth a mention.

And of course, there’s no better way to start off than by thanking the incomparable Mitch Berg for his effusive praise of this site.

London Attack Impromptus

In London, Tony Blair expressed shock that the London Underground bombers were Britons. Has he ever heard the kind of vile hatemongering that comes from places like the Finsbury Park Mosque? London has long been a center of radical Islam in Europe. Thankfully, that’s soon to change. Sadly, it came at the cost of dozens of lives.

Reports have indicated that the Tavistock Square bomb was exploded by a suicide bomber. His head apparently was severed from his body and found in the debris.

We have his head, all we need is the pike — pour discourager les autres…

Economic Impromptus

Bush has made the national debt spiral out of control!… Oh, wait…

But Bush has caused millions to lose their jobs!… Oh, wait…

But under Bush the rich aren’t paying their “fair share” and revenues are falling… Oh, wait…

And this was supposed to be the worst economy since the Great Depression…

Geography 101

No, Afghanistan is not an Arab country. Afghans do not speak Arabic, they speak a Farsi dialect, Pashtun, Tajik, or Uzbek. Very few know much more Arabic than a few prayers and Qur’anic verses. They are not ethnically Arab. Just about the only thing that the Arabs and Afghans have in common is Islam. As great as Afghan democracy is, it is no substitute for dealing with the problems of the Arab world.

Thus ends this lesson in World Geography 101.

The excellent milblog Faces from the Front has an incredibly well-researched and blistering response to the NYT’s Bob Herbert and the Guardian’s Gary Younge leftist blather:

“We want to inform the Ummah [all Muslim believers] that your brothers in the Al Qaida organization will not stop Jihad until the Sharia of Allah is the only source of laws on earth.”

When I first read those words from an Al Qaida In The Land of Two Rivers press release in April, shortly after the insurgent’s failed attack on Abu Ghraib, I was obviously wrong about about their goals and how to deal with terrorism.

I am so grateful the New York Time’s Bob Herbert and The Guardian’s Gary Younge set me straight.

By the end of the piece, the argument that we can placate the Islamists ends up being crushed to powder. Whoever wrote this piece knows their stuff, and knows the enemy far better than the left.

The nature of Islam is inherently expansionist. The “father” of the modern Islamist movement, Sayyid Qutb followed through with a totalitarian Islamic ideology that divides the world into two camps - Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb (The House of Submission and the House of War respectively). Anyone who does not embrace strict Islamic shari’a law is living in Dar al-Harb and must be forcibly converted or killed. The radical Islamist ideology believes that the West represents the single greatest force for jahiliyyah (or pre-Islamic paganism) in the world.

The goal of Islam for the radical Islamist is the destruction of all the forces of jahiliyyah and the imposition of a single Islamic state. The article references this critical passage from Sayyid Qutb:

“This movement uses the methods of preaching and persuasion for reforming ideas and beliefs and it uses physical power and Jihaad for abolishing the organizations and authorities of the Jahili system which prevents people from reforming their ideas and beliefs but forces them to obey their erroneous ways and make them serve human lords instead of the Almighty Lord.”

“It would be naive to assume that a call is raised to free the whole of humankind throughout the earth, and it is confined to preaching and exposition.”

“It is immaterial whether the homeland of Islam - in the true Islamic sense, Dar ul-Islam - is in a condition of peace or whether it is threatened by its neighbors. When Islam strives for peace, its objective is not that superficial peace which requires that only that part of the earth where the followers of Islam are residing remain secure. The peace which Islam desires is that the religion (i.e. the Law of the society) be purified for God, that the obedience of all people be for God alone.”

“With these verses from the Qur’an and with many Traditions of the Prophet - peace be on him - in praise of Jihaad, and with the entire history of Islam, which is full of Jihaad, the heart of every Muslim rejects that explanation of lihaad invented by those people whose minds have accepted defeat under unfavorable conditions and under the attacks on Islamic Jihaad by the shrewd orientalists.”

“What kind of a man is it who, after listening to the commandment of God and the Traditions of the Prophet - peace be on him-and after reading about the events which occurred during the Islamic Jihaad, still thinks that it is a temporary injunction related to transient conditions and that it is concerned only with the defense of the borders?”

“The reasons for Jihaad which have been described in the above verses are these: to establish God’s authority in the earth; to arrange human affairs according to the true guidance provided by God; to abolish all the Satanic forces and Satanic systems of life; to end the lordship of one man over others since all men are creatures of God and no one has the authority to make them his servants or to make arbitrary laws for them. These reasons are sufficient for proclaiming Jihaad. However, one should always keep in mind that there is no compulsion in religion; that is, once the people are free from the lordship of men, the law governing civil affairs will be purely that of God, while no one will be forced to change his beliefs and accept Islam.”

“Those who say that Islamic Jihaad was merely for the defense of the ‘homeland of Islam’ diminish the greatness of the Islamic way of life and consider it less important than their ‘homeland’. This is not the Islamic point of view, and their view is a creation of the modern age and is completely alien to Islamic consciousness.”

There can be no doubt, based on this passage that were we to simply leave the Middle East alone we would be safe. Quite instead, we would be inviting further attack. To do so would not only fail to provide a true sense of security, but it would indicate to the Islamists that America is once again a weak target. For instance, Time magazine gives this view into the mind of bin Laden himself:

In his own words at his celebration dinner, bin Laden laid out bluntly his theory of power: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.” Maybe so. But when they see a supposedly strong horse later show himself to be weak, they will want all the more strongly to send it to the glue factory.

Bin Laden’s moment of honesty exposes the nature of his view of the West. After the disastrous events in Somalia, bin Laden saw the United States as a paper tiger - inflict a few casualties, drag them in the streets in front of a few cameras, and America will fold. That playbook is still very much in force. The center of gravity for this war is as much in the Midwest as it is in the Middle East. Bin Laden and the rest of the terrorists know that a direct military confrontation with the West is tantamount to suicide. The weakness of the West lies in its unwillingness to fight over the long term, and bin Laden and al-Zarqawi are actively trying to exploit that weakness in Iraq.

Even if we could buy our safety, what would the costs be? Would Herbert and Younge argue that the people of Israel wouldn’t be “driven into the sea” as the Islamists have promised to do? Would Herbert and Younge care to trade the freedom of millions in order to buy ourselves the illusory safety of surrender and appeasement? What about the women who would be forced into the veil, into abusive arranged marriages, or murdered for the “crime” of being the victim of rape? Would Herbert and Younge argue that selling out the very concepts of freedom and human rights is worth the utterly false sense of security that surrender would provide.

It disgusts me that four years into this war, there are many people out there, especially people who profess to be “academics” who still don’t understand the nature of the enemy we fight. Especially when there’s plenty of evidence to their true intentions. One would think that the supposed paragons of textual analysis, evidence, and reasoned argumentation would have read Qutb, would know who Sayyid Abu’l-A’la Mawdudi was, and would understand the actual philosophies behind radical Islam.

Yet it would seem that despite atrocity after atrocity, some people have been so blinded that they can’t see evil what it is.

If we want “peace” through accomodation, then there’s an easy way to achieve it. Pull all the women from every university and put them under the veil, forbidding them from every showing their face in public. Execute every homosexual. Kill every Jew. Convert to Islam and reject jahiliyyah.

If those options are unacceptable to us, and they damn well had better be, then we will always be a target. Leaving Iraq won’t make us less of a target. Leaving Afghanistan won’t make us less of a target. Letting the people of Israel be slaughtered won’t make us less of a target. They will simply reveal our weakness and indicate that we’re that much closer to being conquered.

Make no mistake: the ideology of radical Islam is inherently expansionist. The goal of the Islamists is not to defend their borders, but to ensure that all the forces of jahiliyyah are utterly expunged. Hoping that we can buy them off by allowing a few million here and there to be plunged into theocratic totaltarianism will no more purchase our safety than the appeasement of Hitler at Munich stalled World War II. Those who advocate such a solution want the same “peace in our time” - a “peace” that leaves millions dead, millions more enslaved, and a world in which a threat to true peace and stability is left to fester.

The followers of radical Islam take Qutb very seriously — it’s sad that our own chattering classes don’t.

Steven Hayes has been tireless pursuing the connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda, and he’s uncovered even more evidence linking the Iraqi regime to al-Qaeda. Hayes located a file in part of a FOIA request on Gitmo detainees that paints an alarming connection:

1. From 1987 to 1989, the detainee served as an infantryman in the Iraqi Army and received training on the mortar and rocket propelled grenades.
2. A Taliban recruiter in Baghdad convinced the detainee to travel to Afghanistan to join the Taliban in 1994.
3. The detainee admitted he was a member of the Taliban.
4. The detainee pledged allegiance to the supreme leader of the Taliban to help them take over all of Afghanistan.
5. The Taliban issued the detainee a Kalishnikov rifle in November 2000.
6. The detainee worked in a Taliban ammo and arms storage arsenal in Mazar-Es-Sharif organizing weapons and ammunition.
7. The detainee willingly associated with al Qaida members.
8. The detainee was a member of al Qaida.
9. An assistant to Usama Bin Ladin paid the detainee on three separate occasions between 1995 and 1997.
10. The detainee stayed at the al Farouq camp in Darwanta, Afghanistan, where he received 1,000 Rupees to continue his travels.
11. From 1997 to 1998, the detainee acted as a trusted agent for Usama Bin Ladin, executing three separate reconnaissance missions for the al Qaeda leader in Oman, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
12. In August 1998, the detainee traveled to Pakistan with a member of Iraqi Intelligence for the purpose of blowing up the Pakistan, United States and British embassies with chemical mortars.
13. Detainee was arrested by Pakistani authorities in Khudzar, Pakistan, in July 2002.

Now, the fact that an Iraqi was a member of al-Qaeda doesn’t prove that there’s an official Iraq/al-Qaeda connection. However, the 9/11 Commission indicated that they could find no evidence of operational ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Yet Hayes has uncovered what certainly seems to be an operational tie between a member of al-Qaeda and a planned attack. The questions raised by this information are profound: why was an agent of al-Qaeda traveling with an agent of Iraqi intelligence? Where would those chemical mortars have come from? How much deeper does this story go?

Hayes find many other examples of potential connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda:

We know from these IIS documents that beginning in 1992 the former Iraqi regime regarded bin Laden as an Iraqi Intelligence asset. We know from IIS documents that the former Iraqi regime provided safe haven and financial support to an Iraqi who has admitted to mixing the chemicals for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. We know from IIS documents that Saddam Hussein agreed to Osama bin Laden’s request to broadcast anti-Saudi propaganda on Iraqi state-run television. We know from IIS documents that a “trusted confidante” of bin Laden stayed for more than two weeks at a posh Baghdad hotel as the guest of the Iraqi Intelligence Service.

We have been told by Hudayfa Azzam, the son of bin Laden’s longtime mentor Abdullah Azzam, that Saddam Hussein welcomed young al Qaeda members “with open arms” before the war, that they “entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up an organization to confront the occupation,” and that the regime “strictly and directly” controlled their activities. We have been told by Jordan’s King Abdullah that his government knew Abu Musab al Zarqawi was in Iraq before the war and requested that the former Iraqi regime deport him. We have been told by Time magazine that confidential documents from Zarqawi’s group, recovered in recent raids, indicate other jihadists had joined him in Baghdad before the Hussein regime fell. We have been told by one of those jihadists that he was with Zarqawi in Baghdad before the war. We have been told by Ayad Allawi, former Iraqi prime minister and a longtime CIA source, that other Iraqi Intelligence documents indicate bin Laden’s top deputy was in Iraq for a jihadist conference in September 1999.

The idea that there was absolutely no connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda is, quite simply, a lie. There’s simply too much credible and authenticated evidence that suggests otherwise. It is clear that at the very least, Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi was in Iraq with the full knowledge of Iraqi Intelligence and was planning attacks, including the assassination of USAID diplomat Laurence Foley in Amman, Jordan and an attempted chemical attack on the Jordanian Intelligence Services headquarters. The Jordanians demanded that Baghdad extradite al-Zarqawi for trial, and the Iraqi regime refused. That alone is enough to prove that Hussein was willingly sheltering a known terrorist.

Yet it is also clear that Iraq and al-Qaeda did have some kind of relationship. Bin Laden didn’t care for Hussein, but that doesn’t mean that he would use him as a means to an end - that end being the destruction of the Saudi government and the West. Iraqi intelligence would also want to keep close tabs on bin Laden as well to makes sure that he didn’t get any ideas about attacking Hussein. It probably wasn’t the most collegial of relationships, but both sides had reasons of self interest in working with each other on their common goals.

What is equally shocking is the absolute silence on the issue that comes from the mainstream media. This evidence is potentially explosive, but because it doesn’t fit the media’s preordained conclusions about the war, it’s ignored. The AP’s own story tries to argue that there’s no evidence that Iraq and al-Qaeda worked together, except in noting that the documents show that a member of al-Qaeda traveled to Pakistan to plan an attack with a member of the Iraqi Intelligence Service — which is to say that there’s no evidence that Iraq and al-Qaeda worked together except the evidence that Iraq and al-Qaeda were indeed working together. It’s enough to wonder what the hell the AP was thinking. Wouldn’t the fact that an agent of al-Qaeda was involved with Iraqi Intelligence be something worth investigating further? Apparently not if you’re a member of the mainstream media.

These pieces of evidence deserve a full examination and follow-up. Some of them may prove to be dead ends. However, there’s more than enough evidence to suggest a much broader relationship than believed - and certainly enough to dispell the idea that there’s no reasonable basis to believe that such a relationship existed. Iraq probably didn’t have a direct connection with the 9/11 attacks, although it is quite possible they knew of them beforehand - an Iraqi agent was present at the 2000 meeting in Kuala Lumpur in which the 9/11 and USS Cole attacks were first hatched. Both the Malaysian and Jordanian governments believe that Iraqi agent Ahmed Hikmat Shakir was present at this meeting and personally escorted one of the 9/11 hijackers there. (Another Iraqi, Hikmat Ahmed Shakir was a member of the Saddam Fedeyeen, but is not the same individual as the one fingered in the Kuala Lumpur case.)

Again, there is a trail of evidence that directly links a known Iraqi agent to a 9/11 hijacker. Hayes has uncovered names, places, and dates. Shakir was arrested, and had names of al-Qaeda agents on his person, as well as several members of Iraqi Intelligence. The Jordanians believed that he was a member of Iraqi Intelligence, as did the Qatari government. Shakir himself escaped to Baghdad and has not been seen since. Why is Hayes the only journalist following this story? There’s clearly more than enough substance here to justify further investigation, yet the mainstream media has utterly ignored it.

The problem here is twofold: first of all the CIA was utterly unable to follow through on connections between the Iraqi regime and terrorism. As the Senate report on the intelligence failures on Iraq states:

Despite four decades of intelligence reporting on Iraq, there was little useful intelligence collected that helped analysts determine the Iraqi regime’s possible links to al Qaeda. . . . The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) did not have a focused human intelligence (HUMINT) collection strategy targeting Iraq’s links to terrorism until 2002. The CIA had no [redacted] sources on the ground in Iraq reporting specifically on terrorism.

This is inexcusable, and demonstrates how weakened our intelligence services were. Saddam Hussein was known to have possessed chemical weapons at one point. The risks inherent in having those weapons fall into the hands of terrorists was far too large to ignore - yet it seems that it was ignored until after the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax attacks. The CIA demonstrated shockingly little foresight or interest in investigating these claims, especially after the Clinton Administration bombed a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant specifically because they believed that Iraq and al-Qaeda were using it to jointly develop chemical weapons.

The second part of this problem is the utter disinterest of the media in following this story. The media has their metanarrative already - they believe that Bush lied, that the war was a sham, etc. Anything that doesn’t fit in that worldview is ignored. The evidence may say elsewise, the media is entirely unwilling to abandon their narrative. The deeply partisan mainstream media has no interest in a story that helps the Bush Administration’s case for war, especially one that has the potential to prove one of the most critical links in that case.

Until such time as the media wakes up to this story, enterprising journalists like Steven Hayes are the only ones following this crucial story. The connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda are much broader and deeper than previously believed, and the evidence continues to mount — all entirely beneath the radar of the mainstream media.

H.L. Mencken once quipped that “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.”

Kenyan economist James Shikwati would be inclined to agree, and in Der Spiegel he asks the West to stop what he sees as the destructive practice of giving foreign aid to kleptocratic governments.

aid doesn’t lead to greater economic development - quite the opposite. Aid encourages dependency, corruption, and erodes the very values which create a strong society.

Without aid, would Africa face a massive bout of famine? Again, Shikwati notes that the conventional wisdom on this issue is often wrong:

When there’s a drought in a region of Kenya, our corrupt politicians reflexively cry out for more help. This call then reaches the United Nations World Food Program — which is a massive agency of apparatchiks who are in the absurd situation of, on the one hand, being dedicated to the fight against hunger while, on the other hand, being faced with unemployment were hunger actually eliminated. It’s only natural that they willingly accept the plea for more help. And it’s not uncommon that they demand a little more money than the respective African government originally requested. They then forward that request to their headquarters, and before long, several thousands tons of corn are shipped to Africa …

SPIEGEL: … corn that predominantly comes from highly-subsidized European and American farmers …

Shikwati: … and at some point, this corn ends up in the harbor of Mombasa. A portion of the corn often goes directly into the hands of unsrupulous politicians who then pass it on to their own tribe to boost their next election campaign. Another portion of the shipment ends up on the black market where the corn is dumped at extremely low prices. Local farmers may as well put down their hoes right away; no one can compete with the UN’s World Food Program. And because the farmers go under in the face of this pressure, Kenya would have no reserves to draw on if there actually were a famine next year. It’s a simple but fatal cycle.

Like many forms of charity, the intentions of the giver are noble, but the reality is that foreign aid has more to do with assuaging Western guilt than it does with actually helping Africans. So long as do-gooder stars like those who performed at the Live 8 concerts this week can convince themselves that they’re helping, their consciences remain clean. Yet at the end of the day, Africa’s situation has not gotten markedly better despite even more attention lavished upon the continent.

What is the solution? Aid can work, but only aid that encourages indigenous development. As Peruvian economist Hernando DeSoto noted in his brilliant book The Mystery of Capital noted that the Third World has trillions in resources waiting to be tapped. Africa is sitting on millions of tons of natural reasources from gold, to diamonds, to uranium, to oil. Yet because of the kleptocratic governments and utter lack of the rule of law and property rights, these resources go wasted or to governments that plunder them for their own benefits.

Africa has seen a plethora of autocratic, totalitarian, and socialist governments over the years, but never a truly vibrant democracy. Leaders such as President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana were supposed to create a new form of humanistic African socialism, but ended up creating a continent mired in endemic poverty.

It is time to work with African leaders, especially democratic opposition leaders like Morgan Tsvangiri of Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change to create a new Africa, based in individual freedom and limited government. Aid and debt forgiveness must not be unconditional, but based on a concrete steps towards a more open and dynamic society. Elsewise the money spend on Africa will only be used to dig the hole deeper.

Shikwati’s solutions seem difficult, even harsh, but the status quo is clearly not working. If throwing more money at the problem were to work, we’d already see some results — yet in those countries that have no embrace democratic reform, the situation is becoming even more dire.

Africa has great resources and even greater human potential — potential that is being systematically wasted by a system of government that promotes a culture of victimhood and a lack of accountability at all levels. If Africa is to escape from its endemic poverty it must embrace the values that great a strong and vibrant society. No one can do that for them — the West can help, but the final choice and the work must come from within. The path to prosperity requires hard work, an entreprenuerial spirit, and a system of governance and civil society to support them. Without those values and systems, aid does more to assist with Western guilt than African poverty.

Reliable sources are saying that Chief Justice William Rehnquist has tendered his resignation to President Bush.

A White House statement is forthcoming. As always, Red State’s Erick Erickson is all over the latest developments.

Sounds like we won’t hear anything until Monday, if at all. Cue Rehnquist to yell “Y’all got PUNK’D!”…

UPDATE: Well, at least I wasn’t the only one… from what I’ve been able to ascertain, Rehnquist has indeed resigned, but perhaps he indicated to hold the official announcement until Monday out of respect for the people of Britain. Until then, I’m referring to Rehnquist as Chief Justice Shrödinger…

The Moderate Voice takes on the argument that the London bombings disprove the “flypaper” theory in Iraq:

The problem with both of these analyses, if you totally divorce yourself from left or right thinking is this: there really is no proof that the bombs in London would not have gone off if the U.S. was now out of Iraq.

And even if terrorists are gaining recruits in Iraq, if the U.S. wasn’t in Iraq they would likely get their recruits elsewhere since the Al Qaeda philsophy reportedly appeals to some Muslim youths for reasons apart from the Iraq war. That’s why it has grown so much over the years.

It’s highly doubtful that if the U.S. wasn’t now in Iraq that Osama bin Laden would today be out of his mass-murderer day job, standing behind a counter, wearing a bright cap, asking: “Do you want fries with that?”

Al-Qaeda’s list of beefs with the West go all the way back to Poitiers and the Reconquista. The argument that had we stayed in Afghanistan none of this would have happened is fatuous at best. Al-Qaeda wouldn’t have stayed in Afghanistan - they’ve been gone since December of 2001. The Taliban is still around, but the Taliban doesn’t have the capability to inflict damage outside of Afghanistan. Stategically, Afghanistan isn’t that important in this war.

Bin Laden himself is almost assuredly on the Pakistani side of the border. An invasion of Pakistan is simply too risky since Pakistan has nuclear weapons. All it would take is one nuke and millions could be dead in India, Kashmir, or elsewhere. Stirring up that particular hornet’s nest is just too dangerous to contemplate. Getting bin Laden would be an important moral victory, but not at the cost of risking a nuclear weapon falling into the hands of terrorists.

Iraq remains critical to winning this war because the only to win over the long-term is to end the systems that support and foster terrorism. Islamic terrorism is by and large a direct result of the cultural failure of the Arab world. The only way of dealing with terrorism over the long-term is to jump-start the process of democratization. That means creating a new Arab civil society that doesn’t poison its people and spread radical Islam worldwide. Without the support of Arab radicals in the Middle East, it’s going to be that much easier to end radicalism in other places. To borrow Deep Throat’s famous exhortation, we need to follow the money - and that trail of money leads right into the Middle East.

Iraq was the logical place to begin the process. Putting troops into the land of the Prophet himself would ensure that all Muslims would see our actions as a direct attack on Islam itself — more certainly not what we want to do. Iran, Syria, Jordan, etc, all provide us with no reasonable causus belli. There would have been no chance of any international support for an attack against a country simply because they were a state sponsor of terrorism. Iraq’s intransigence to the Gulf War cease-fire agreement meant that sooner or later, we’d have to deal with Saddam. Doing so when we’re already committed elsewhere would make things much more difficult.

The fact is that no matter what, regardless if invading Iraq were right or wrong, we’re there now, and so is al-Qaeda. Demanding our immediate and unconditional withdrawal from Iraq signals to al-Qaeda that we’re not willing to fight.

The al-Qaeda strategy for this war is quite clear: they know that hitting us will very likely engender the post-9/11 response - we’ll hit back and hit back hard. What they’re trying to do is weaken our resolve by hitting our allies. Madrid proved that strategy could work, and if al-Qaeda can get Britain to bow into terrorism and leave Iraq (as the vicious fifth columnist George Galloway suggests), then al-Qaeda believes that it would significantly weaken American resolve to also stay in Iraq.

If Iraq were a “distraction” from the war on terrorism, al-Qaeda wouldn’t be so willing to fight there. Instead, their strategy is clearly designed to push us out of Iraq. They know full well that if Iraq succeeds, they wave of democratic sentiment in the Middle East will destroy their ideological and strategic home ground.

It is beyond imperative that the West not abandon Iraq, and continue to put pressure there. The resources of groups like al-Qaeda are not infinite, and the argument that had we not been in Iraq there would be no terror attack in London is both fatuous and wrong, as Gandelman explained.

If we truly wanted to be “safe”, at the very least we’d have to remove all our troops from not only Iraq, but Afghanistan, and every other Arab country. Then we’d have to assume that the expansionist elements of radical Islam don’t decide that the Middle East is not enough. Even if that were true, the moral depravity of consigning millions to abject theocratic tyranny is a bargain that no moral leader could accept.

Pulling out of Iraq won’t make things better. The terrorists demands are non-negotiable, and the very existence of Western culture is an existential threat to groups like al-Qaeda. The argument for what amounts to appeasement is a throwback to the blind ignorance of the Sept. 10th days in which governments believed that terrorism was little more than a nuisance - something akin to organized crime that’s a law enforcement and not a military issue.

We can’t afford to cling to those shattered dogmas anymore. Terrorism is a serious threat, and had the London bombings used chemical or biological weapons tens of thousands rather than less than 100 would be dead at this point. Had it been a nuclear weapon, there would be no London at all. We can’t afford the risks inherent in waiting for that to happen. By the time a terrorist gets to the US or the UK, the chances of stopping them decrease dramatically.

Had we not been in Iraq, al-Qaeda would still be plotting to attack us. Their hatred runs much deeper than that. Clinging to an illusory sense of security rather than dealing with the issue won’t solve the problem of terrorism - the only way to do that is to attack the problem at its source. President Bush understands this. Prime Minister Blair understands this as well. The question is, will the people of America and the UK have the strength necessary to carry through in this war? Al-Qaeda believes that we will not — it remains as imperative as ever to prove them wrong.