FEW GOOD CHOICES IN LIFE

The following remarks were written by a contributor to Jihad Watch who was reacting to an article by syndicated columnist Diane West who recently confronted Senator Arlen Spector on the Iraq War, who in turn had ducked the hard questions of why our soldiers were being handicapped in this war by suggesting that the American people weren't prepared to accept civilian casualties.

On the contrary, the number of civilian casualties in Iraq is absolutely huge. And on top of the near daily bombings that take out dozens at a time and horribly wound hundreds more, we've got Iraqis getting their heads drilled and Iraqis getting crucified—all this at the hands of other Iraqis and foreign jihadis. And not only are we tolerating it but other Muslims are tolerating it too. I haven't noticed too many Muslims marching in the streets demanding an end to the civilian casualties being racked up by Muslims and demanding an end to Syrian and Iranian interference in Iraq, which is further adding to the Iraqi civilian bodycount.

So clearly its not a matter of tolerating civilian casualties. It's evidentally a matter of our squeemishness in CAUSING those casualties. And I suspect that as a politician, what Specter has in mind here, is the issue of his own re-election and the pressures brought to bear by squeamish voters, rather than the larger moral issue of how many civilian casualties are factually occurring. Apparently, as long as we aren't causing the casualties, then no matter how large the number, everyone can go to bed with a clean conscience.

Even those who want us to pull the troops out have to know that there is going to be a major blood bath when we do. But I guess they are going by the same moral calculus—as long as we aren't the ones shedding the blood, then we can all sleep at night and all those civilian casualties don't matter.

This strikes me as the outcome of a world that has demonized the use of western power to such an extent that the west is simply unwilling to do what needs to be done because they have internalized the constant drumbeat of criticism leveled against them—and against them almost alone. It’s the world where the abu Ghraib panties on the head story gets something like 30 straight days of NYT front-page coverage and where people re-enact in protests that picture of an Iraqi detainee in a hooded garment hooked up to FAKE electric wires, while ignoring the REAL electric wires and the REAL head and hand drillings, not to mention the REAL crucifixions and beheadings, perpetrated by our enemies.

Obviously, though, power loathes a vacuum so once the west is emasculated by the squeamish and the America-haters, another power will step in to take its place. And in order to step in, it will have to be far more ruthless than the west is—which is what we're seeing in Iraq. A ruthless enemy that intentionally causes thousands upon thousands of civilian casualties. Just because we aren't willing to cause the casualties doesn't mean no one else will be willing to cause them in pursuit of global power.

I suppose some would say that it’s all the same then. Violence is violence, no matter what its ends, as if all human systems of governance are the same and modern western liberal democracy is no better or worse than 7th century Islamic theocracy. All those people who died on the way in the struggle from Point A to point B, were all mistaken. Standing on the slave auction block and watching your wife and children sold off into slavery, never to see them again, is not fundamentally different from driving home after work (where you’re a corporate slave don’t you know!) to your peaceful Houston suburb, where your wife and kids and dog greet you at the door. It’s obviously all the same.

We should have started shooting the looters and those attempting to run coalition checkpoints from day 1. I may have been personally squeemish about it but I trusted my government and military to understand what needs to be done. It turns out that they were all as squeemish as little old me. Frankly, that's kind of scary!

I hope the lesson is learned from our failure to establish early on our willingness to show a certain degree of ruthlessness, and that if we won't do it—then someone else is certainly willing to step up and do the job that Americans won’t do!

The fact is that our squeemishness and absurd PC "rules of engagement" have cost far more civilian lives in Iraq than if we had been just a little more ruthless. And if that lesson hasn't been learned by a sufficient chunk of the population, then, as Diana West implies, we really have no business going to war anymore and the world should be prepared to accept the consequences of a far more ruthless power replacing the US, with all that implies.

You don't always get good choices in life. Quite often it's simply a choice between bad and worse.

I'm waiting and watching to see what the world as a whole is going to choose.

—Caroline

VOTING AMERICAN

Diane West of the Washington Times, excerpted:

Americans are confused about Iraq. They are confused about Iraq because Republicans, from the White House on down, haven't figured it out, haven't girded themselves to break through the filters of political correctness to grasp that Islam is the insurmountable obstacle to remaking Iraq as a Western-style state, and to shift our strategy in the region from being emphatically pro-democracy to being emphatically anti-jihad—the best strategy for all fronts in the "war on terror."

There's more. "The American soldiers and civilians who train the Iraqis are constantly on guard against the possibility that the police might turn against them," the Post reports. "Even in the police headquarters for all of western Baghdad, one of the safest police buildings in the capital, the training team will not remove their body armor or helmets. An armed soldier is assigned to protect each trainer."

This isn't just surreal; it's insane. As one trainer put it: "We don't know who the hell we're teaching. Are they police, or are they militia?"

Good question, fella. But no one Stateside has an answer-unless Condoleezza Rice's prattle about "the ideology of hate" (her vacuous phrase for Islam's more violent manifestations) ultimately losing to "the ideology of hope" (the stuff we're supposed to provide) constitutes an answer. She makes it sound as if what Sadr City really needs is a good Head Start program—only don't forget the body armor....

This is hardly to suggest we have no strategic interests in the region—a condition that would justify Democratic plans for speedy withdrawal. But Democrats, both by temperament and philosophy, seem incapable of figuring out what they are. And when it comes right down to it, not getting it at all (Democrats) is worse than not getting it right (Republicans). Which is probably one of the odder reasons to vote Republican. But it's better than being stuck with the party of John Kerry, in Iraq or anywhere else.