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Thursday, July 17, 2003
posted by gbarto at 5:31 AM:
Time for a little change:Holiday Sparks High Alert
Rumors spread that Saddam may surface on Baathist anniversary; documents show current attacks on soldiers were planned before war
• Missile Misses Plane Landing in Baghdad
• Pro-American Mayor and Son Killed in Iraq
• Commander: U.S. Troops in Iraq Facing Yearlong Tours
We are going to have to give up the b.s. about the war being fully won, acknowledge that we initially merely won in enough sectors to oust the old regime but that the larger goal of a free Iraq requires the sort of total conquest we haven't done yet and drop the boy scout routine as we return to full war footing. This starts with an announcement that any and all Baath party members from the old regime who don't surrender will be considered enemy combatants eligible for bullets. It means warning the people that while we want the best for them, until such time as they cease to provide a place into which opposition forces can fade we will have to consider them suspect and err on the side of the safety of our soldiers and the importance of their cause. It means, in short, asking of Iraqis the same thing we ask of nations: Are you with us or against us? No other answers allowed. And it means acknowledging where those who can't say they're with us ultimately are in a dirty war where people out of uniform and ignoring the Geneva conventions are taking potshots at our soldiers. Iraqis need to be made aware that any and all newfound freedoms are contingent upon the same thing they are here: a citizenry that by and large exercises both the rights and the responsibilities that come with freedom. Indeed, we have a lot of our soldiers exercising the dearest responsibilities of freedom, laying their lives on the line to create a world less hostile to the freedoms we cherish. They deserve our full support, and that includes giving them the tools to do their job and allowing them to win a full victory.
The U.S. has done much in Iraq and there is much cause for celebration. The old regime is dead. But so long as records of crimes against humanities remain undiscovered, so long as the ways in which certain citizens were complicit in torture, mass murder and more remain unknown, so long as thugs with hopes of tribal prominence propelling them into leadership in their old fiefdoms remain at large, there are going to be people with serious motives for killing us to keep us from getting our mission accomplished. To these people, the war continues. And though it humbles us to have to adjust our foreign policy to their lowly ways, adjust it we must in admitting that if they are at war with us we will have to be with war at them until such time as they are truly vainquished.
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