A Look at the Alternative Choice

A Party Adrift On National Security from

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Leadership: Wonder what national security will be like under a Democrat-controlled Congress? Wonder no more. Minority leader Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats are telling you right now, and it isn't comforting.

Apparently preparing for her accession to speaker of the House after November's election, Pelosi gave an interview Wednesday explaining her views on the war on terror.

If you believe, as we do, that America is engaged in such a global war, and you think it should be prosecuted to the fullest, be afraid — very afraid. For Pelosi made clear she doesn't think the war in Iraq is even part of the war on terror. It's more like a distraction.

"The war in Iraq is the wrong war," she said. "No matter how many times the president wants to say it, the war in Iraq is not the war on terror. The war in Afghanistan was."

That, in a nutshell, is the wisdom of today's Democratic Party, congealed into a semiofficial policy stance. And if Democrats win in November, House leader Pelosi will make it all official.

For the record, the jihadists now sending suicide bombers to create chaos in Iraq don't see it that way. They — and this includes Osama bin Laden — see Iraq as absolutely central to their war aims.

In October, the Director of National Intelligence released a letter from al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri to the now-deceased Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In it, DNI said, he affirmed the "centrality of the war in Iraq for the global jihad."

"The jihad movement is growing and rising," wrote al-Zawahri. "It reached its peak with the two blessed raids on New York and Washington. Now it is waging a great historic battle in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, and even within the Crusaders' own homes."

He also outlined a four-step plan to restore the lost Muslim caliphate and establish radical Islam's domination across the world.

And what was step one? "Expel the Americans from Iraq."

Yet, somehow, Pelosi and her pals seem to think we can buy peace simply by leaving Iraq or focusing on Afghanistan or coming home. And Democrats think the unpopularity of the war in Iraq will be their winning hole card this November.

Iraq War foe Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., complained Wednesday of the war's "crushing burden" on the Army. Well, just think how crushing it will be if jihadists take over Iraq, and someday get a nuke.

Then there's John Kerry, eyeing another presidential run. On Thursday, he accused President Bush of "cut and run" in Afghanistan — laughable, of course, coming from someone who voted for the war in 2002, then flip-flopped all over the place on supporting it, but who now backs a pullout.

All this serves to undermine the war effort, and for what? One election. This shouldn't be about politics, but many Democrats don't seem to recognize this is World War III. And if they don't agree, they don't have to take our word for it.

"The most important and serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War," bin Laden said in a special message to Iraq back in December 2004. "It is raging in the land of the two rivers (Iraq). The world's millstone and pillar is in Baghdad, the capital of the caliphate." (Emphasis is ours.)

Those who don't understand this and refuse to fight basically would hand the war on terror to our enemies. This is as inexcusable today as it would have been in World War II.

Would Americans of the Greatest Generation ask their politicians on D-Day, "What does this have to do with Pearl Harbor?" Of course not. Yet, today, that's precisely what the Democrats seem to be doing.

Having seen exactly the same intelligence as the Bush administration, Democrats in October 2002 voted to go to war against Saddam Hussein. It was the right decision then, and remains so today. But when the going got tough, and the far left of their party started screaming, the qualms got the better of them.

We don't know if the next Congress will be Democrat or Republican. But we do know that all other issues pale in comparison to the war on terror .

If the Democrats win in November— which we doubt — they'd better stop posturing and get serious about a war in which our very civilization is at stake. If they don't, they risk disaster — something for which American voters may never forgive them.

Food for thought.

Those Poor GITMO Detainees

Richard Miniter of the NYPost
Has a good inside look at what is being done to torture those poor souls at GITMO. No wonder it has been compared to a gulag and those damned Nazis, by the Democrats.

"ON the military plane back from America's most fa mous terrorist holding pen, the in-flight film was "V for Vendetta," a screed that tries to justify terrorism. It was a fitting end to a surreal, military-sponsored trip.

The Pentagon seemed to be hoping to disarm its critics by showing them how well it cares for captured terrorists. The trip was more alarming than disarming. I spent several hours with Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., who heads the joint task force that houses and interrogates the detainees. (The military isn't allowed to call them "prisoners.")

Harris, a distinguished Navy veteran who was born in Japan and educated at Annapolis and Harvard, is a serious man trying to do a politically impossible job. I spoke with him at length, and with a dozen other officers and guards, and visited three different detention blocks.

The high-minded critics who complain about torture are wrong. We are far too soft on these guys - and, as a result, aren't getting the valuable intelligence we need to save American lives.

The politically correct regulations are unbelievable. Detainees are entitled to a full eight hours sleep and can't be woken up for interrogations. They enjoy three meals and five prayers per day, without interruption. They are entitled to a minimum of two hours of outdoor recreation per day.

Interrogations are limited to four hours, usually running two - and (of course) are interrupted for prayers. One interrogator actually bakes cookies for detainees, while another serves them Subway or McDonald's sandwiches. Both are available on base. (Filet o' Fish is an al Qaeda favorite.)"

Read the whole thing. It is an eye opener. I'll be back later with a piece on the Geneva Convention and why we and our allies are the only ones who try to adhere to it and are the only ones held accountable to those vague standards.. Our emenies never have. Both our present and past ememies.

TWO THOUSAND ONE, NINE ELEVEN (2001-911)

TWO THOUSAND ONE, NINE ELEVEN (2001-911)

Two thousand one, nine eleven
Three thousand plus arrive in heaven
As they pass through the gate,
Thousands more appear in wait
A bearded man with stovepipe hat
Steps forward saying, "Lets sit, lets chat"

They settle down in seats of clouds
A man named Martin shouts out proud
"I have a dream!" and once he did
The Newcomer said, "Your dream still lives."

Groups of soldiers in blue and gray
Others in khaki, and green then say
"We're from Bull Run, Yorktown, the Maine"
The Newcomer said, "You died not in vain."

From a man on sticks one could hear
"The only thing we have to fear.
The Newc omer said, "We know the rest,
trust us sir, we've passed that test."

"Courage doesn't hide in caves
You can't bury freedom, in a grave,"
The Newcomers had heard this voice before
A distinct Yankees twang from Hyannisport shores

A silence fell within the mist
Somehow the Newcomer knew that this
Meant time had come for her to say
What was in the hearts of the five thousand plus that day

"Back on Earth, we wrote reports,
Watched our children play in sports
Worked our gardens, sang our songs
Went to church and clipped coupons
We smiled, we laughed, we cried, we fought
Unlike you, great we're not"

The tall man in the stovepipe hat
Stood and said, "Don't talk like that!
Look at your country, look and see
You died for freedo m, just like me"

Then, before them all appeared a scene
Of rubbled streets and twisted beams
Death, destruction, smoke and dust
And people working just 'cause they must

Hauling ash, lifting stones,
Knee deep in hell, but not alone
"Look! Blackman, Whiteman, Brownman, Yellowman
Side by side helping their fellow man!"

So said Martin, as he watched the scene
"Even from nightmares, can be born a dream."

Down below three firemen raised
The colors high into ashen haze
The soldiers above had seen it before
On Iwo Jima back in '45

The man on sticks studied everything closely
Then shared his perceptions on what he saw mostly
"I see pain, I see tears,
I see sorrow -- but I don't see fear."

"You left behind husbands and wives
Daughters and sons and so many lives
are suffering now because of this wrong
But look very closely. You're not really gone.

All of those people, even those who've never met you
All of their lives, they'll never forget you
Don't you see what has happened?
Don't you see what you've done?
You've brought them together, together as one.

With that the man in the stovepipe hat said
"Take my hand," and from there he led
three thousand plus heroes, Newcomers to heaven
On this day, two thousand one, nine eleven

Author UNKNOWN

What a shame!