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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam who wrote (14936)	11/2/2003 11:19:11 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793797

Even between Leiberman and Bush. If Dean gets it, I think you will see a lot of Lieberman voters hold their nose and vote for Bush. lindybill@nose.com

To: Sam who wrote (14936)	11/2/2003 11:28:16 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793797

It would be an "easy money" bet that the Helicopter Transportation Company that was making the "milk run" from the 82nd Airborne to the Baghdad Airport had been making a "groove" in the air over the position where they got hit. ___________________________________________________ The question is: Will such casualties dishearten the U.S., embolden failuremongers and isolationists on the campaign trail, and cause Americans and our allies to cut and run? OP-ED COLUMNIST Iraq War III By WILLIAM SAFIRE WASHINGTON We thought we won the first Iraq war in 100 hours, but lost the peace to Saddam and his Baathist followers. We thought we won the second Iraq war decisively in one week, but Saddam's murdering class and his imported terrorists chose to run and fight from underground. We are now six months into Iraq War III. The coalition is clearly winning on two of the three war fronts. As the team of ABC-TV and Time magazine reporters are persuasively showing this week, the people of Iraq's Shiite south and Kurdish north — 80 percent of the population of 23 million — are making substantial progress toward reconstruction and self-governance. But the battle within the Sunni triangle around Baghdad — where Saddam's rapacious sons and secret police long victimized other Iraqis — is not yet won. One terrorist aim is to increase suffering by driving out the U.N. and Red Cross relief workers. Another is to assassinate Iraqi leaders and police who dare to cooperate with the liberation. The key goal is to kill enough Americans to cause U.S. public opinion to lose heart. Such a retreat before federal democracy takes root would set the stage for an Iraqi civil war. There is no denying that the shooting down of a transport helicopter, killing 16 Americans and wounding 20, was a terrorist victory in Iraq War III. The question is: Will such casualties dishearten the U.S., embolden failuremongers and isolationists on the campaign trail, and cause Americans and our allies to cut and run? Although such a retreat under fire would be euphemized as an "accelerated exit strategy," consider the consequences to U.S. security of premature departure: Set aside the loss of U.S. prestige or America's credibility in dealing with other rogue nations acquiring nuclear weapons. Iraq itself would likely split apart. Shiites in the south would resist a return of repression by Saddam's Sunnis and set up a nation under the protection of Iran. Kurds in the north, fearing the return of Saddamism, would break away into an independent Kurdistan; that would induce Turkey, worried about separatism among its own Kurds, to seize the Iraqi oil fields of Kirkuk. One result could well be a re-Saddamed Sunni triangle. Baghdad would then become the arsenal of terrorism, importer and exporter of nukes, bioweapons and missiles. There is no way we can let that happen. Either we stay in Baghdad until Iraq becomes a unified democratic beacon of freedom to the Arab world — or we pull out too soon, thereby allowing terrorism to establish its main world sanctuary and its agents to come and get us. Our dovish left will say, with Oliver Hardy, "a fine mess you've got us into" — as if we created Saddam's threat, or made our C.I.A. dance to some oily imperialist tune, or would have been better off with our head in the sand. Most Americans, I think, will move past these unending recriminations, reject defeatism and support leaders determined to win the final Iraq war. To catch Saddam or otherwise break up the terror network, we need Iraqi informers to tip us to the plans of the attackers. We should blanket the Sunni triangle with a powerful media message: a return of Baathism would mean bloody war with the rest of Iraq that the coalition would make certain Saddam's followers lost. Most television sets in the triangle depend for reception on the old rabbit ears, not satellite dishes; the Iraqi Media Network we set up is now operational but runs mainly old movies and canned messages from our Paul Bremer with an Arabic translation. I'm told by programmers in the contractor handling IMN, Science Applications International, that attention-getting Arabic programs produced in the gulf states will begin this month, which should attract many new viewers. But why not supplement Bremer on the air with our secret weapon? John Abizaid, our commanding general, speaks fluent Arabic. He should be on radio and television regularly — the live voice and face of liberation — answering questions from Iraqi reporters in their native language. If Donald Rumsfeld can deliver the message of resolve on TV here, why not Abizaid there? We will help Iraqis win the final war against Baathist terror. Failure is not an option. nytimes.com

To: Sam who wrote (14936)	11/3/2003 3:34:04 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793797

Hugh Hewitt's Blog It turns out that 14 Senators voted against the Healthy Forests Initiative, including Vermont's Patrick Leahy, who called it a "camouflaged attempt" to limit access to the courts. I think Californians and other Westerners who have suffered from the fires ought to keep Leahy's and his colleagues' obstructionism in mind throughout this election cycle. Visit the National Republican Senatorial Committee and send in a donation to thank Mr. Leahy for his stance in the aftermath of fires that have swept three-quarters of a million acres of land in Southern California. And read "Up in Smoke" to remind you about the wisdom of these ideologues: Nothing they planned on happened. The habitats they sought to preserve are burned. The species they sought to protect are dead in vast numbers. At times it seems like the Democrats really do have a political death wish. Read Bill Sammon and James G. Lakely in today's Washington Times: "Democrats won't give Bush credit for gains." A political party cannot treat the public as idiots year-in and year-out and expect to be rewarded with the public's confidence and votes, especially in a time of war. They pretend there is no war, just as Leahy and his 13 colleagues pretend that there are no fires, and just as the entire Washington leadership of the Dems pretends that there is no economic growth. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," was funny in Oz, but it is not a platform for a once great national party. Anyone who is concerned about the extremism of Leahy and the other 13 members of the "Let it Burn" lobby should realize that they have to support Republican incumbents like Lisa Murkowski in Alaska and Republican challengers like Jim DeMint in South Carolina. Voting for a Democrat in any Senate race is voting to put Leahy back in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee where his bizarre views impact more than the judicial selection process --they also mold forest policy. The New York Times reports on the rise of Michael Howard, who would be the first Jew since Disraeli to lead the Tories. With that fact in mind, and the critics who dogged Dizzy his entire career, I was struck by this line in the Alan Cowell article: "[Howard] has also been depicted by his critics as somehow sinister and shady, dogged by a remark by a onetime aide who said there was 'something of the night' about him." It was Gladstone who roamed London chatting up the prostitutes, not Disraeli, but Disraeli got the reputation for mysterious in his day. It is an all-encompassing smear, allowing the speaker to invite his audience to think whatever they will about the subject, and not really the sort of remark that should be allowed to pass unchallenged in an age of rising anti-Semitism. hughhewitt.com