A Bad Week for Terrorists, Saddam, Liberals and G.I. Joe

Rachel Marsden

Saddam Hussein and his murderous regime were symbolically toppled with this week’s free vote in Iraq. Meanwhile, back in America, Democratic Party sweetheart, Senator Hillary Clinton, fell down and went boom at an event in Buffalo, New York. No doubt, it’s been a pretty tough week for terrorists, Saddam, and their liberal cheerleaders.

The terrorists pulled off an election-day homicide bombing by strapping a bomb to the back of some guy with Downs Syndrome. I think this is the terrorists’ way of giving a shout-out to all the liberal infidels in America, by demonstrating that they’re committed to non-discriminatory recruiting practices. Enrolment must be down. I guess blowing yourself up isn’t the career of choice anymore, particularly now that there are better things to look forward to over there--like the possibility of a McDonalds on every corner. People who aspire to wear those Grimace, Ronald McDonald or Mayor McCheese outfits don’t tend to go blowing themselves to smithereens.

Post-election, terrorists in Iraq put up a picture on one of their websites of what they claimed to be a US soldier being held hostage. As it turns out, it was a dummied-up photo of a military doll with a fake machine gun to its head. Not quite “Farenheit 9/11” caliber propaganda, but definitely an “A+” for effort. The accompanying statement announced that they were holding others hostage, too. I guess they mean G.I. Joe, Barbie, all the Smurfs, and Bob the Builder. If the terrorists capture Tin Tin, then maybe the French will actually start fighting?

Things are obviously looking a little grim at the moment for the terrorist movement in Iraq. Not bad spin, though. I hear there are a few new vacancies at CBS. These guys might want to apply.

Sixty percent of Iraqis turned out to vote, even as newscasts reported that terrorists were threatening to blow up polling stations. Remember Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf (a.k.a. “Comical Ali” or “Baghdad Bob”)--the Iraq Information Minister who insisted that “there are no infidels in Iraq”--all while American soldiers were basically standing behind him waving to mom and dad? Well, Saddam doesn’t need Bob anymore, now that he has some of these folks on the left in America looking out for him and fighting against a democratic Iraq.

I’m talking about the same people for whom none of the following reasons were apparently good enough to go to war: murder, oppression, Saddam’s gaming of the Oil-for-Food program so he could get economic sanctions lifted and restart his WMD programs in full-force, The Duelfer Report stating that Saddam retained the capability of making WMDs, weapons inspector David Kay telling the Senate Armed Services Committee that “Iraq posed an imminent threat”, Saddam paying $25,000 to families of suicide bombers--and the list goes on.

They’ve been attacking Bush’s efforts in Iraq and defending Saddam Hussein from the get-go. These are the same people who you probably see on airplanes screaming like banshees as soon as they feel a little turbulence. They quickly assume the “kiss your butt goodbye” position, convinced that the whole tin can will soon be plunging out of the sky.

Every bump in the road to a free, democratic and independent Iraq is a “quagmire”, and a reason to look for an exit ramp. Instead of seeing success in a peaceful election that represents a move from dictatorship to primitive democracy in less than two years, it’s just another opportunity for them to will President Bush to fail. Eric Margolis of the Toronto Sun asks, “Will today's elections...mark the dawn of genuine Mideast democracy, as U.S. President George W. Bush claims, or be another step deeper into the bloody quagmire in Mesopotamia?” He goes on to say that “Iraq, like Humpty Dumpty, is broken and may never be put together.”

It’s tough to get through a column like this without feeling the urge to down a Costco-sized vat of Prozac. Leftist journalists are constantly comparing Iraq to Vietnam (a war that saw 58,000 US military deaths, compared with 1,400 in Iraq), as though they’re endlessly wanting for it to be so. Meanwhile, the Mayor of Baghdad--thrilled with the elections in his country--is calling for a statue of Bush to be built to commemorate his efforts.

The ballots in Iraq hadn’t even been counted yet when Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy called for the immediate withdrawal of 12,000 troops from Iraq, saying in a speech that the US military “has become part of the problem, not part of the solution.”

History provides us with examples of post-war disasters that occurred when short-sighted ignoramuses like Ted Kennedy got their way. When Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford caved to public pressure and yanked U.S. troops out of Vietnam and the Democrats who ran the Congress refused to follow through on the promised military aid, the North steamrollered over the South and slaughtered the supporters of the South Vietnamese government. Meanwhile, the communist Khmer Rouge moved into Cambodia and committed mass genocide.

When Britain pulled troops out of India too soon in 1948, genocide between Hindus and Muslims ensued.

People seem to forget that it hasn’t even been two years since Saddam’s dictatorship was overthrown. There may be a long way to go before democracy looks as great in Iraq as it does in the USA. But as far as liberals are concerned--thanks to Bush, Diebold voting machines, and various other crackpot conspiracies--democracy doesn’t really exist in America either.

The only glass that Ted Kennedy seems to enjoy seeing ‘half full’ is the one that’s holding his scotch.