IRAQ: One Mission or Two?

This week, Kerry and his cohorts in the MSM once again ripped Bush for his May 1st flight-deck speech in front of the "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner
(see: http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=927242&tw=wn_wire_story ).

This attack - like all of Kerry's hollow attacks against Bush - is failing.

Why is it failing?

Because most Americans realize what the Kerry campaign, the Left, and the MSM refuse to accept: The fact that there are TWO missions in Iraq; the first mission WAS ACCOMPLISHED - it dethroned Saddam; the second mission is on-going - the mission to establish democracy in Iraq, and to do so we must destroy the Jihadoterrorists in Iraq who (like all Jihadoterrorists everywhere) oppose all democracy everywhere.

Bush said as much in the speech; (read the whole thing yourself - the complete text is available at whitehouse.gov) - and you'll agree - here's an excerpt: "We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We're bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We're pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We've begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We're helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people. The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq. The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 -- and still goes on." )

Most Americans see the difference in these two missions - in their goals, and in how they were fought, the tactics and assets that were used. And most Amercians do not see this as either "mission creep" or a "quagmire". Why? Because most Americans see the fighting in Iraq as part of a global war (the GWOT) which will last years - if not decades (as Bush has REPEATEDLY said).

The GWOT (or WW4) is being fought on many fronts, in many countries with many tactics. And we have - and will continue to have - different sets of allies on some fronts than in others (as we now have NATO solidiers - and FRENCH soldiers - in Afghanistan, but not in Iraq).

The Kerry Campaign, the Left and the MSM fail to see the distinction between the two Iraq missions because they refuse to accept the indisputable nexus between Saddam and Jihadoterrorism - for to do so would render their opposition to the Saddam War and to Bush null and void, and this is unaccpetable to them because they hate and fear Bush more than they do Jihadoterrorists.
(See: "Inconvenient Facts - John Kerry has now decided that he must deny any links between Saddam's Iraq and terrorism. There are some facts which he should be confronted with at tomorrow's debate. by Stephen F. Hayes/WEEKLY STANDARD.)

Why does the Kerry Campaign and the Left and the MSM fear and hate Bush more than they do the Jihadoterrorists?

Because it is a more manageable fear for them. "Fear of Bush" produces less anxiety in them because they feel that Bush can be eliminated more easily than the Jihadoterrorists and their accomplices in the rogue states. In addition, cognitive dissonance makes it difficult for them to admire a man who presides using a value system they hate.

This is what gives rise to the Left's rejection of Bush policies IN SPITE OF THE FACT that they are "liberal" policies in the CLASSICAL sense, and in the tradition of FDR -- YES: FDR!

When FDR asserted in his "Four Freedoms" speech (see:http://www.libertynet.org/~edcivic/fdr.html)that all humans everywhere must be accorded all their innate human rights (AND THAT THIS WAS WORTH FIGHTING FOR) - (and when his wife later Eleanor enshrined them the UN's "Declaration of Universal Human Rights"; see: http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/eng.htm) - he was asserting a classically liberal policy -- a policy the American Left endorsed at the time.

In their old "glory days" during the Vietnam War, in fact, the American Left once avowed that America's might should only be used on behalf of expanding Human Rights, (and they attacked US foreign policy based on their belief that after WW2 it was almost always used merely to prop up puppet governments overseas -- on behalf of American corporations).

NOW... when the USA is using its military to expand Human Rights and establish the first Arab democracy - and an Afghani democracy - the Left sticks to its tired, old, meaningless and irrelevant charge: that what the US is "REALLY" doing is merely propping up puppet governments for corporate interests; hence the "oil for blood" charges, or the Afghani pipeline charges, or the Afghani poppy-field charges.

Most Americans see these charges for what they are: irate hollow knee-jerk charges which are nothing more than the death-rattles of the vestigial Left.