>Other Demos joined this tired anti-American Leftist refrain

>, doing what
>they do best -- fomenting division in order to undermine support
>for
>anything Republican

>, regardless of the consequences. What consequences?
>Not only are these Demos spreading lies and dividing American
>support
>for critical national-security operations, but their words aid,
>abet,
>and encourage our enemy to continue killing U.S. service
>personnel and
>innocent Iraqis -- and on the eve of the first democratic
>elections in
>Iraq's history. (In fairness to Kennedy, et al., though, America
>will
>hold democratic mid-term elections in 2006.)
>So, just what is the truth about our military operations in and
>around
>Iraq?
>To counter all the Leftist obfuscation about U.S. national
>security
>interests in the Middle East and to explain the necessity of our
>military presence in the region, what follows is a much-needed
>primer
>-- not only on why our Armed Forces are in Iraq (and border
>states),
>but also why they should remain in the region for the
>foreseeable
>future.

>Western democracies, particularly those beacons of liberty (the
>U.S.
>and our Allies), are at war with Jihadistan, a borderless nation
>of
>Islamic fascists comprising al-Qa'ida and other Islamist
>terrorist
>groups and their malcontent sects.

>A borderless nation? The "Islamic
>World" of the Quran recognizes no political borders. Though
>orthodox
>Muslims (those who subscribe to the teachings of the
>"pre-Medina"
>Quran) do not support acts of terrorism or mass murder, very
>large
>sects within the Islamic world subscribe to the "post-Mecca"
>Quran and
>Hadiths (Mohammed's teachings). It is this latter group of
>death-worshipping sects that calls for jihad, or "holy war,"
>against
>all "the enemies of God." They thus constitute an enemy without
>borders
>-- a nation of "holy" warriors called Jihadistan.

>While the Bush administration is careful not to paint Islam with
>a
>broad brush, the correct way to understand this enemy, in order
>to
>engage and destroy it, is to cast off the historic
>symmetric-warfare
>model; this enemy is simply not a political entity. As President
>George
>Bush correctly noted in October of 2001, "Our war on terror
>begins with
>al-Qa'ida, but it does not end there. It will not end until
>every
>terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and
>defeated.
>... This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago,
>with a
>decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion."
>Jihadi terrorism (type asymmetric warfare) had its origins with
>the
>People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) almost 40
>years
>ago. There, Islamists inflicted terror first against Israel, and
>then,
>working westward, against democratic targets in Europe. Yet
>despite
>subsequent attacks on U.S. personnel in that region -- the
>bombing of
>the Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, for example -- it was
>not until
>1993 that our homeland became a frontline in the war with
>Jihadistan.
>On 26 February, 1993, Pakistani native Ramzi Ahmed Yousef and
>his
>terrorist brethren (who had entered the United States on Iraqi
>passports under the control of Iraqi intelligence) bombed the
>north
>tower of the World Trade Center in an effort to topple that
>tower into
>the south tower and inflict mass civilian casualties.
>Fortunately, due
>to Ramzi's lack of engineering knowledge, his crude truck-bomb
>didn't
>topple the building, though it created a six-story crater in the
>parking garage.
>Although Ramzi escaped, several other terrorists were captured
>and
>tried. Ramzi himself was finally arrested in 1995, while
>formulating
>plans to bomb a number of U.S. international flights
>simultaneously.
>After 1995, al-Qa'ida Jihadis focused on American targets
>abroad -- the
>Khobar Towers in 1996, U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in
>1998,
>and the U.S.S. Cole in 2000 -- all without reprisal from the
>Clinton
>administration.
>In 2001, Ramzi's uncle, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (the number-three
>thug
>in the al-Qa'ida organization), and Ramzi's mentor, Jihadi sheik
>Osama
>bin Laden himself, revised Ramzi's plan to use civilian aircraft
>for
>terrorist ends -- using them as bombs rather than bombing them.
>On 11
>September of that year, one of al-Qa'ida's U.S. terrorist cells
>finished the business that Ramzi started almost a decade
>earlier, with
>devastating consequences.
>On that Tuesday morning, the American people were awakened to an
>imminent threat to our homeland, and before noon that day, our
>common
>sense of invincibility had all but vanished. Indeed, given the
>nature,
>planning and sophistication of the attack, a larger question
>loomed in
>the minds of all rational people: What moral obstacles would
>prevent
>surrogate terrorists from using WMD provided by rogue nation
>states
>under tyrants like Saddam Hussein? What would prevent al-Qa'ida
>from
>detonating a fissionable weapon in a U.S. urban center?

>That question would have to be answered by President George W.
>Bush,
>whose administration had been operational for only eight months
>prior
>to the 9/11 attack -- a period preceded by eight long years of
>Clinton
>administration inaction and appeasement of terrorists, as
>repeatedly
>noted in this column during those years.
>President Bush determined, correctly, that the war being waged
>on the
>U.S. and its Allies could not be resolved diplomatically, nor
>could it
>be won defensively. Al-Qa'ida and other elements of Jihadistan,
>he
>surmised, could be defeated only by way of pre-emptive strikes,
>in
>keeping with the dictum of military strategist Carl von
>Clausewitz:
>"The best form of defense is attack."
>In 2001, The Patriot's military and intelligence analysts were
>out
>front in our characterization of the war with Jihadistan and our
>support for the Bush strategic doctrine of preemption -- taking
>the
>battle to the enemy.
>To that end Sen. Edward Kennedy, never one to miss an
>opportunity to
>use the deaths of American military personnel as political
>fodder,
>unwittingly endorsed the Bush Doctrine this week: "The war has
>made
>Iraq a breeding ground for terrorism...."
>Precisely.
>The principal objective of President Bush's doctrine of
>pre-emption --
>Operation Enduring Freedom (or "Operation Let's Roll," as it's
>known
>around our shop) -- is to keep the front lines of our war with
>Jihadistan on their turf, rather than our own.

> Our Armed Forces are the
>most capable, best-trained and best-equipped in history, and
>they've
>issued a standing invitation to Jihadis worldwide to engage them
>in
>Iraq, where tens of thousands of these vermin have met their
>fate.

>Why Iraq? In 1991, Saddam Hussein signed a binding agreement of
>surrender as a precondition to the cessation of Gulf War
>hostilities --
>the subsequent violation of which was, in effect, grounds to
>resume the
>military campaign against Iraq. After a jaw-slackening 17th UN
>resolution to disarm was flouted by Saddam

>, the Bush administration
>determined that Iraq would be a suitable, logical and defensible
>front
>line with Jihadistan.

>Let's be clear: American forces are NOT, first and foremost,
>"fighting
>for Iraq's freedom." They are fighting for U.S.
>national-security
>interests and those of the free world, which was, and to a
>lesser
>degree (thanks to our considerable military achievements),
>remains, in
>great peril. Ultimately, these two objectives are inextricably
>bound.

>Our ultimate objective in Iraq is to establish a forward
>deployed
>presence in the Middle East -- military personnel, but primarily
>equipment -- now that the Saudis have pulled our lease.

> Our analysts
>estimate that once the new Iraqi government is seated, the U.S.
>will be
>invited to establish permanent military installations in
>southern Iraq.