The Case for The Liberation of Iraq

An Open Letter To Those Who Place Truth Above Partisanship:

Anyone who cares about America needs to care first about the truth. If America is in the wrong then only the truth will help us right it. Similarly, if America is in the right only the truth will help us sustain it and stand up to our foes.

Truth is not defined by who shouts the loudest, repeats their claims the most times or engages in the most vitriol, hyperbole and propaganda Those of us who seek the truth do so by rejecting these things and putting our faith in the collection and critical evaluation of the facts and evidence.

Living, as we do today, in an era where just about anyone can say just about anything and have it transmitted via cable TV, radio, desktop publishing and the internet to millions of potential viewers/listeners/readers it is more vital than ever that the consumer of news and information employ rational and critical judgment in assessing the information.

Unfortunately the response of many to this glut of information has been to throw up their hands and simply disbelieve everything, leaving them stuck forever with their preconceived notions and personal biases as the basis for their conclusions.

This is abundantly clear in the percentage of people willing to accept the Democratic Party – and their ideological brethren in the Old Media’s – take on the war in Iraq. While simple analysis and just the slightest bit of rational and critical thought would expose the lies and misinformation behind the leftists’ portrayal of events in the Middle East many decent Democrats buy onto the charges simply because they are made so often, so loudly and with so much venom.

The critical thinker – those to whom truth trumps partisanship – wants to know the truth about the war in Iraq for, if it is a losing effort on behalf of an unjust cause we who love America – and treasure human life -- would be against it. Yet we are convinced that the war is just, America is winning and the already tangible results are a safer region, America and world.

How is it that the logical thinker comes to their position on the war in Iraq? After all, how can one know the truth when one isn’t there to see for themselves?

Just as in a court of law, the critical thinker bases his beliefs on the testimony of witnesses. While not there himself, he judges the credibility, motives and reasonableness of the witness. While not present in Iraq himself, the critical thinker appreciates the testimony of the hundreds of thousands of his fellow Americans – people whose credibility is reflected in their creed of “honor” and people who have little to gain and everything (quite literally) to lose in fighting a lost cause for all of the wrong reasons.

And these American service people are not only nearly unanimous in their support for the mission and what it has accomplished but went beyond words by voting for George W. Bush and his “stay the course” policies over John F. Kerry and his promise to exit Iraq soon after his election.

One can argue – as the Democrats often do – that those people stupid enough to join the military are too stupid to know what’s really going on. I have heard them attacked as “brainwashed” by people who, like the Los Angeles Times’ Michael Kinsley, consider service to America and the cause of freedom an act only the “desperate” would engage in. To those who reject even considering the firsthand, eyewitness accounts of hundreds of thousands of our nation’s heroes for the sake of ideology and on behalf of Islamic terrorists there is nothing more that can be said.

But to those who reject this self-serving bigotry and either know servicemen and women personally or recognize both the high degree of morality and decency amongst the people from all walks of life who serve in the nation’s military, the words and the votes of the people who know the truth best must be considered powerful and important testimony.

Others have offered their expert testimony as well. Not least of which is the Iraqi Prime Minister, Ibrahim Jaafari -- a man whose very life depends on America’s efforts in Iraq being right and successful. Jaafari, as recently as this week, again testified to the great progress and considerable victories of the coalition efforts and expressed outright gratitude for the President and the nation’s sacrifices on behalf of the people of Iraq.

While leading Democrats have often tried to score points by denigrating Jaafari – calling him a “puppet” of the United States government – this “belief” is clearly not shared by the people of Iraq who, despite every provocation, have remained unified behind his leadership. Clearly if the people of Iraq believed what the Democrats profess they would not be so restrained as the bad guys get the upperhand.

And while the attacks on Jaafari are cynical and self-serving not even the Democrats would dare to put forth the laughable notion that Kofi Annan – Secretary General of the United Nations – acts on behalf of America. Yet Annan, in an open letter published in the Washington Post testifies on behalf of the successes being achieved – and the vital importance and rightness of the mission – in Iraq. Annan says at one point: “in a media-hungry age, visibility is often regarded as proof of success. But this does not necessarily hold true in Iraq. Even when, as with last week's agreement, the results of our efforts are easily seen by all, the efforts themselves must be undertaken quietly and away from the cameras.

I would add that a great deal more is left unreported because of a media that is partisan in their reporting, lazy in their efforts and often working in a medium – television – which
values a single image of despair over an entire nation functioning well.

As if more evidence were needed we have the testimony of those living in neighboring Middle Eastern states. There, even in the face of the worst possible spin from media outlets like al Jazeera and CNN, the people of Lebanon took to the streets by the millions to demand for themselves the same things they were knew their neighbors in Iraq were enjoying. Obviously, great credence need be given the realities of those who know their neighbors best and little to the opposing points-of-view coming, as they do, from political partisans and Old Media hacks.

Yet another test of one’s credibility is one’s track record. While the President and his advisors have not always been right – such are the vagaries of war – they have been right a very good percentage of the time and on the biggest of the issues. The President predicted a rapid overthrow of Saddam and that occurred with historically unprecedented swiftness. He predicted that elections would be held by the end of January and he was right down to the very day. He predicted that the inspiration of a liberated and democratic Iraq would spread democracy to more and more places in the Middle East and so it has to Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Lebanon and the West Bank.

Compare and contrast this with the prognostications of the other side whose attempts to portray a dust storm as a devastating military defeat was exposed as folly when, only weeks later, American troops entered Baghdad in the swiftest military advance in human history. Similarly, the “nay sayers” were claiming that the streets of Iraq were “too chaotic” to allow for voting up to the very moment that the Iraqi people took to the streets and cast their ballots in greater numbers (percentage) than even Americans did in our most recent national election. The left predicted a “humanitarian disaster of unprecedented proportions” and not a single refugee showed up at the UN camps. They promised the overthrow of every “moderate” Arab regime and we saw only the overthrow of the Taliban and Saddam, the weakening of Libya and Syria and the advance of democracy in Lebanon, Egypt and the West Bank.

And, finally, one judges the veracity of the witnesses by their demeanor and the logic of their statements. While the Republicans have maintained a mature and civil tone while consistently putting forth the arguments so overwhelmingly supported by the facts, evidence and testimony of those in-the-know, the Democrats have been reduced to making arguments that border on shear lunacy and personal pettiness.

The arguments of the leftists change with every new poll and every passing moment. John Kerry voted for AND against the 87 billion dollars to fund our troops (and then complained when the troops weren’t equipped with every piece of the most modern equipment on the market). Nancy Pelosi calls the President a “liar” and then gives a standing ovation to a movie she knows to be nothing more than anti-American propaganda by a man who proclaims his hatred for the United States at every turn. Leftists from Dick Durbin to the head of the “ethnics studies” program at a major university call our service people “Nazis” and our citizens – such as the victims in the World Trade Center on 9/11 “little Eichmans.”

And all the while everyone from Kofi Annan to Ibrahim Jaafari to the men and women of highest honor in our military to the people of Iraq and the Middle East as a whole testify to the truth with their words, their actions and their lives.