Bill Whittle over at EjectEjectEject has some new math for you. He puts the total people killed by Saddam's regime in Iraq at somewhere around 1,700 per month. Figure that's about 13,000 that haven't been killed since we liberated the country. Then:
Then we can put 13,000 Iraqi men, women and children into the Staples Center, and make Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Sean Penn, George Clooney, The Dixie Chicks, Janeane Garofalo, and every single person who signed the Not in Our Name petition kill those people in cold blood – electrodes, acid baths or shredders, to get the full effect, although the weak-stomached should be allowed to merely shoot them in the back of the head.That's what they wanted anyway, right?
I have more reason than ever to enjoy calling myself an American. We have a legacy of freedom that is unparalleled in the history of mankind. Ask me if I care that no WMD have been found. Ask me if I care if there's a link between Saddam and bin Laden. Ask me if I care that we have shifted to a policy of preemption.
I don't. I don't care about any of that because for the second time in two years my country has had the strength of conviction, the moral courage, to rid the planet of a hideous despot heading a regime that for years ground people up and spit them out like so much refuse.
The EU knew life in Iraq was horrific and didn't stop it. The UN knew and didn't stop it. Clinton knew and didn't stop it. But President Bush is a man who recognizes right and wrong, and knows when to use the awesome power his position holds.
America is not a perfect place. We are a country of many diverse peoples with many problems of our own. We have our poor and homeless, our neglected and outcast societies. We also have many, many good organizations helping and reaching out to them.
We are not perfect, but we are a blessed nation. Our economy is mighty, our military is orders of magnitude better than any other, and our people are free. We have so much to share.
We are sharing that good fortune in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am proud to be an American because we have finally begun standing for what is good and right in the world, not just in our own backyard. We are helping to free countries full of millions of people, and that terrifies the terrorists.
We did it in Europe and Japan after WWII. Japan is now helping us. It is a second generation of freedom in the world. We once feared communism's "domino effect." Now we are creating what I pray will be a self-sustaining domino effect of freedom. In a decade Iraq and Afghanistan will be free and powerful countries in their own right.
But Soldiers are Dying!, you scream.
Yes, it hurts. It hurts more than anything else we can do. There is no greater love, no greater sacrifice than to send our sons and daughters off to fight and die for freedom. Yet what choice was there? The European answer is to curl up and hope the bad men go away, but that's a fallacy. Americans do not delight in death. We flinch at every report of another fine American killed in the hell of war. Yet if we do not fight them now, on their own turf, hell will come to US soil again. We cannot let that happen again. Our innocents, our mothers, fathers, children, fireman, businessmen, hippies, protestors, and students must be protected. So we fight. We fight this gruelling, grinding battle day in and day out in the streets and slums of a country we are trying to rebuild. Every day we stay is victory and every soldier who dies does so knowing they have saved the life of an innocent back home.
We're Not the World's Police Force, you say.
I do not believe America is called to be the world's police force. I don't think our young men and women should be permanently deployed as caretakers of the world's baby nations, as mediators in disputes. But I do think we have a moral obligation to use our massive resources as agents of change.
But Iraq is a Sovereign Country, you think.
Let's say a man has a large family. Say, 20 kids. OK, some are adopted. He barricades himself in his house, his own private property, and starts murdering one kid a day. What do you think would happen? Would the police levy economic sanction against him? Shut off his water? Invite him to the town council meeting? Send a senator in for inspections? No, they would send in a SWAT team to shoot him full of holes if he even looked like he was going to murder another child.
Yet we allowed Saddam and his thugs to murder 1,700 men, women, and children a month for years.
Well, that's done. There is no shame in liberating a country. There is only shame in knowing the truth and doing nothing about it.
