Iraq ‘IS’ The War On Terror

Cross posted from Right In A Left World

August 26, 2007

In their crafty endeavor at embarrassing the Bush Administration and causing defeat in the Iraqi Theater of the War on Terror, the leftists have been portraying the ongoing battle in Iraq as a separate war from the War on Terror. We hear that we dropped the ball by leaving Afghanistan, where terrorists are and invading Iraq, where they claim no terrorists were.

Nothing can be further from the truth, not that truth has ever been important to the anti-war left.

Given the events of September 11, 2001, which also revealed our total vulnerability to radical Jihadist and acknowledging that virtually every Intelligence agency in the world believed there was a massive stockpile of banned Weapons of Mass Destruction under Saddam Hussein’s control inside of Iraq, who would be willing to take the chance that those WMD’s would not fall into the hands of radical Jihadists such as Usama Bin Laden? Surely not me.

What leader worth anything wouldn’t take every step possible to safeguard the citizens that elected him to office? Given what was known and assumed, it would have been totally irresponsible to allow Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to remain as it was prior to 9/11.

However, Saddam’s refusal to abide by 17 United Nations Resolutions over the 12 years between the cease-fire he agreed to in 1991 and our invasion in 2003 was but one reason behind the invasion to depose Saddam and his brutal Baathist regime. Although no evidence has been found yet as to an operational link between Saddam’s regime and the horrific events of 9/11, links between Al Qaeda and the regime have been established and confirmed. During the Clinton administration links were established and I sincerely doubt they evaporated once the 2000 elections were finished. Even the vaunted 911 Commission Report stated there were ties, although not operational towards the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

After all the lies and obfuscation of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his CIA Analyst Wife, Valerie Plame, a declassified CIA Document on the debriefing of Joseph Wilson shows that Saddam’s regime was indeed seeking purchases of Yellowcake Uranium for nuclear purposes. In addition, we also now have proof that Wilson’s wife did indeed recommend him for the trip to Niger, revealing the lie’s of both of these people to the American Public.

Don’t hold your breath waiting to see either one of these two ‘darlings of the left’ prosecuted for ‘perjury’ as was L. ‘Scooter’ Libby.

A report produced by the Hudson Institute entitled "Saddam Hussein's Philanthropy of Terror," lists known terror groups as Hamas, the Palestinian Liberation Front, Ansar al-Islam and the Arab Liberation Front as having ties to Saddam’s regime. Additionally, known and suspected terrorists as Khala Khadar al Salahat (captured in Baghdad in April or 2003), Abu Nidal (who committed suicide in Baghdad in 2002), Ramzi Yousef (planner of the first WTC bombing of 1993), Abdul Rahman Yasin (conspirator in the first WTC bombing), Abu Abbas (captured just outside Baghdad in April of 2003) and Abu Musab al Zarqawi are listed as having been in Iraq, some for many years.

The report also mentions one of Hussein's diplomats at Iraq's Manila embassy was expelled from the Philippines for communicating via telephone with Abu Madja and Hamsiraji Sali, leaders of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Abu Sayyaf terrorist group as well as Saddam’s regime paying families of Palestinian suicide bombers upwards of $25,000 upon completion of a successful suicide attack against Israelis.

Clearly, when the anti-war left tells us there were no terrorists in Iraq before we invaded it in 2003, they are very wrong. Having now established there was just reason for invading Iraq, let’s move on to today and the calls to abandon Iraq and focus elsewhere to fight terror.

President Bush, vice-president Cheney, General Petraeus and others maintain that Iraq is the Central Front in the War on Terror. Leftist kooks, many Democrats, News commentators and RINO’s maintain that Iraq is NOT the Central Front in the War on Terror. Who is correct?

While we have Democrat candidates currently crisscrossing the nation pontificating such things as, "This is not our fight. Iraq is at war with itself and American troops are caught in the middle," (Hillary Clinton), "We cannot win a war against the terrorists if we're on the wrong battlefield," (Barack Obama), "By framing this as a war, we have walked right into the trap the terrorists have set—that we are engaged in some kind of clash of civilizations and a war on Islam," (John Edwards and his War on Terror is only a Bumper Sticker Slogan comment), “Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time,” (John ‘F’in Kerry in his failed 2004 campaign), I think it important to see what our enemies have said about it.

Al Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri released one of his video’s urging Muslim youth to hurry to Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Palestinian areas to fight for their religion. In an earlier letter to Abu Mus’aab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, Zawahiri expressed Al Qaeda’s four step plan to, expel American forces from Iraq, establish a caliphate over much of Iraq, extend the Jihad to neighboring countries, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon and war against Israel.

Additionally, we have a report of bin Laden’s men breaking some bad news to Mullah Mohammed Omar, the elusive leader of Afghanistan’s Taliban. The message, “Al Qaeda would be diverting a large number of fighters from the anti-U.S. insurgency in Afghanistan to Iraq. Al Qaeda also planned to reduce by half its $3 million monthly contribution to Afghan jihadi outfits.” The reason, “Because bin Laden and his lieutenants see a great opportunity for killing Americans and their allies in Iraq,” effectively turning Iraq into the “Central Front in the War on Terror!”

If our enemies see Iraq as the “Central Front,” we would be foolhardy to abandon the Iraqi People to their fate while we focus our main effort elsewhere that we have been able to enlist the aid of Allies to stand with us against the radical Jihadists there.

When you hear those denying Iraq as part of the War on Terror, don’t let them get away with it. They are wrong. They are in denial. They are completely misled. They are fools.

Just as the battles throughout the Pacific were half a globe away from the D-Day invasion in World War Two, yet were all part of the same war, so are Iraq and the Global War on Terror.

Iraq is but one battlefield in the Global War on Terror and one that we must win, if Western Civilization is to survive.

Lew