William Bennett (former drug czar) has taken time out of his busy schedule to write an article for <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/">FOX News</a> entitled <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,81450,00.html">Why We Must Fight - and Now!</a>. He presses the same line that Saddam is a monster and should be removed. Right there with you, Bill. The war is justified because it will liberate the people of Iraq. Bill, the US is about 0-for-50 on 'liberating' people and estabilishing democracies. Why should it be different this time? <bq> The people of Iraq will soon know what Afghanis know. The true wolf was devouring Afghanis, the true shepherd saved them.</bq> I see. So the utopia that is blossoming in Afghanistan can give hope to the Iraqis? (I feel compelled to remind for the 100th time that the same country that will 'liberate' Iraq slated <i>no</i> funds for Afghanistan in the year immediately following their 'liberation'. The Iraqis do have something to look forward to.) And they are Afghans, not Afghanis; that's their currency, you moron. <bq>It is worth remembering what those in the former Soviet republics know and what the anti-American Western street has forgotten: It was, and is, U.S. and British resolve that truly liberates the oppressed and that defends the lives and liberties of the free against the appetites and ill-will of the world?s dictators.</bq> Just when you give in and read a right-wing screed to give them a chance, you see that it just can't be borne. Bill here, for example, lives in an alternate reality and is just paying us a visit. Ask the Vietnamese, Indonesians, East Timorese, Guatemalans, Haitians, Cubans, Somalis, Nicaraguans, Palestinians, Panamanians, Koreans, etc. how they feel about U.S. <i>resolve</i>. Ask them about their <i>liberties</i> and who fills the coffers of the <iq>world's dictators</iq>. He passes the ball over to Wolf Blitzer (who's career took off in the first Gulf War and who is doubtless an authority on world history, as most US TV news anchors are) to paint the history of his world is broad strokes, telling of this wonderful fairy-tale land where: <bq>Over the past two decades, almost every time U.S. military forces have been called into action to risk their lives and limbs, it's been on behalf of Muslims. ... [T]o assist the Afghan mujahadin - during the Soviet invasion in the 1980s, to liberate Kuwait following the Iraqi invasion of 1990, to help Somali Muslims suffering at the hands of a warlord in Mogadishu, to help Muslims first in Bosnia and then in Kosovo who faced a Serb onslaught, and more recently to liberate Afghanistan from its Taliban and Al Qaeda rulers.</bq> That is an interesting take on history. I'm quite sure now that Bill and Wolf are using the word 'liberate' as code for 'kill'. Try it. You'll see now when you use the word 'kill' instead of 'liberate', it makes sense to say that we are 'liberating' the Iraqi people. Mother of God, I just hit the part where he says to <iq>[a]sk a Nicaraguan ... if he is better off now than he was, say, 15 years ago</iq> and then says that <iq>U.S. resolve can be thanked for all that</iq>. I suppose it can. But I think I've discovered a new code word. 'resolve' means 'tyranny'. To cement his justifications, he drags out the nuclear card, saying that inaction would allow <iq>Saddam will be able to join North Korea in becoming a nuclear power</iq>, where no credible evidence <i>whatsoever</i> has been put out that Saddam has any nuclear program whatsoever (the document so happily quoted to this day by Bush and Powell is a proven <i>fake</i>). Since this article is on FOX News, it's preaching to the converted (as this article here is probably doing as well, if you've gotten this far), but it's always very interesting to read what version of history is being taught to those that disagree so strongly with your own views. Almost every sentence in that screed is at least disengenuous and most fall neatly into the category of 'lies'.