Saddam Hussein's second trial is up and running before an Iraqi judge in Baghdad, albeit relegated to the inside pages of American papers. The proceedings are nonetheless instructive, not least for showing once again that the dictator used chemical weapons even if U.S. forces never found "stockpiles" of WMD after his ouster in 2003. . . .
The horrifying testimony is... a reminder that, despite the current problems in Iraq, the U.S. decision to topple Saddam was an act of pre-emptive global hygiene. The habit of many American liberals is to deplore the thugs of the world from afar but then never do anything about them (see encyclopedia entries under Rwanda, Darfur), or to pass the buck to the U.N. (see multiple entries; in particular Lebanon, current crisis).
In the case of Saddam, the U.S. and its allies finally did act to rid the Middle East of a megalomaniac who had invaded Kuwait, attacked Iran, gassed his own people, tossed out U.N. weapons inspectors, harbored terrorists including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, retained the infrastructure for making WMD even if he lacked stockpiles (see the Duelfer report), plotted to kill a former American President, and harbored a grudge against the U.S. that could have played out in many ways to harm Americans.
Indeed.
I think this is where the basic left/right disconnect on the war on terror is. The left thinks doesn't think there's an actual threat from the middle east. Or, more accurately, they think we can deal with that threat by simply pulling back behind our own borders and relying on security measures to thwart attacks before they happen.
Certainly we should be trying to thwart terror plots before they happen, but that isn't going to solve the problem represented by the terrorism which springs from the middle east. Just reacting to terror plots and attacks as they happen on our own soil is a bit like taking Tylenol for the headache you get when you're wearing a hat that's too tight. Sure the Tylenol might help with the pain, but the root cause of your headache isn't going to be solved until you take the hat off.
Anti-terror measures here at home (many of which - like the NSA phone call database and the Treasury department's terror finance tracking program - the left opposes) is only going to take us so far. Eventually the terrorists will come up with a tactic we can't anticipate or detect and we'll end up with another 9/11. These people may be extremists, but they're not stupid. They're going to keep coming after us regardless of the lengths we go through to engage them in diplomacy and appeasement, and as long as they're still coming there's a chance that one of their attacks might get through.
And even one attack against Americans is one too many.
The war on terror is a war in which root causes must be addressed, and the root causes of terrorism are the rampant oppression and religious totalitarianism present in the middle east. Until those things end Islamic radicals will continue to exist and continue to engage in jihad against the west.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were major blows against said oppression and totalitarianism. What we need is more of the same, not less.