My essays pages is now listed at The Liberal Dose web site. He’s got lots of great links to other conservative sites, and has a section where he opines on various subjects.

Less than 24 hours after weapons inspectors left Iraq, Scud missles have been fired from Iraq into Kuwait in response to our cruise missle strike.

Wait a minute…weren’t Scuds supposed to be banned? Am I supposed to believe that, mere hours after folks looking for them left, banned weapons are already being used? Gosh! How could that have happened?

Folks, weapons inspections, of the UN variety, were patently not working. They required cooperation by Hussein–cooperation that never materialized except when it served his purpose. They would never have worked so long as he was in power.

However, weapons inspections of the Coalition variety do appear to be making progress.

With all the comparisons I’ve seen anti-war protestors make between Bush and Hitler, how about we ask someone who was actually there, who had almost 90 members of his family killed in the Holocaust, and who’s spent his life tracking down Nazis to bring them to justice?

How ’bout we ask Simon Wiesenthal?

John Fund has coalesced a lot of the history of Hollywood anti-war protesting over the past 20 years (and the convenient lack of it during the Clinton administration) into a single article with a great title, “Stars and Gripes”. Best paragraph:

I also remember when leftists and Hollywood stars of all stripes opposed American intervention in Grenada and supported the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. The people of both countries have shown their gratitude for our help and today live in freedom. I remember, too, how many countries were hesitant to join the allied coalition in the 1991 Gulf War, fearing that it would turn out horribly. History has proved them wrong.

Again, it’s history that points out the fallacies.

Rep. James Moran (D-VA) stepped down from his position as regional whip over his remarks that “if it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq we would not be doing this”. It was done rather quietly, so as not, I imagine, to call too much attention to antisemitism in the party, but at least it was done. Good things are coming out of the Trent Lott debacle, and this is one of them.

Next step, working on Robert Byrd for using the “N” word.

Which emits more smog-causing nitrogen oxides; factories, cars or trees? If you answered “trees”, you’re obviously not an environmentalist. And according to the journal Nature, you’d also be right.

Here’s another quote from the left side of the aisle expressing their real reason for not opposing terrorists or madmen:

Let’s be clear: Mr Chirac does not endorse Baghdad, and he finds Saddam’s regime as despicable as do Bush and Blair. But he fears the American hawks will ignite Muslim fundamentalism worldwide. The fear of domestic conflagration and terrorism are also ever-present: there are 6 million French Muslims to take into account.
— Marc Roche in The Guardian

Fear is continuing to grip the left. “Oh, that ol’ Hussein guy sure is despicable, but if we stand up for what’s right, or even try to enforce our own resolutions, people might get mad and not like us, and maybe even hurt us.” The terrorists have won the mind of Mr. Roche. One more victory for them.

For now.

Ouch! Andrew Sullivan pointed out an opinion piece in the Washington Post that is positively brutal in its honesty about the alternative to war.

If you think war kills, it doesn’t hold a candle to years and years of containment. A must-read.

The phrase popped up in the days after September 11, 2001, and became instantly trite. “If we don’t X, then the terrorists have won”, where X was replaced with things like:

“get back to our normal lives”
“resume broadcasting ‘Saturday Night Live'”
“rebuild the Twin Towers”

The phrase became the brunt of late night talk show monologues. Pretty soon you couldn’t take it seriously, because so many silly things had been tagged to it.

But then consider this: What value of X would actually make that statement the most true? In order to answer that question, you have to figure out what the terrorists are trying to do? Now, trying to get into their collective heads and determine their specific motives may be an exercise for a psychologist, not me, but I can think of a value for X that is at least generally true of terrorists in general.

X = “respond, because we’re afraid”

Basically, if terrorists have instilled terror into us, to the point that either we do what they want us to do or we don’t do what they don’t want us to do, they’ve won the battle, if not the war. The point of terrorism is to instill so much fear that we relent to their demands, either actively or passively.

And so, consider the following quotes from the left side of the aisle:

Do Americans believe that taking out Saddam would really make life here safer? Will we really be able to stop living in fear? Or do enough Americans believe, as I do, that terrorists will retaliate with an attack on us–perhaps in Chicago, Dallas or Los Angeles–the minute a bomb destroys the first mosque?
— Commentary by Juan Andrade of The United States Hispanic Leadership Institute, 10/11/2002

Iraq is going to retaliate as soon as they are attacked. And terrorists are going to hit the U.S. more and more. I believe that military targets in the U.S. are in jeopardy, so the Hampton Roads area and DC are likely targets.

I think Hussein is a scary man, but there are other ways to take him out than war.
— Cordle, a blogger, 2/27/2003

Leave Terrorists alone, they might strike back
— chalk writing on sidewalk at a student war protest at Stanford University, 3/5/2003, as reported by Chrislin’s blog (who, by way of disclaimer, doesn’t agree with the sentiments expressed)

What do all these sentiments have in common? Fear. Don’t go to war, because the terrorists or the madmen might hurt us back. Just let Saddam continue to torture his own people. Don’t respond to al Qaeda attacks. Hussein will change…he just needs more time (12 years surely isn’t enough), and if we push too hard he might push back. If we don’t bother Osama, maybe he’ll leave us alone.

Listen to the protesters, the bloggers, the pundits. When they get past their caricatures of Bush as Hitler and their mantras, listen to them. Why do they insist on doing the same thing that has been done for years without success? Why do they suggest that war never solved anything, when it plainly has (ask a thankful Kuwaiti or a Frenchman born after 1945 whose native language isn’t German)? Why do they safely protest against Bush, when Hussein has committed (actual) atrocities against his own people and yet they say nothing?

War is an awful option. “War is hell”, no doubt about it. But the only reason Saddam is feeding crumbs to weapons inspectors is because of the threat of war. The only reason he left Kuwait in his “blood for oil” war was because of the force of war. And the only way he’ll “comply” with UN resolutions is if he is physically forced to. The only reason some small semblance of freedom returned to Afghanistan is because war forced out the Taliban, who never had any intention of stopping bin Laden from his murderous ways.

The United States has responded to terrorists with full knowledge of the possible consequences, but was not afraid to act in its own interest. Ask that aforementioned Kuwaiti or Frenchman, or perhaps a woman in Afghanistan who can now go to school, what it means when we’re not afraid of terrorists or madmen.

If you’re afraid of terrorists, they’ve beaten you. If this nation becomes terrorized because we don’t have the will to act, the bin Ladens and Husseins of the world have us right where they want us.

If we don’t respond, because we’re afraid, then the terrorists have won.