WASHINGTON -- In observing the violence in Iraq it is helpful to
have a grasp of history. There is a reason for the increased random
violence. Our enemies -- free Iraq's enemies -- want to influence
the American elections. Thus they make it appear that things are
going more badly than they are. There is nothing new about this.
History abounds with examples of a democracy's enemies trying to
influence an election. It happened just months ago in Spain.
History also abounds with lessons on how to deal with brutes
whether the brutes are trying to influence an election or some
other political outcome. That is why I think the best news on the
world stage in recent months came some days ago out of Moscow.
There Vladimir Putin announced that he would project Russian force
even beyond his borders to thwart terrorists. Bravo, Russia's most
famous black belt. The policy sounds very much like our President's
visionary policy of "preemption." The present threats to American
-- and to Russian -- security do not come from nation states
rattling their scabbards against us, but from shadowy figures
lurking in rogue states and preparing their suicide missions. You
do not deal with such international criminals with diplomacy and
massed armies. You deal with them through preemption.
The Russians have a history of resorting to such tactics, and
they proved effective. In Lebanon in the 1980s two KGB officers
were snatched by Islamic terrorists. The response from Moscow was
immediate. Four of the terrorists' colleagues or like-minded
scoundrels were snatched by the KGB, who deposited their corpses in
public after surgeries were committed on their persons, which we
shall not elaborate on in a family newspaper. Suffice to say that
the surgeries were abhorrent even to the mind of an Islamic
terrorist. The KGB then let it be known that every time a Russian
was murdered he would be accompanied to the hereafter by two
terrorists, possibly more, all surgically modified. The Islamic
terror ended.
Even Americans have dealt brutally with Islamic terror and to
good effect. In 1911 in the Philippines our General John J.
Pershing arrested several of the most brutal Islamic terrorists of
the day. They were found guilty of capital crimes and shot but not
before the bullets used by the firing squad were dipped in pig fat,
thus denying them according to the rule of Islam a soft landing in
Heaven. General Pershing, however, did allow one of the terrorists
to escape so that he might report his chums' fate to their
superiors. Islamic terrorism ended.
Now I would not prescribe such tactics as those employed by the
KGB and our illustrious General Pershing for the modern age. I
would not even prescribe the ribaldry of our ill-trained troops at
sexy Abu Ghraib Prison. But I would say we can and should get a lot
tougher with the thugs. The Marines should have been allowed to
work their will on Fallujah, which is obviously a center of the
gangsterism now threatening the future of a peaceful and stable
Iraq. Doubtless there are other centers from which the thugs filter
out to destroy their countrymen and our peacekeeping forces.
Senator Jean-François Kerry is prescribing precisely the
wrong policy for dealing with Iraq. Actually it goes beyond being
wrong. It is delusional. He talks as though once he is in office
the United Nations and perhaps NATO will come in with gentle
persuasion to pacify the primitive anarchy that is Iraq. He ignores
the fact that President Bush prevailed on the United Nations and
NATO before and got nowhere. In his megalomania Senator Kerry acts
as though he is more influential on the world stage than President
Bush. He launches pipe dreams such as "The principles that should
guide American policy in Iraq now and in the future are clear: We
must make Iraq the world's responsibility." A noble ideal that, but
frankly I think President Putin and General Pershing have a better
idea than Senator Kerry of how to make people act responsibly.
topics:
Vladimir Putin, Islam, Iraq, Russia, United Nations, NATO
