Osama's Choice

The Belmont Club has the second part of the Memo to Osama up. It's a must read for anyone wishing to get inside the twisted minds of Islamofascist terrorists. If you haven't read the first one yet, begin with it before reading Part 2.

Speaking of the Belmont Club's Memo to Osama, it has been broadly bruited by the media and others that the Islamofascists will try to strike a severe, maybe even catastrophic, blow within the U.S. sometime between now and November. It also appears to be widely assumed that the chief purpose of such a strike would be to tilt the election in favor of Senator Kerry, in the manner of the Madrid train bombing. This should deeply trouble Kerry supporters, to the point, one might think, that the sensible ones among them would abandon his candidacy. After all, many of them are convinced that the terrorists are preparing an attempt to kill thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of Americans in what would amount to one huge political endorsement for John Kerry. The Senator, it seems, is so much more to their liking than GWB that they are prepared to murder untold numbers of our children in hopes of getting him elected. Shouldn't it give pause to Kerry supporters to know that their guy is the candidate of choice of al Qaeda? One wonders how it can be that people of sound mind can continue to support the man who those who are trying to destroy our civilization believe is best suited for their purposes.

Accentuating the Positive

Andrew Sullivan gets it precisely right on Iraq:

"If someone had said in February 2003, that by June 2004, Saddam Hussein would have been removed from power and captured; that a diverse new government, including Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, would be installed; that elections would be scheduled for January 2005; and that the liberation of a devastated country of 25 million in which everyone owns an AK-47 had been accomplished with an army of around 140,000 with a total casualty rate (including accidents and friendly fire) of around 800; that no oil fields had been set aflame; no WMDs had been used; no mass refugee crises had emerged; and no civil war had broken out... well, I think you would come to the conclusion that the war had been an extraordinary success. And you'd be right. Yes, there are enormous challenges; and yes, so much more could have been achieved without incompetence, infighting and occasional inhumanity. But it's worth acknowledging that, with a little perspective, our current gloom is over-blown. Stocks in Iraq have been way over-sold. I even regret some minor sells myself. Now watch the media do all it can to accentuate the negative."

Fallujah

Ever wonder what happened in the battle for Fallujah? Me too. There hasn't been much in the news about it lately so we might surmise that things are going pretty well there, despite early media prognostications of terrible and imminent woe. To find out exactly how well things are progressing read Brad Miniter's outstanding column in the Wall Street Journal.

Moby Bush

A few days ago I wrote that regardless of whether or not you think we did the right thing in going into Iraq every American should be united in hoping for a successful establishment of a free and prosperous Iraq. To do otherwise, I wrote, is to implicitly hope for further bloodshed and is morally reprehensible. Yet there appear to be people so consumed by hatred for GWB that they really are yearning for failure in Iraq so that the President will be defeated in November. This is, not to put too fine a point on it, simply despicable. That anyone could actually wish that more Americans and more Iraqis lose their lives just so the Democrat party can regain political power and the object of their obsessions be banished from the White House is reprehensible beyond words. Nevertheless, No Left Turns has a piece taken from an article in the U.K. Spectator which is absolutely stunning for the moral poverty of the journalist it describes. The key passage:

In the column, Toby Harden relates an encounter he had with an American magazine journalist with impeccable credentials. Here is a key excerpt from their discussion: "Not only had she 'known' the Iraq war would fail but she considered it essential that it did so because this would ensure that the 'evil' George W. Bush would no longer be running her country. Her editors back on the East Coast were giggling, she said, over what a disaster Iraq had turned out to be. 'Lots of us talk about how awful it would be if this worked out.' Startled by her candour, I asked whether thousands more dead Iraqis would be a good thing. She nodded and mumbled something about Bush needing to go. By this logic, I ventured, another September 11 on, say, September 11 would be perfect for pushing up John Kerry's poll numbers. 'Well, that's different - that would be Americans,' she said, haltingly, 'I guess I'm a bit of an isolationist.' That's one way of putting it."

I'm reminded of the scene in Herman Melville's Moby Dick where the whaling ship Rachel pulls along side the Pequod and the Rachel's captain pleads with Ahab to help them find his son who has been lost at sea. Ahab, consumed by his hatred for the great white whale, has no room in his heart for human compassion. Every human sentiment must be subordinated to the singular purpose of killing Moby Dick. Every moment must be dedicated to his pursuit. Every moral consideration is secondary to the insane lust for revenge which so perverts Ahab. No loss of human life is too great if it results in the consummation for which he will ultimately, and vainly, give his own life. Melville must have had some contemporary Democrats in mind when he sketched out the demented character of Captain Ahab.

Memo to Osama

Check out the Memo to Osama at the Belmont Club for excellent insight into what al Qaeda must be thinking right now.