THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume V, Issue # 308, December 29, 2003
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
THE WAR IN IRAQ: WHAT TO REMEMBER
By Dr. William J. Bennett
With all the passion directed at President Bush right now by the Democratic contenders for the White House, it is the duty of
patriotic Americans to clear our throats and start ratcheting up our own passion about the following brief facts regarding the
war in Iraq -- facts that look at the conditions in Iraq before Gulf War II (Operation Iraqi Freedom) and the conditions there now:
Iraq is demonstrably better than it was six months ago, six years ago, or sixteen years ago. Of this, there can be no question.
Iraq, while dangerous, is safer than it was, freer than it was, more humanitarian than it was.
While we rightfully lament the challenge of internal terrorism, there can be no question that the Iraqi government --
No longer officially harbors terrorists (as it did with Abu Nidal and Al-Zarqawi);
No longer exports terrorism to places outside of Iraq's borders;
No longer threatens to purchase weapons of mass destruction from other rogue and despotic states such as Red China
and North Korea;
No longer threatens to use weapons of mass destruction:
No longer shuts down hospitals and schools;
No longer murders its own citizens, including 5,000 children a month, according to UNICEF;
No longer subsidizes homicide-bombers against the Israelis.
The Middle East has one less thug leading one less thuggish state today. And the current threats from Iraq are exclusively internal
to Iraq, and no longer external to other nations, including the U.S.A. and its allies. In Iraq now, it is easier to quell a cauldron than it
was to prevent a volcano. We are helping to create the first constitutional democracy in the Arab world -- and someday, someway,
we may even receive a letter from Muslim nations thanking us for defeating their tyranny, like the letter from Czech Republic
President Vaclav Havel and the "European Eight" earlier in the year thanking us for "American bravery, generosity, and
farsightedness [in saving Europe] from the two forms of tyranny that devastated our continent in the 20th. century."
Our efforts in Iraq rank among the crowning achievements of our nation, of our democratic will against tyranny, and our good will
for human rights.We are turning one of the worst countries in the Middle East into one of the best countries in the Middle East.
For this, we should not be humble. For this, we should not be embarrassed. For this, we should be proud.
The Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., just celebrated its tenth anniversary. It is a profound place based on a simple promise:
We should never forget man's inhumanity to man. And remembering and seeing with our eyes and imagination is the way not to
forget. As with Germany, so it is with Iraq -- we should see and remember.
We should see and remember the videos former New York City Police Chief Bernard Kerick saw in Baghdad:
"Interrogations of Iraqis whose lives ended with the detonation of a grenade that was tied to the neck or stuffed
in the shirt pocket of the victim.... living bodies disintegrate[d] at the pull of the pin.... a tape of Saddam sitting
and watching one of his military generals being eaten alive by Dobermans because the general's loyalty was in
question."
We should see and remember the plastic shredding devices British Parliamentarian Ann Clwyd brought to the world's attention,
with the following witness-testimony by an Iraqi:
"There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch.
Sometimes, they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes, they went in feet first and died screaming.... Their
remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food."
We should read testimony from the survivors of the chemical attack on Halabja that killed a minimum of 5,000 people. We
should see the torture chambers and the rape rooms. We should see mass graves like the one near al-Hilla that journalist
Christopher Hitchens described:
"The remains of 3,000 individuals were brought up to the surface.... Eyewitnesses from the horrific repression of 1991
report having seen three truckloads of prisoners three times a day, for a month, being unloaded there."
We need to have these images again, for too many seem to have forgotten them.
When I attended human rights rallies in my youth, I used to hear the quote from Tom Paine, that "we have it in our power to begin
the world over again." In the Middle East, the cradle of dictatorship and terrorism, we are beginning the world over again. What we
are witnessing in Iraq today is what such work looks like. Yet, many have forgotten that all beginnings are difficult.
If our efforts succeed, we will see more constitutional democracy, less war, less despotism, and less torture. And, someday, we may
even have the luxury of saying about this, and other memorials to horror, that we do not remember the world that brought them
about. In the meantime, let us be mindful that it is in that desert in Iraq that civilization and barbarism are now at war. It has fallen to
us to be the arm, the conscience, and the will of civilization. And we have done so by once again pledging our lives, our fortunes,
and our sacred honor.
And so, to our critics, we say, with passion and conviction: We are proud of our country, we are proud of our fighting men and
women in Iraq, and, yes, we are proud of our President. And, on this evening, honoring Winston Churchill, we say, as he said,
"Never, never, never, never -- in nothing, great or small, large or petty -- never give in, except to convictions of honor and good
sense. Never yield to force."
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
The Middle East & the Problem of Iraq
Page Two
Page One
The Problem of Rogue States:
Iraq as a Case History
The Middle East & the Arabs
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. William J. Bennett presented the foregoing statement in Los Angeles, California, on the evening of November 21, 2003,
as the keynote address to the annual Winston Churchill Dinner of the Claremont Institute for Statesmanship and Political
Philosophy. Excerpts from Dr. Bennett's keynote address were published in the December, 2003, issue of The Proposition,
a monthly publication of the Claremont Institute.
Dr. Bennett is the Claremont Institute's new Washington Fellow, representing the Institute as spokesman, advocate and
analyst, both in public policy circles and in the national media. Dr. Bennett served President Ronald W. Reagan as Chairman of
the National Endowment for the Humanities and as U.S. Secretary of Education. He served President H. W. Bush as Director of
the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy. The author of over 15 books and of numerous articles and op-eds, Dr.
Bennett is one of America's most influential and respected voices on cultural, political, and cultural issues. He is Co-Director of
Empower America, Co-Chairman of the National Commission on Civic Renewal, Co-Chairman of the Partnership for a Drug-Free
America, and Chairman of Americans for Victory Over Terrorism, a project aimed at addressing present terrorist threats and the
ideologies that animate them and dedicated to fortifying public opinion in support of the war on terrorism. Dr. Bennett is
continuing his high-profile fight against government bureaucracy and monopolies. His continuing endeavor to reform and
improve America's public and private schools, focusing upon what he calls the "Three Cs" -- Choice, Content, and Character --
includes articles in America's leading newspapers and magazines and meetings with key members of the U.S. Congress as well
as with experts in the field of education.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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Conservative Government Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity