...Speak, and remove all doubt

Well, Howard Dean's certainly removed all doubt that he's unfit to be the Commander in Chief of the United States. How? By his statement this week after the capture of Sadaam Hussein that we are no safer now than we were on 9/11 when the planes flew into the buildings.

That is complete undiluted horsecrap. Since 9/11 the U.S. government has:

- deterred every successive attack
- conducted the most massive reformation of government agencies with a role in protecting us into one body - the Department of Homeland Security
- passed laws like the Patriot Act which expand the governments ability to do it's first duty - provide for the security of America
- chased Osama bin Laden into the underground, probably in Iran, where he's had a considerably harder time hitting us again
- captured or killed most of bin Laden's organization
- destroyed the State sponsor (the Taliban) who allowed bin Laden to operate training camps in the open that trained thousands of terrorists. No more camps. Fewer terrorists.
- taken down Sadaam Hussein and a regime that supported terrorists throughout the Mideast. (See recent news stories from the London Telegraph that link Sadaam to Al-Qeida by hooking up Mohammed Atta to train with Abu Nidal in Baghdad.) No more Salman Pak training camp outside Baghdad where they used a jet airliner parked in the desert to train terrorists on how to take over a passenger jet with small handtools.

etc.

And we're not safer?

So why would Dean make such a foolish public statement? Because his followers, on the far left and on college campuses, believe this folly as well. He's speaking to his base and they love him for it. And it's the base that will drive the Democrats of the cliff next November.

Also this week......

Bush's projection of strength in the Mideast to solve the Iraq problem is paying further dividends. This week's announcement that Mummar Qadafi is giving up his WMD programs in Libya to US/British forces vindicates Bush's preemptive war peace-thru-strength model. It's no coincidence at all that Qadafi started negotiations to surrender his weapons back in March, about the time the troops started moving into Iraq. Qadafi's no fool and he see's his future in Sadaam's. And it wasn't the UN that brought him to the table. It was American military strength.

Also...

I saw the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King last night and it was awesome. By far the best movie I've ever seen in my long movie-going career. Basic message, as I said in my last post: evil must be opposed. Even if you have to, against all odds, travel across the globe to take the fight into the heart of the enemy's land.

Same message as the War on Terrorism, George W. Bush style.

I was marveling this week about the application of that message to history. The books were originally written against the backdrop of WWII, in England which was the courage of the British to stand against the world conquering evil of the Third Reich was tested. Here was Gondor (Britain and Western Europe?) under siege with Rohan (America) riding to their aid. Was Sauron an allegory for Hitler? Tolkein always said no, but how can you read it otherwise given the historical context of his writing? And now as the phenomenal cinematic masterpiece re-telling of the story plays across our screens, can we miss the parallels to the sweeping global threat that terrorism represents to the civilized world?

Evil must be opposed, not appeased. Will the liberals who now want to run back to the UN and who criticize American strength at every turn ever get that?