Charles Shiflett Column October 17, 2004

Bush's Strategery

Strategery. That Bushism from the 2000 presidential campaign has been a staple of comedians for
these past four years. While liberals and conservatives alike have received some chuckles from the
President's occasional mangling of the English language, when it comes to Bush's Middle East
strategery, perhaps we should stop drinking the John Kerry Kool-Aid and dig a little deeper.

I, like many of you, get frustrated when elected officials resort to speaking in code. Sometimes it's
necessary, but many times it's just a way of sidestepping an issue. When it comes to the war on
terrorism, Iraq, and U.S. policy in the Middle East however, President Bush has his hands tied
concerning what he can say due to diplomatic issues.

Like it or not, if Osama bin Laden were captured or killed today, the war on terror would continue for
years to come. Yes, it would be a moral victory, but not an absolute one. Every day dozens of
potential new terrorists are born. President Bush understands this, while John Kerry's strategy of
passivism reflects that he does not.

The Bush strategery is twofold. First, under President Bush's leadership, U.S. forces have killed or
captured seventy-five percent of the leadership of al Qaeda. We have interrupted their plans,
confiscated their finances, and continue to apply tremendous pressure on them worldwide. Numerous
planned attacks against the U.S. and its interests have been thwarted during these three years
following 9/11.

The second part of the Bush plan is less obvious and the results are not immediate. Bush knows that
unless the seeds of freedom are sown in the Middle East, the supply of terrorists will never end. This
is the real reason why we invaded Iraq, but Bush could not have moved against Saddam Hussein
without using WMD's as justification.

The UN, other nations, Democrats and Republicans all acknowledge that Hussein had WMD's.
Intelligence in 2002 and 2003 showed he still had them. The recently released Duelfer report reveals
Saddam planned to restart his WMD programs once he got UN sanctions lifted. Senator Kerry and his
allies can twist and distort the facts and insinuate that President Bush lied, but their charges ring
hollow.

I get the feeling that Kerry is running to be our official American backseat driver instead of president.
Kerry says that knowing what he knows now; he would have done things differently than Bush did in
Iraq. Wouldn't you love to be able to make decisions today based upon what you might learn in three
years? I'd make a killing in the stock market, but that's not reality. Bush's decisions were made based
upon information available at the time he made the decisions. Case closed.

Now back to the second part of Bush's strategery. I just finished reading an exhaustive history of the
Middle East dating from the time of Abraham, through Mohammed, and to the present. The Islamic
mindset of even so called “moderate” Muslims is completely different from that of western nations.

Until now, Arab nations have only respected and responded to one thing… force. President Bush
understands that in the short term force can be used to slow and disrupt terror operations. By moving
into Iraq, we have seen numerous positive side effects. Saudi Arabia and Yemen have begun cracking
down on terror operations in their nations.

Libya has opened their doors to international inspectors and is dismantling its WMD programs. Syrian
president Assad announced this month he will agree to unconditional peace negotiations with Israel
and is also now willing to cooperate with the U.S. in stabilizing Iraq. Jordan and Turkey continue to
help the U.S. in numerous ways. Without our intervention in Iraq, none of this would have happened.

President Bush also understands that economically and logistically, military force can only be used as
a hammer in the Middle East for a short while. To win the war on terror requires a sea change in the
Arab mindset. Millions of Arabs are quietly waiting to see if we are serious about establishing freedom
in Iraq.

If we are successful, the very real possibility exists for freedom movements to spread across the
Middle East. Only when common citizens in the Middle East finally believe they can live in freedom
and have hope for the future can the flow of new terrorists be reduced and possibly one day eliminated.
If we leave Iraq prematurely, it will be decades before we can hope to enact real change anywhere in
the Middle East.

John Kerry's approach to fighting terrorism reminds me too much of Chamberlain's appeasement
policies leading up to WWII. Kerry would sacrifice long term success for political points and a little
short-term relief. A Kerry victory will cost us dearly in the years to come.

After hearing Kerry mangle the pronunciation of “Genghis Kahn” during his anti-war testimony before
congress, Bush's vocabulary missteps aren't so bad… and neither is his policy on terrorism and the
Middle East.