Excerpt Of The Day: George Bush On The “Flypaper Theory”

29 Jun, 2005 by John Hawkins

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“…Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate. Hear the words of Osama Bin Laden: “This Third World War is raging” in Iraq. “The whole world is watching this war.” He says it will end in “victory and glory or misery and humiliation.”

The terrorists know that the outcome will leave them emboldened or defeated. So they are waging a campaign of murder and destruction. And there is no limit to the innocent lives they are willing to take.

…Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington and Pennsylvania. There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home. The commander in charge of coalition operations in Iraq, who is also senior commander at this base, General John Vines, put it well the other day. He said, “We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us.” — From George Bush’s Speech on Iraq last night

He makes an excellent point. Would we rather fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq or would we rather try to shoot down terrorist piloted airliners full of Americans as their flights scream towards American buildings? Would we rather that Al-Qaeda suicide bombers were headed to Baghdad or to New York? Would we rather have American secretaries and stockbrokers trying to take on machine gun carrying, bomb wielding, jihadis in LA or would we rather see the terrorists fighting the best soldiers ever to walk planet earth in Iraq?

Put another way:

In the space of a few years time, the Iraqi people will have gone from being oppressed by one of the world’s most brutal dictators to members of a free society. Meanwhile, the Coalition is helping to avoid future 9/11’s in America and Europe by bleeding Al-Qaeda dry in Iraq and we’re encouraging a wave of freedom that will in time sweep across the Middle-East and help drain the swamp that radical Islam thrives in. It may be tough going, but it’s the best way to go given our situation.

Our country did not ask for a war on terrorism, nor did we wish to once again send our troops off to foreign lands to fight and die for freedom and to protect our home. But since this war was thrust upon us, we must fight to win. And the road to victory in the war on terrorism leads over a pile of Al-Qaeda corpses in Iraq….

*** Update #1 *** : Omar from Iraq The Model gives the Iraqi perspective:

“Yesterday for example, interior ministry in Saudi Arabia uncovered a new list of wanted Al-Qaeda members with 36 names on it, 21 of who are believed to be residing in Iraq right now.

Can anyone tell me how can these terrorists be stopped from moving their zone of action to other countries if they weren’t intercepted right here and right now?
There’s no doubt that once Iraq falls in their hands they will start looking for other battle grounds and they will search for the “greatest Satan” in other places.

It is the American existence in Iraq that attracted them to a great extent and when there are no Americans in Iraq Al-Qaeda will not simply drop their weapons and start a normal life, they will seek other places where they can find, and kill Americans.

What I want to say here is that it is our fate to fight terrorism on our own land and we (the majority) have accepted to challenge this fate the day we abandoned Saddam and welcomed our freedom but that’s not the case for you in America.

..;.Fighting terrorism for us in Iraq is a matter of life or death so we have no choice but to keep fighting until we kill or lock in jail every one of them and we’re doing this whether the world supported us or not but in case we failed, the consequences will not be confined by Iraq’s borders.

You (the west) can step back and wait for the terrorists to knock on your doors at any minute or you can put your s*** together and fight them while they’re thousands of miles away.”