Saddam Hussein, Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, Ayad Allawi.
These are your choices. Who do you want to be the
leader of Iraq?
The slick-mustachioed dictator with his mass graves? The
cunning terrorist bent on holding the Guinness record for beheadings? Or the rumpled,
avuncular Prime Minister courageously facing day-by-day danger to bring democracy
to his country?
These are your choices.
And John Kerry's choices,
too. Among many other things, John Kerry has said the Iraq war was the "wrong
war in the wrong place at the wrong time." There is no possible way to interpret
that statement than the way President Bush has: if John Kerry had been President
these past two years, Saddam Hussein would still be in power.
And Allawi,
therefore, would not. But thanks to President Bush and the sacrifices of American
troops and taxpayers, Saddam is out and Allawi is in. The evil Zarqawi has vowed
to change that, to deliver Iraq and its 25 million people to the merciless governance
of al-Qaeda, and make it the capital of world terrorism so it can behead Western
Civilization en masse, as it does to innocent people in Iraq and, with striking
and appalling visual similarity, as it did to the World Trade Center on September
11, 2001.
Only the success of Allawi and his plan for democracy can prevent
this outcome. For an American to do anything that diminishes Allawi's chances
for success is despicable.
Allawi knows how greatly his chances depend on
America and its allies. So he has come here, to offer us his thanks and his encouragement.
There should be an outpouring of support for him as he visits our shores. We should
give the man a ticker- tape parade. Schoolchildren should be encouraged to draw
pictures illustrating our support for his efforts. The flag of free Iraq should
greet him from store windows and lampposts wherever he goes.
He came to
thank us, to encourage us. We need to thank him, and encourage him. This man,
a 59-year old neurologist, has reported for duty when his country, and ours, needed
him.
John Kerry does not see it that way. John Kerry is so cynical that
he will distort Allawi's words and attack him verbally, even as he is our guest.
"I think the prime minister is obviously contradicting his own statement of a
few days ago, where he said the terrorists are pouring into the country," Kerry
sneered in reaction to Allawi's encouraging words before a joint session of Congress.
Shameful, shameful. The comments from which Kerry cynically clipped his reference
was this: "Foreign terrorists are still pouring in, and they're trying to inflict
damage on Iraq to undermine Iraq and to undermine the process, democratic process
in Iraq, and, indeed, this is their last stand. So they are putting a very severe
fight on Iraq. We are winning. We will continue to win. We are going to prevail."
I've
tried, and I can't think of a more unethical use of an out of context quote, not
even the one Kerry and his cronies tried to pull on Cheney a couple of weeks ago,
when keening in their girly-man fashion, they accused Cheney of saying that a
Kerry election would increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack on the U.S.
That's
not what Cheney said, but I'll tell you something: by his inexcusable dissing
of Allawi, Kerry has decreased the likelihood of Allawi's success, and that would
most assuredly increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack on the U.S.
Imagine
if Wendell Willkie had said those things about Churchill in 1940.
The old
bromide that politics stops at the water's edge has never really been true. Robust
discussions of foreign policy are not forbidden by our political code of ethics,
nor should they be.
But the contumelious slander of a heroic and valued
ally like Allawi is unprecedented for a candidate in wartime.
Kerry would
have us believe this brave man is a vacuous puppet and a flip- flopper. By his
slander, he has insulted the people of Iraq, not to mention the troops of the
international coalition who are putting their lives on the line for the Allawi
government's plan for elections in January.
Such talk was not justified
with regard to Nguyen Van Thieu in 1971, but at least then Kerry had the excuse
of being young and inexperienced. In all likelihood, he was even sincere. He probably
actually believed Vietnam would be better off under the rule of the communists.
By
his disgraceful attack on the great hope of Baghdad, Kerry begs a parallel question,
33 years later: You've got three choices: who do you want to be the leader of
Iraq?
Veteran GOP media consultant Jay Bryant's regular columns are available
at www.theoptimate.com, and his
commentaries may be heard on NPR's 'All Things Considered.'
©2004 Jay Bryant
