I did not get to see the speech, but I still have something to say (of course). As I have mentioned in other posts I am attending meetings in CA and they go all day. So I can have a bit of bleary-eyed time in the mornings to catch up and blog. This is an important subject so it will dominate my posting time today.

The Washington Times addresses the democrats lame response and this political posturing cannot go unanswered. But I would like to share some personal background on why the democrats are so wrong.

Now I did not need to see all the speech to be with Bush because I was with him October 2001. I worked for a UK company at the time and we were having our quarterly manager’s meeting in Germany that month. This was shortly after the flight ban had been lifted and 9-11 hit very, very close to home – literally. I live 10 minutes from Dulles International airport, where two of the planes which were hijacked departed from. I was suppose to be driving right by the Pentagon when the plane hit there, but had delayed my trip to Alexandria due to a last minute issue I had to deal with. While I did not know anyone who died or was injured personally, my family and neighbors did.

So here I am departing to Germany from an airport which had two hijacked planes taken over by these terrorists. When I walked into the international terminal it was empty – and this is in the evening when most flights leave for Europe. And I mean empty. The only people there were business people like me, who where concerned but also were not going to let the terrorists beat me into cowering from life. As I flew that night on that flight we were all very nervous and on edge. A flight where you need to get some sleep so you can be semi-functional when you arrive the next morning and go to work, no one slept.

One evening with my co-workers from all over Europe I was asked (as the token American employee) what I thought would happen in response to 9-11. It was a no brainer. I said we were at war and had to do something to clean up the ME. We couldn’t sit around and wait for these violent zealots to regroup and attack us again. Our society is too open to defend, so offense was the only real defense. I predicted, accurately, we would spend our Social Security surplus, which at that time was buying back treasury bills from rich investors (i.e., paying down the debt) to fund bold changes in the ME. I knew Iraq and Iran and Syria and Libya all had to be turned away from their current path.

The Taliban in Afghanistan were an obvious problem, but that broken country was nothing compared to these other countries in terms of money, technology and military prowess. It was clear that, if we as a people wanted to fly again, be alive again, be free again, we needed to forget about the policies of faux stability and change the face and path of the ME societies.

Undoubtably this is STRATEGIC thinking on a global scale which marginalizes political considerations. It says we are going to be fighting everyone’s complacency and denial (and paying the political price that you always pay when you abruptly change course) to make this bold move – because the options were too sad to contemplate.

Here are the democrats’ ridiculous and self centered, partisan comments on Bush’s speech

Congressional Democrats said President Bush’s repeated attempts last night to link the war in Iraq to the September 11 terrorist attacks rang hollow and did not constitute the plan to win the war that they said Mr. Bush needed to deliver.

“They only served to remind the American people that our most dangerous enemy, namely Osama bin Laden, is still on the loose and al Qaeda remains capable of doing this nation great harm nearly four years after it attacked America,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat.

Democrats cannot claim Iraq was not part of a region-wide strategy to battle the source, and potential sources, of terrorism. It’s just a silly form of denial. They can claim they do not and did not feel the need to think regionally, but they cannot claim this is not a regional strategy. Osama Bin Laden is not the only person capable of fomenting violence against America. As this post discusses, Bin Laden is more figure head than strategist.

What democrats want, is for us to continue to fly in fear as we did back in the fall of 2001 and be at risk here. I will not go back there and I will not leave that kind of world for my kids to inherit.

Dems do not want that outright, but that would be the result of their whimpy policies. They say Bin Laden is still on the loose, well he could be in Iran or Syria – we have not been able to transform these two bastions of terrorist support onto a new path like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Lebanon. But their solutions would have stopped at Afghanistan!

The Iraqi ties to violence, WMD technology and terrorists under Saddam is clear. The potential outcome of these characteristics was only in doubt about when we would face these animals and what level of military weapon systems they would have. The later the confrontation the better armed they would be. And WMD technology is more than sufficient to be a risk. Look at the nuclear arms black market ring broken up in Pakistan. To distort a famous Christian saying: give a terrorist a WMD and he can kill a few thousand people, teach a terrorist how to build a WMD he can millions of people over a lifetime.

So what we need to ask ourselves is why the liberal democrats are opposing a bold, regional policy in the ME which relies on the goodness of human kind to turn from violence when they have the option to live a good life and have a say in their society?

Unfortunately for the democrats there are only two pathetic possibilities. The first possibility is the liberal elite are so naive and ignorant of the thirst for violence that drives these people, that they believe the fantasy that some well honed, diplomatic words will divert these people and their supporters from violence. The other possibility is they are aware of the risks but their thirst to return to political power, to bang the committee gavels, has overwhelmed them to the point they would risk attacks to gain that power.

My word to the democrats is this. You lost the debate on this subject and the policy was backed by the people and cemented in congressional resolutions. You really need to move on now, move on.

For other views and roundups on this check out Ed Morrissey which has a comprehensive listing of the various liberal MSM editorial responses – which all say the same thing and are as wrong as the comments I addressed here.

Michelle Malkin catches the so called news houses issuing the news-itorials before the speech is even given.

Mark Coffey at Decision ’08 highlights (or emphasizes) how far off track the party of ‘no’ is: they simply can’t wait any longer to surrender in shame.

Hugh Hewitt sees it as I do. He just says it better.

UPDATE:

Jeff at The Bernoulli Effect linked back in his post to a stunningly crass statement by a hollywood star whose love of life has obviously been extinguished. Is this where the liberals want us to go? Where 9-11’s are just nothing? Thanks Jeff for the link.