From today’s paper tomorrow (It’s still Tuesday in Alaska):
Whatever the merits of the charge that Iraq is a “distraction” from the war on terror, the reality is that arguments about Bush are a larger distraction from the war on terror. For much of the past five years, Democrats not in the Joe Lieberman wing of the party — which is to say the Democratic Party, minus one — have repeatedly pointed to Osama bin Laden’s ability to elude capture (as opposed to, say, his inability to once again murder thousands on American soil) as proof that Bush’s anti-terror efforts have been a failure. It would surely be nice to see bin Laden’s head on a pike, but this is childishly partisan.
When U.S. forces killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, bin Laden’s “prince” in Iraq, Democrats presented Zarqawi’s demise as good but trivial news. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla. — who might (shudder) take over the House Intelligence Committee should the GOP lose the Congress — explained, “It won’t stop the insurgency. I have found if you liken it to the drug lords, for example, as soon as you imprison one, kill one, another takes his place.”
Why shouldn’t this same logic apply to bin Laden and the global Islamic insurgency? Does anyone believe that this polyglot army of jihadist murderers will disband and become TV repairmen the moment bin Laden is dead? This is as naive as believing that U.S. withdrawal from Iraq wouldn’t be scored as another jihadist victory. Not only have Hezbollah, Hamas and the rest of the League of Extraordinary Murderers never taken marching orders from bin Laden, but like all jihadist groups they always view such withdrawals as an invitation to even more brazen terrorism.