Hat tip: ConservativePunk (gotta love that name!)
We Need American Troops – Iraqi President Talabani in the Wall Street Journal, Sept. 21, 2005
There is no more important international issue today than the need to defeat the curse of terrorism. And as the first democratically elected president of Iraq, I have a responsibility to ensure that the world’s youngest democracy survives the inherently difficult transition from totalitarianism to pluralism. A transformation of the Iraqi state and Iraqi society is impossible without a sustained commitment of soldiers from the United States and other democracies.
Without foreign intervention, the transition in Iraq would have been from Saddam’s bloodstained hands to his psychopathic offspring. Instead, thanks to American leadership, Iraqis have been given an opportunity of peaceful, participatory politics. Contrary to the new conventional wisdom, Iraq and the history of 20th-century Europe demonstrate that force of arms can implant democracy in the most arid soil.
To contain these tensions, and to defend our young democracy, requires the support of American and other troops. Foreign forces are needed to train and equip the new Iraqi armed forces and to give Iraq its own counterterrorism capability. Only the United States and its closest allies are able to provide such assistance.
Creating these Iraqi forces has not been easy, but Iraqis have been undaunted by the difficulties. Every terrorist attack on Iraqi forces leads to a surge in military recruitment–the opposite of the appeasers’ myth that resisting terrorism causes more terrorism.
American forces are in Iraq at the invitation of the democratically elected government of Iraq, and with the backing of a United Nations Security Council resolution. Your soldiers are in my country because of your commitment to democracy.
Americans should be proud of what its soldiers have achieved. The presence of foreign forces has prevented a renewed civil war in Iraq–renewed because there has already been a civil war in Iraq. For 35 years, Saddam and his Baath Party made war on the Iraqi people. The liberation of Iraq ended that civil war.
Without American forces, the vision of American leadership and the quiet fortitude of the American people, Iraqis would be almost alone in the world. With its allies, the United States has provided Iraqis with an unprecedented opportunity. Iraqis have responded by enthusiastically embracing democracy and volunteering to fight for their country. By giving us the tools, your troops help us to defend Iraqi democracy and to finish the job of uprooting Baathist fascism.
Elections matter…. I doubt there would have been a democratically-elected President of Iraq to write this piece if John Kerry had been elected President. He wanted the Jan. 30 election delayed, and US troops to be withdrawn.
Elections matter….
(Related story – Update from the Iraqi Theatre in the War on Terror from Michael Yon, a truly embedded blogger.
Funny, I haven’t heard about this on CBS News. All I know from the MSM is that there is a car bomb in Iraq on days that news coverage of Katrina gets slow. Now, why is that?? I guess it is because they are ‘stuck on stupid.’)
-Bruce (GayPatriot)