When the G-8 Summit is held this June at Sea Island, Georgia, the President will not be presenting the Greater Middle East Initiative that he should be, which explicitly advocates democratic, financial, and cultural changes; instead, he'll be obligated to merely pass out some platitudes about his approval of reforms in that depressed and devastated region.
The reason being is that the leaders of the Arab world, who have either taken their power at the point of a gun or by the divine right of kings or both, do not want to be perceived by their oppressed masses as taking orders from the Great Satan. Thus, George W. Bush will have to play along if he wants to keep these dictatorial regimes placated.
It's understandable that these Arab countries don't want to be seen sitting bitch, but that's what it's going to come to, whether or not they wish to acknowledge it. It is their regressive and oppressive societies that have given rise to these suicidal and homicidal death-cults. There is something terribly wrong with their cultures that keeps the moderating influence of a healthy secularism at bay.
But, for the positive good of democratic government and free markets and basic civil liberties to take root in the greater Middle East, the potential (and, finally, the reality) of American power to effect that development must be made palpable. Nothing gets done without us. Nothing. Nothing the goddamned UN or NATO or any other of our alliances does means anything unless we bring the sound and the fury.
This is why Bush the Younger's place in History is assured: he and his Administration have torn the old world apart ---and the force of events will reconstitute the pieces. The process will not always go smoothly, but it will go, and in such a way that will prove to be a benefit to all who love liberty.
I find the resistance and criticisms of the anti-war Left absolutely incomprehensible. Do these ostriches not know that every great civilization must fight for its freedoms? Haven't the great democracies shown what must be sacrificed in the short-term for the benefit of our future welfare? What difference does it make what immediate causes and pretexts of war are used when the ultimate goal is the liberation of men and women everywhere? Do human and civil rights belong only to certain societies and not others?
The most dishonorable thing a Democratic voter can do is vote against Bush because of how he's conducted the war against Islamofascism. I will respect the votes of those Democrats who, like myself, disagree with the President and the Republicans about cutting taxes on the super-wealthy and granting amnesty to illegal aliens for the sake of cheap labor and proposing to make gay marriage unConstitutional and intimidating the broadcasters and any number of other things. But, this war? No way. The war against the Mohammedan menace is right.