Hitting Softballs

A friend took issue with Prez Bush's words in Jerusalem yesterday, specifically this part where he spoke about democracy spreading throughout the Middle East.

From Cairo and Riyadh to Baghdad and Beirut, people will live in free and independent societies, where a desire for peace is reinforced by ties of diplomacy, tourism and trade. Iran and Syria will be peaceful nations, where today's oppression is a distant memory and people are free to speak their minds and develop their talents. And al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas will be defeated, as Muslims across the region recognize the emptiness of the terrorists' vision and the injustice of their cause.

He put his concerns into an e-mail last night, and I didn't get a chance to answer him today, so ...

You often tell me, "it isn't so, just because you say it's so..."

This sage advice [Suck up! (I love it.)] can be directly applied to today's comments, and in fact, his entire policy for the region.

"We'll be welcomed as liberators..."

As it happens, we were welcomed as liberators. But that was before Iraq turned John Kerry on us and didn't welcome us as liberators after they welcomed us as liberators. Let me count the countries where people pray that some day they will be welcoming us as liberators ...

"Mission accomplished."

Granted, not a perfect PR moment, but it's been exploited by the Lying Left. They know the mission that was referenced was the toppling of Saddam's brutal, repressive, murdering rein, a mission that had, in fact, had been accomplished.

"Saddam Hussein is proliferating WMDs..."

I'm amazed that as bright my friend is, he still repeats these easily rebuttable lies. He must know that our intelligence matched up against Germany's and England's and Russia's. He must know that his own beloved Bill Clinton thought Saddam had WMDs. He must know that Saddam was squirreling away money he stole from Oil-for-Food, intending to spend it on WMDs the first moment he could. And he must know that Saddam frustrated UN weapons inspectors at every turn, increasing the rationality of the "Saddam has WMDs" position.

And on, and on, and on...

Bottom line, it is not even close to so, yet he continues to say it is
so.

So because democracy hasn't spread throughout the Middle East in five short years, we're supposed to give up on the entire concept and leave that entire huge part of the world continue in its totalitarian, Islamo-theocratic dungeon? And leave the future of the world to the jihadists?

We have two alternatives: Hide behind our borders, something al-Qaeda taught us we cannot do, or continue to try to bring liberation and freedom to the oppressed people on our planet. I'll choose the latter.