From the NRO Corner: (4/27/06)

"Vox Populi   [Cliff May]

Some interesting polling results in recent days. For example:

• According to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll, 61% of Americans oppose “denying the funding needed to send any additional U.S. troops to Iraq,” and opposition is up from 58% in February. (3/23-25, 2007).

• A Bloomberg poll reveals 61% of Americans believe withholding funding for the war is a bad idea, while only 28% believe it is a good idea (3/3-11, 2007).

• A recent Public Opinion Strategies (POS) poll found that 56% of registered voters favor fully funding the war in Iraq, with more voters strongly favoring funding (40%) than totally opposing it (38%); (3/25-27, 2007).

• POS found also that a majority of voters (54%) oppose the Democrats imposing a reduction in troops below the level military commanders requested (3/25-27, 2007).

• A separate POS poll finds 57% of voters support staying in Iraq until the job is finished and “the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security for its people.” And 59% of voters say pulling out of Iraq immediately would do more to harm America’s reputation in the world than staying until order is restored (35%); (2/5-7, 2007).

• A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll show 69% of American voters trust military commanders more than members of Congress (18%) to decide when United States troops should leave Iraq. This includes 52% of Democrats, 69% of Independents and 88% of Republicans (3/27-28, 2007).

• According to a recent Pew Research survey, only 17% of Americans want an immediate withdrawal of troops (4/18-22, 2007). That same poll found a plurality of adults (45%) believe a terrorist attack against the United States is more likely if we withdraw our troops from Iraq while the “country remains unstable”

• Should a date for withdrawal be set, 70% of American believe it is likely that “insurgents will increase their attacks in Iraq” starting on that day. This is supported by 85% of Republicans, 71% of Independents and 60% of Democrats. (FOX News/Opinion Dynamics, 4/17-18, 2007).

• An LA Times/Bloomberg polls reveals that 50% of Americans say setting a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq “hurts” the troops, while only 27% believe it “helps” the troops (4/5-9, 2007)."

The Phony "Civil War" in Iraq   [Michael Novak]

Two false assertions are being made these days about the Sunnis and the Shiites in Iraq.  The first is that they have been fighting one another for ages. The second is that they are currently waging civil war upon one another.

Shiites and Sunnis have lived in rather remarkable proximity in many cities of Iraq, with not a few intermarriages, and for many generations. They have often boasted of being Iraqis first, before being Sunnis and Shiites.

The most influential Shiite Imam, Ayatollah Sistani, has been amazing for his peacekeeping and calming effect, urging the Shiites not to seek revenge and, instead, to turn to democracy and peaceful ways, rather than futile combat. In fact, Imam Sistani has been so successful at this preaching that, in desperation, al Qaeda dramatically changed strategy during 2005. They viciously destroyed the old, revered, beautiful “golden dome” of the mosque in Samarra. They stepped up their campaign to terrorize other Shiite mosques and the worshipers attending them.

Al Qaeda members are virtually all Sunnis, from foreign countries, and they care not a whit either for Iraqi Shiites or Iraqi Sunnis.  Their strategy for 2006 was to commit horrible atrocities against Iraqi Shiites, so that the hotheads among them would unleash death squads against the Sunnis in retaliation.  Then the Sunnis would retaliate against the Shiites. This was not real civil war. It was a contrived and phony ploy to bait each side into fighting the other, while the foreigners waited to pick up the spoils.

One has to remember that the foreigners who make up both al Qaeda and nearly all the (self-immolating) bombers are motivated by politics, not by faith in Islam. They have no hesitation about bombing mosques, murdering imams, or destroying hundreds of worshipers. They regard anyone who does not join their war of terror, even if they are Muslims, as infidels worthy of death.  They will use any means necessary to keep their toehold in Iraq and to work to eventually take over Iraq for their own political purposes.

This is not civil war in Iraq; it is a limited, strategic, and tactical ploy whereby foreigners try desperately to inflame Iraqis against one another. The aim of these foreigners is to bring about such a cataclysm of murder and insecurity and fear that their tiny, tiny minority can then capture total power — just as the small minority of Bolsheviks did in the early rise of the Soviet Empire; just as the tiny bands of ruthless black shirts and brown shirts under Mussolini and Hitler spread social paralysis to launch the rise of Fascism. Mayhem requires only a ruthless few.

Those who falsely call this a “civil war” in Iraq are conferring on al Qaeda a success that al Qaeda has not been able to bring about itself. They are puffing up a phony, contrived civil war far beyond the bounds of reality.

04/27 09:21 AM

If Mr. Novak is correct, then an awful lot of people in Washington are wrong.  I am with Mr. Novak.

From The American Thinker

A significant date in the war on terror

I fully agree

And Churchill’s advice:

“If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

Copied from Austin Bay