Why We Needed the War in Iraq
The War in Iraq accomplished many known purposes--ridding the world of an egregious dictator, stabilizing an unstable country, liberating millions of people, providing justice to the Kurds.
But for those who still refer to Iraq as a 'quagmire', seeing our troops surrounded by incoming terrorists from around the world is Bush's primary shortcoming. And these folks are right about one thing at least: stationing U.S. troops in Iraq did draw out international terrorists as medicine draws poision from a wound. Instead of these terrorists using their resources to target metropolitan civilian hotspots in the U.S. like Chicago and Seattle, we were able to temporarily divert these terrorists away from our continent and draw them into battle with the best of our military. Pretty ingenious, I think. And so agrees Ben Shapiro, with his latest article. Shapiro argues that Iraq wasn't a diversion for Bush; it was a diversion for Osama bin Laden.
Rather than rebuking the U.S. for initiating combat with terrorists, we would do well to admire the genius behind offensive diversion. Shapiro writes:
"Diversion through offensive action has long been a part of military strategy. During the Civil War, Robert E. Lee used such strategy, invading Maryland in 1862 and Pennsylvania in 1863 in order to divert Union troops from marching on Richmond, Va. As Lee himself wrote to Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, "As long as the army of the enemy are employed on this frontier I have no fears for the safety of Richmond, yet I earnestly recommend that advantage be taken of this period of comparative safety to place its defence, both by land and water, in the most perfect condition." President Bush makes exactly the same point when he says that America must fight terrorists where they live, instead of fighting them on our own soil."
I'm ignorant as to how many terrorist leaders we've exterminated already. It is a large number though. These dead bad guys would still be alive today and would most assuredly be plotting their next attack on the U.S. They were dumb enough to come to Iraq to fight our well-trained soldiers (granted, they don't "fight" like men, but instead "fight" like sissies, deploying bombs at check-points and enlisting the aid of suicide bombers). I'd say the U.S. needed the war in Iraq, wouldn't you?