I Won't Back Down

Fire of Liberty

I wanted to show off the work of Jason Crosby, one of my good friends and a hell of an artist at that. Just go to his blog http://inkdoodles.blogspot.com/ to see more of his work. You've got to say that his visual interpretation of the venom that the folks in al Qaeda is spitting out as dogma is pretty accurate.

In fact, The New York Sun has a moving editorial today on pretty much the same thing and why we must be ever vigilant and successful in the battle of Iraq which is one of the many fronts in this "long hard slog," which is the Global War on Terrorism. Let's just look at a portion of the NY Sun's stirring editorial:

To the doubters that democratizing the Middle East will stem terrorism, we can only say that the strategy still has yet to be fully implemented. Indications from Britain — that one bombing suspect trained for two or three months in Saudi Arabia and that another called the kingdom shortly before his arrest — are that the violence there had ties to the unfree Saudi kingdom. Surely no one can deny the tens of millions of dollars that the Saudis pour into supporting extremist mosques in Europe and America.

To those who claim that the American troops in Iraq are the main focus of the insurgents' rage, one can only say that the terrorists attacked America on September 11, 2001, before we had any troops in Iraq. They will keep attacking us until we defeat them and the states that breed them or until we Westerners all surrender and convert to an extreme form of Islam.

It is a measure of our character as a nation that each American combat death is painful and significant. It's important to have some historical perspective, though. The number of Americans killed so far in Iraq — 1,815 —— is dwarfed by the 54,246 Americans killed in the Korean War, where Mr. Rangel won his Purple Heart and Bronze Star. Or by the 405,399 American troops killed in World War II, according to the History News Network. If the American troops in Iraq have prevented a single additional terrorist attack on America of the magnitude of September 11, 2001, they will have reduced the loss of American lives, on a net basis.

As a matter of tactics, we have been advocating since even before the war for having as much of the fighting as possible in Iraq done by free Iraqis. This has been a central element of the strategy advanced by Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. We have also been saying for years now that in order to win in Iraq, America is also going to have to address the situation in Iraq's neighbors, Syria and Saudi Arabia and Iran. That doesn't mean invading them, but it does mean backing and emboldening the forces of freedom in those countries to liberate themselves.

If some doubters seem to have lost sight of what we are fighting for,Americans can be grateful at least that President Bush has a clarity of purpose. He articulated this yesterday in an inspiring way, speaking of "the clash of ideologies —— freedom versus tyranny. We have had these kinds of clashes before, and we have prevailed. We have prevailed because we're right; we have prevailed because we adhere to a hopeful philosophy; and we have prevailed because we would not falter."

It's great to have a paper than can wrap up the feelings of millions of Americans and countless others in the world that endure this pox known as Islamic terrorism. As long as we're ever burning like Lady Liberty's torch than freedom will never fall to the wayside for the evil darkness and hate of al-Qaeda.