IRAQ AS FLYPAPER

David Warren seconds my interpretation of president Bush’s “bring them on” taunt:

While engaged in the very difficult business of building a democracy in Iraq — the first democracy, should it succeed, in the entire history of the Arabs — President Bush has also, quite consciously to my information, created a new playground for the enemy, away from Israel, and even farther away from the United States itself. By the very act of proving this lower ground, he drains terrorist resources from other swamps.

This is the meaning of Mr. Bush’s “bring ’em on” taunt from the Roosevelt Room on Wednesday, when he was quizzed about the “growing threat to U.S. forces” on the ground in Iraq. It should have been obvious that no U.S. President actually relishes having his soldiers take casualties. What the media, and U.S. Democrats affect not to grasp, is that the soldiers are now replacing targets that otherwise would be provided by defenceless civilians, both in Iraq and at large. The sore thumb of the U.S. occupation — and it is a sore thumb equally to Baathists and Islamists, compelling their response — is not a mistake. It is carefully hung flypaper.

Is this unconscionable? Yes, if we’re not fighting a real war with real and dangerous enemies. No, if we mean to win. Under this president, we mean to win. To my mind, that’s the surpassing political truth of the current administration and the standard by which any Democrat must be judged.

SUPPORT JULY 9: Oxblog has a guide to rallies in support of Iranian democracy around the country and the world. Do what you can.

LOVED TO LOVE YOU, BABY: The best sex music ever. Then the best Gen-X “sex music” ever. A meeting with the late, great Barry White.