Not Even a Contest by Russ Vaughn

Not Even a Contest

I’m a soldier; haven’t been in uniform in forty years but the six years of active duty I did serve and the ensuing thirty-plus years I’ve spent working with the U.S. military, instilled in me certain qualities and beliefs that have grown and persisted within me all these decades and provide me with the basis for my stance on the war on terror. I may now be only an armchair warrior, but I’m still a soldier. As such, I understand the value of a rapid counterattack when your enemy has struck and badly hurt you. I say this as a brief, prefatory explanation of why I believe the Bush Administration has done the right thing in carrying the war on terror into the heart of terrorism itself. Yes, I know there are legions of liberals, so blinded by their certainty that the Supreme Court cheated Al Gore out of the presidency that they actually profess to believe that there were no ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq. To them I would say consider this: Syria had ties to Al Qaeda; Jordan had ties to Al Qaeda; Egypt had ties to Al Qaeda; Yemen had ties to Al Qaeda; Somalia had ties to Al Qaeda; Saudi Arabia had ties to Al Qaeda; the various Gulf monarchies had ties to Al Qaeda; Iran had ties to Al Qaeda; Pakistan had ties to Al Qaeda; Indonesia, the Philippines, North Korea and several of the former Soviet satellites under Muslim rule had ties to Al Qaeda.

But not Iraq.

That’s right, according to Democrat politicians and the liberal Left in America and Europe, only one country in the Middle East, Iraq, a country under the iron-fisted control of an absolute dictator who had reason to hate the American government far more bitterly than any of the leaders of the above nations, and yep, sitting smack dab in the middle of all these other terrorist harboring countries, only America-hating Iraq, was lily white clean according to liberal Democrats when it came to affiliation with Al Qaeda.

Excuse me folks, but Old Sarge’s bullshit detector is going off like a Geiger counter at ground zero in Chernobyl.

Now, of all the countries listed above, one of you Democrats, real quick, tell me which of them is absolutely known to have used weapons of mass destruction against a foreign enemy and dissident elements within its own borders. Hmmm, only one? Really? Only Iraq? Imagine that…chemical weapons used in conjunction with modern weapons delivery systems against Iranian forces and rebellious Kurds? Trust me folks, Old Sarge’s specialty in the Army was chemical, biological and radiological warfare and he knows quite well that the use of lethal, disabling and disfiguring gases in bombs, rockets and artillery warheads constitutes the use of weapons of mass destruction under the rules of land warfare. Never mind that Saddam Hussein blew the world a huge raspberry as he was gassing his enemies without and within. Nah…this guy didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction. Ask any Bush-hating Democrat.

So, contrary to all these liberals, whose only chance of seeing the light is when some proctologist’s probing proctoscope finally manages to locate their deeply-embedded eyes, this old grunt sees the value in hitting our enemies smack-dab in the middle of the threat; and that central target, folks, in this war on terror, just happened to be Iraq. And yes, Iraq has become a killing field, but far more so for radical Jihadists than for America and her allies. Potential bombers of Western cities flock like flies to the flypaper of a martyr’s death, not in New York or London, but on the killing field we have created for them. Remember one thing very well, Senators Reid, Durbin and Schumer: every single jihadist who dies in Iraq will never have the opportunity to die in one of our cities taking hundreds if not thousands of your potential voters with him.

And for all you armchair, liberal strategists who continue to throw up that canard that our military efforts should be entirely focused on capturing or killing the Al Qaeda leadership, Osama bin Laden and Zayman Al Zawahiri, in Afghanistan and Pakistan; may I inquire as to where you obtained your advanced degrees in military science? Madam Chair, would perhaps that have been at Berkeley’s famed War College? We know Congressman Murtha obtained his multiple military degrees from a rural Pennsylvania diploma mill, established and funded entirely by earmarks in federal legislation, but that’s a topic for another essay.

So, a simple question: did George Washington seek to capture King George? Did Abraham Lincoln focus all his military strategies on the capture or elimination of Jefferson Davis? In WWI, if we were hell-bent on capturing the Kaiser, why did we spend so many months in the hellish, intransigence of those trenches? Why on earth did MacArthur spend all that time and those American boys’ lives to move systematically up the Pacific archipelago in WWII if all we had to do was focus on capturing Emperor Hirohito? Would modern-day Democrat strategists label Eisenhower a fool and a loser for moving indirectly through Africa, Italy and the soft underbelly of Europe, Southern France, when all he had to do was attack Berlin directly and put Hitler in chains?

The truth is, all you Democrat military geniuses, is that none of those enemy leaders was captured until the fighting was over and the respective war was won; truth is, most of them never suffered any ill effects other than the ignominy of losing. Hell, if we did capture Osama, you liberal turkeys would be clamoring for the Bush administration to give him a fair and speedy trial, afforded all the rights of a U.S. citizen, and the ACLU would be appealing his conviction long beyond his natural death.

So what does this show America about its Democrat leadership? Well, it shows this old combat infantryman that you liberal wienies don’t know jack about fighting wars. It’s a far cry from forging voters’ registration certificates, stuffing ballot boxes and buying minority votes to standing solid under fire and defeating a lethal enemy on the battlefield. But since so very few of you have ever even worn the uniform, much less served in combat, you wouldn’t have any way of knowing that would you, ladies? I’ll make a wager right now: the average, enlisted, American military volunteer has more courage, integrity and patriotism than the U.S. congressman who supposedly represents him.

Hell, forget the bet; that’s not even a contest.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66