Designating the battlefields is essential

By Frank Salvato

The progressive, anti-war left is making a great deal of noise about Iraq not being a legitimate battlefield in the war on Islamofascism. They do so despite the fact that there are indeed terrorists waging jihad against pro-Western and pro-democracy forces in that theater. With the very survival of Western Civilization hanging in the balance, it is time for all those who are blinded by the semantics of their ideologies to understand that in the war against Islamofascism the entire world is a battlefield.

Some of the weightier political consultants and spin doctors have formulated their thoughts on the issue of Iraq and have put them into play.

In Dick Morris's recent column he states that the GOP and President Bush should discontinue anymore discussion on Iraq and start hammering on the larger issues of the war on Islamofascism and national security. He states, "Bush doesn't need to reverse course on Iraq. He doesn't need to pull out the troops and send them home. He doesn't even need to set a timetable for withdrawal. But he does have to stop talking about Iraq..."

Meanwhile, progressive, anti-war demagogues seize on the bad news from Iraq, delivered daily by an agenda-driven media, like pong to feces in an effort to advance their pseudo-pacifist dogma. They call for "our troops to come home," while embracing Middle Eastern political leaders with connections to radical Islamist militias, South American dictators who actively call for the defeat of the United States everywhere on the world stage and allying with one of the biggest threats to our Constitutional Republic, the ACLU.

What many on both sides of the ideological spectrum fail to see – and it is astounding when one can refer to Dick Morris and Cindy Sheehan as being in the same group, anywhere, at any time – is that in the war against Islamofascism, it is better to dictate where the battlefields will be than to have their locations dictated to you.

To be fair to Mr. Morris, I am certain that he would agree that having control over the "where" and "when" of any conflict allows for an enormous advantage. It is a fair assumption, that his thoughts on eliminating the subject of Iraq from the president's lexicon center on the political aspect of the issue and how it will affect the upcoming elections here in the United States, rather than on military strategy. Conversely, and from every vantage point, this is not the case with the progressive, anti-war left.

It never ceases to amaze me that those who count themselves among the "progressive," anti-war left fail to recognize that if we were to lose this conflict – and there is a potential for that to become a reality – they would be greeted with the same intolerant, totalitarian oppression experienced by the least among those who existed under the Taliban, pre-September 11, 2001.

Gone would be their right to redress government, protest and assemble. Gone, too, would be their propensity to invoke "change" at will. The Quran would dictate how they would assemble and protesting against the state would result in a beheading. Cindy Sheehan, Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore and Alec Baldwin, along with the ACLU hierarchy, George Soros and Peter Lewis, would be silenced (which, although a pleasant idea, isn't a good thing) and the leaders of NOW and GLSEN would be executed while women around the country were outfitted for burqas.

Yet, in order to advance a political power-play, the progressive, anti-war left surrenders to their addiction to the pursuit of power much like a crack-whore lays down for any "customer" with a five-dollar bill.

It's pretty simple. Iraq is the central battlefield in the war against Islamofascism because we decided it was. We chose the place and we chose the time. We chose the mean streets of Iraq because they were being ruled by a thug regime that promoted the demise of the United States while facilitating terrorists and their organizations. We chose them over the streets of New York, Boston, Chicago or even San Francisco.

We chose to make Iraq the central battlefield in the war against Islamofascism in order to keep radical Islamist kidnappers, car-bombs and suicide bombers from wrecking havoc on the streets where we live. And, continuing in the American tradition of leaving countries better off once successful in our military missions, we will have liberated a nation, giving them the gift of freedom and the power to pursue their own futures free of the threat of genocide and state-sponsored middle-of-the-night assassinations.

Make no mistake, we did not start this war, it was declared against us in August of 1996 by Osama bin Laden. But we did reciprocate by accepting their challenge. God willing, we will summon, just as we did in World War II, enough national courage and vision to see this battle for survival through to victory.

We all need to remember, it is better to pick the fields on which to wage battle than to wake-up with a sword at your throat. That's why, to anyone with any common sense and vision, Iraq is the central battlefield in the war against Islamofascism.

Frank Salvato is the managing editor for The New Media Journal. He serves at the Executive Director of the Basics Project, a non-profit, non-partisan, 501(C)(3) research and education initiative. His pieces are regularly featured in over 100 publications both nationally and internationally. He has appeared on The O'Reilly Factor, and is a regular guest on The Right Balance with Greg Allen on the Accent Radio Network, as well as an occasional guest on numerous radio shows coast to coast. He recently partnered in producing the first-ever symposium on the threat of radical Islamist terrorism in Washington, DC. His pieces have been recognized by the House International Relations Committee and the Japan Center for Conflict. He can be contacted at oped@newmediajournal.us. Copyright © 2006 Frank Salvato