Running from al Qaeda

Robert Cox:

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According to recent Department of Defense and CIA estimates, al Qaeda now has between 5,000 and 20,000 fighters operating in Iraq. Al Qaeda itself claims to have as many as 12,000 fighters in Iraq, but do we really want to take Osama bin Laden’s word for anything? While no one in this country knows for sure just how many jihadists are in Iraq, it seems reasonable to believe that there are thousands of them — making Iraq home to the single largest concentration of al Qaeda members in the world.

In a tape released last fall shortly after the U.S. mid-term elections, a man who identified himself as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir said, “The al Qaeda army has 12,000 fighters in Iraq, and they have vowed to die for God’s sake.” He also said there were another 10,000 unequipped fighters ready to join them.

So it would seem that however it may have happened, the people who were responsible for Sept. 11 have now massed their forces in Iraq. All of which raises a question: If the U.S. were to withdraw all of its forces from the Middle East tomorrow and were to suddenly learn that al Qaeda had assembled 10,000 to 20,000 armed jihadists in Madagascar, Paraguay or Antarctica, what would most Americans expect President Bush to do about it?

I would like to propose that polling organizations consider adding a few new questions to their next survey, such as:

» Would you support the United States going to war in a country that was found to be a base of operations for many thousands of al Qaeda members?

» If the United States were engaged in armed conflict with al Qaeda fighters in a particular country, would you support withdrawing U.S. troops before the jihadists had been defeated and driven out of that country?

» Which country has the largest number of al Qaeda fighters in the world? Should the United States be engaged militarily in that country?

While no American wants to see U.S. troops put in harm’s way, it seems unlikely that a majority of Americans would support exiting Iraq if they fully understood how large a presence al Qaeda now has there, how that compares with its presence elsewhere in the world, and just how much manpower and resources our enemy has put into Iraq.

To my friends on the anti-war left, I ask simply this: If we are not going to fight al Qaeda in Iraq when we know it is there, then where and when do they propose we should fight it?

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The left is made up of cowards who will run and hide from the truth if it is put before them. Just look at Harry Reid in the post below. It is not surprising that they are relying on this fantasy that if we leave Iraq al Qaeda will not have any reason to stay. Does that make any sense what so ever? Why not take al Qaeda at its word that it wants to set up a new caliphate in Iraq and use it as a base to take over the rest of the Muslim world before marching on the rest of us. The left's fantasy is going to cause more people in Iraq and this country to be killed when additional effort now would avoid that consequence. The left should not be trusted on these issues and those who are buying into their nonsense now will deem themselves lucky to survive the consequences when al Qaeda attacks next time in this country. Hat tip Larwyn.