[rrpjr]

History has a longer view than yours, and to not even concede that history may have a different view in the unfolding of what no one can deny will be the great struggle of this century -- that between Western civilization and radical Islamicism -- seriously undermines your screed, or rather underlines that it is nothing more than a screed. For we are at the dawn of an epic war. If you think we can avoid that war you are, in my view, mistaken.

I believe we would have been at war in Iraq in the next administration anyway, by force not by choice, by their choosing and not ours, and under far less favorable circumstances than those brought about by our initiation of that inevitable war. As bad as things may look now, how would they have looked when the Iran satraps and the feverish locust waves of Islam swept in to fill the power vacuum left by Saddam Hussein.

Tens of millions of people are free in Afghanistan and an effective protectorate of terror camps has been obliterated. As you say, Afghanistan was necessary. If there are warlords and poppy fields, then there are. So be it. The world is a messy place. But such periods of unease are necessary, or rather unavoidable, in the longer struggle toward human freedom. So you would exchange the warlords and poppies and the freedom, including those for millions of women now being educated and voting, for what was? Again, this struggle is ours one way or another.

Saddam was not a threat? Too many threads have thrashed this question to a pulp. I can add nothing but my restated belief that in many ways he was, and that above all it was necessary to establish that he was not. In any case he was an international criminal censored and blockaded and sanctioned and his continued violations and floutings of law demanded an international response, a removal from power.

Terrorists are congregating in Iraq. Does this mean that without Iraq they would have simply disappeared? Or is the congregation, the pooling of targets for us to kill, somehow worse than having them scattered? If you believe that our actions actually recruited terrorists, or that terrorists would not otherwise be interested and motivated to kill us without Iraq, I cannot agree. Again, I believe it is a terribly short-sighted view that demonstrate either an intentional disregard or indifference to the reality of Islamicism. September 11 came about out of a clear blue sky. There was no provocation for that. Our provocation is not the cause of this war, this epic struggle.

I cannot remark on Ashcroft as “lame and delusional.” This sounds a bit lurid to me. And I have yet to hear a detailed analysis on the Patriot Act and how and why it has injured the privacy rights of the average American. The most notable feature of it was to eliminate the firewall between the FBI and CIA, which had been buttressed by Clinton’s wildly incompetent justice official Jamie Gorelick. As for Ashcroft, was he better or worse than Webster Hubbell? You tell me.

The rest of the litany of personal attacks don’t mean much to me. I can’t comment. Maybe you are correct.

As for the economy, George Bush inherited a recession and promptly faced a near-economic disaster on September 11. But the economy recovered and has largely grown and, with some fits and starts, done quite well. After incessant cries by the media of lost jobs even when this was not true, when it was simply the lone statistical relative "loss" among all the rising economic statistics, the material gain in jobs in the past year has put to rout this liberal cry, at least to those who retain some sense of shame. Recent readings of the leading economic indicators show that more than not have gained and are in better shape than under Bill Clinton’s best years. The inflation rate, interest rates, stock market, employment rate – the principal measure soft economic health – are rather robust. To call the economy a “disaster” is simply false. Bush would have certainly lost the election in November if most Americans felt this to be the case, especially as he carried the burden of a war many think is not going as well as planned. If we accept your premise that the economy is a “disaster”, then there is really no way to explain the loss by John Kerry except in the starkest terms of liberal intellectuial and moral bankruptcy. They had so little to offer the American people that the people chose instead a “disaster.” Now that is something.

But again, time will tell.

Cheers.