November 4, 2004

A post from Austin Bay

Austin Bay, a Colonel in the Army Reserve, has a post on StrategyPage.com on the election. Bay’s writings are always worth reading.

The re-election of George W. Bush bodes well for peace in 2020. A John Kerry victory would have cost us an additional two years of blood, toil, sweat, and tears -—the two years it would take the Kerry Administration to discover that the Bush Administration’s strategy in the War on Terror is the right one.

[…]

In the first column I wrote after returning from Iraq, I said: “If there is one mistake I think we’ve made in fighting this war, it’s been the way we’ve soft-pedaled the ideological dimensions. This really is a fight for the future, between our free, open political system and the unholy alliance of despots and Islamo-fascists whose very existence depends on denying liberty. “

The Afghan people made the case that this is a war the pits liberty against tyranny as they dodged mortar rounds while waiting in line to vote in last month’s Afghan presidential election. Unfortunately, the US and European media largely ignored that demonstration of mass courage.

[…]

Liberty (the right to responsibly pursue happiness) is the creative source of American wealth and power. For all but a handful of American citizens, the "futures" presented by the planet's Osama Bin Ladens pale utterly when compared with the opportunity to pursue "the American Dream." Certainly, examples of American excess and silliness abound, but examples of American success and largesse are even more abundant. Extending political and economic opportunity into the world's hard corners, by curbing the power of corrupt autocracies, are the strategic goals of America's War on Terror.

Posted by Ted at November 4, 2004 8:37 PM