20060531
    The recent and growing furor over the past several days regarding the investigation into whether a group of Marines may have killed civilians in Haditha, Iraq once again illustrates the cruel, unforgiving reality of modern war.
    On one hand, a liberally biased Mainstream Media assumes the worst, accusing these Marines of war crimes before an investigation is even complete, which investigation can at best recommend a trial be held, which of course means that guilt has yet to be established. On the other hand, most Americans, especially the Liberal Left and the Mainstream Media, cannot imagine and refuse to acknowledge the conditions in the parts of Iraq, like al-Anbar Province where Haditha resides, in spite of the direct evidence of reality of the situation on the ground.
    Both of these facts belie the nature of war, which is simply that people die because those fighting the war have killed them. Sometimes those killed are civilians. Sometimes those deaths are under less that ideal circumstances, and just rarely in the history of the US Military are those deaths criminal. There is no doubt that sometimes even US Forces cross that fragile line between waging lawful war and committing acts of inhumanity, but never has that line been defined in the media or in the court of public opinion.
    In fact, the Mainstream Media and the American people should be giving these Marines the benefit of the doubt. Consider that this same al-Anbar Province, home to Haditha, is also one of the likely hiding places of Abu Masab al-Zarqawi, leader of one of the most inhumane and brutal groups of terrorists ever to exist in modern history. Consider that these Marines daily encounter IEDs, snipers, and all sorts of other terrorism directed at the very people who are in the region to help put an end to the terror of Saddam Hussein and Islamic fundamentalist terrorists whose murders number in the millions.
    The truth is that this furor, led by the Liberal Leftist mouthpiece Jack Murtha and championed by the Mainstream Media, is designed to distract the American people from the fact that the US is succeeding in Iraq and, more importantly, to give more fuel to the already blazing fire of hatred that burns at the hear of Islamic fundamentalism.
    The truth is that the Liberal Left and its conspirators of the Mainstream Media want the US to fail in Iraq, for whatever inconceivable reasons they might have for such a position, and they are willing to sacrifice the credibility, the integrity, and the lives of the very men and women who defend their right to hold such a position in order to achieve their goal.
    And then what? Whether these Marines are guilty or not, whether a crime has occurred or this is just another example of the inescapable tragedy of war, what will the Liberal Left and the Mainstream Media do if the US does fail in Iraq? What will they do with the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists still waging unending war against the West, with rouge nations still building nuclear weapons, and with a nation and a world no safer or freer because of such a failure?
    Within the answer to those questions lies the cruel reality of this war. This war is not just about where WMDs might be found, about liberating and democratizing Iraq, or about defeating terrorism. This war pits the ideals of Western liberty against the ideals of Islamic fundamentalist subservience and totalitarianism, and success or failure will not be counted in simple lives lost but in the liberation or subjugation of entire continents of people.
    So, beneath this furor lies a much more insidious reality, that penetrates deeper that the question of how Iraqi civilians were killed and whether Marines were involved in those deaths. This reality is the question of whether or not the West has the dedication, the stamina, and the foresight to defend itself in a war that has been waged against it for 1400 years. Make no mistake, this defense must be mounted from the ideals of liberty and law that have made the West strong and free, but it must also be waged with a clear eye toward the reality of the nature of the war being fought.
DLH
