Moral Authority, 9/11 and Iraq

I'm actually pretty sick of Cindy Sheehan. It seems like every newscast or news site has something prominent about her. Coming home from dinner last night I passed protestors who were part of her "vigil".

There are two parts of this movement that should be addressed. One is her "moral authority" as the mother of someone killed in the global war against terrorism. The other is the link between Iraq and 9/11. I'm going to address these in reverse order.

According to the 9/11 commission, there was no direct link between Saddam and 9/11. There were links between Saddam and bin Laden, mainly tentative, but they were in communication and Saddam had offered bin Laden shelter.

That was not the justification for the war. Saddam was a direct sponsor of terrorism and a destabilizing force. He had attacked two neighbors, used WMDs, and showed no signs of ever changing. The sanctions had killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and could not be continued. The only real options were to attack Saddam or to wait until he re-armed and attacked someone else.

But, if there was no link between 9/11 and Saddam, there is a very direct link between 9/11 and the terrorists in Iraq today. They are directly affiliated with al Qaeda. Just read their statements. They say so. bin Laden says so. The only one who says otherwise in Cindy Sheehan.

So what happens if we do as Cindy demands and pull our troops out right now? The terrorists win. If we stay and manage to build a stable democracy then they lose. If the terrorists win then everyone died for nothing.

Worse, it will prove to bin Laden that we do not have the heart for a protracted conflict. He was sure of this after we pulled out of Lebanon in the 1980s and Somalia in the 1990. This was a big factor in 9/11 - the conviction that we would simply collapse if he struck us in our homeland.

If we lose in Iraq we will be fighting the terrorists in America. Again, we have bin Laden's word on this.

This is what Cindy Sheehan demands. She is fooling herself that a US withdrawal from the Middle East and an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank would stop terrorism. It would encourage it. The intended victims would switch. Instead of armed and trained soldiers, the victims would be civilians. A lot more parents would be burying their children.

So where does Cindy Sheehan get the moral authority to demand this?


note: Recent revelations about Able Danger identifying three of the 9/11 hijackers as being in the US earlier than the official timeline calls the findings of the 9/11 Commission into question. The commission discounted reports that Mohemed Atta met with a high-ranking Iraqi official. Given that other data they discounted now appears to be true, the final word on any 9/11-Iraq links has not been written.