Time to stop making excuses

It's not about Iraq! Victor Davis Hanson rationally points out that the Islamofascist (my word, not his) terror attacks in London, or wherever they may occur, have nothing to do with the fact we are in Iraq. Suggestions that we and the coalition forces should retreat are flawed:

After the July 7 London bombings, some in the United Kingdom wondered whether the bombing was in retaliation for the British having troops in Iraq. Perhaps, they suggested, a withdrawal, emulating the Spanish appeasement after the March 2004 Madrid bombings, would prevent further attacks.

There are two flaws in such thinking.

First, after the Spanish ordered their soldiers home, the emboldened jihadists still plotted further murders — most notably the foiled plot to assassinate members of the Spanish High Court in Madrid.

Second, after the London bombings, the al-Qaida-linked group that took credit for the carnage threatened, "We continue to warn the governments of Denmark and Italy and all crusader governments that they will receive the same punishment if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq and Afghanistan."

Note the reference to both theaters.

In the West, the new orthodoxy is that the removal of the theocratic Taliban in Afghanistan was the "correct" war that enjoyed widespread European and American support. In contrast, George W. Bush, in a "unilateral" and "preemptive" fashion, unnecessarily attacked the "secular" Saddam Hussein.

The terrorists, unlike us, make no such distinctions. Both actions, they insist, were equal affronts to radical Islam.

A must see companion piece to this is at The Anchoress. Don't miss it!