ISRAELI - AMERICAN DEFENSE PLANS

Copyright 2005 Chuck Klein

The Israeli people are, once again, setting the standard. Those being ousted from their homes in Gaza are complying with their duty, albeit with non-violent protests, to their duly elected leaders. The old war horse, Sharon, is a tactician of the first class and is certainly no fool. His unilateral withdrawal is surely not sans a long range plan. He could be setting the Palestinians up - expecting them to increase attacks when they perceive, wrongly so as they have in the past, that Israel is showing a weakness. Then, when the Palestinians do escalate, Sharon will have the right to retaliate with enough force to garner additional land.

Although those Americans who champion for troop withdrawal from Iraq have every right to do so, they are failing to comprehend the reasons we're there in the first place. Unlike Israel, our leader GWB, spelled out the reasons for the war and it's location. 1) GWB stated America will go after terrorists AND the countries that harbor them. 2) If we don't fight them "over-there" we will surely fight them here.

GWB is correct on both counts: 1) Iraq was harboring terrorists (supplying arms and money to Palestinians in their illegal and unwarranted assaults on Israel, and 2) The terrain in Iraq is a better place to wage war than the mountains of Afghanistan - much less the USA. The Islamic terrorists have been snookered into expending all of their resources in attacking our trained troops rather than sending their suicide bombers over here to strike at our civilians. The goal of establishing a democracy in Iraq is a pretext and our troops must remain there until the insurgents figure it out.