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Friday, July 27, 2007
Diana West :: Townhall.com Columnist
My 125-minute President Cheney fantasy
by Diana West
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"Well, sir, remember that Diana West column you liked so much that pointed out that whatever we do in Iraq, we won't be addressing the real national security threats posed by jihadist Iran, Syria -- not to mention Saudi Arabia. The real question is, what can you as president do in the next hour about Iran?"

Cheney's jaw set. "Right. I need a general, a good general. Who are those generals I like on Fox News? Call somebody like that."

He drummed his fingers on the table while his aide dialed and passed him the phone.

"Hello, general? Yes, Dick Cheney here. Listen, I'm president this morning -- right, George is having that procedure again -- no, nothing serious. I just wanted to fix a few problems while he's, you know, recuperating...yes. I want to hit Iran and I want to hit it now -- really knock out its offensive capability so it can't make nuclear bombs, kill our troops in Iraq, support Hezbollah, the Taliban, Hamas -- you know, everything. It's always stuck in my craw that we never responded to any of their assaults on us. I mean, think about the embassy seizure in 1979. Think about Khobar Towers in 1996. Think about Hezbollah, Iran's proxy army, and those 243 Marines killed in their barracks in 1983, and what they did to CIA station chief William Buckley, and on and on. You got anything in mind?"

He paused. "Uh-huh, uh-huh...uh-huh. Really? OK. Great, general. I'll call the Joint Chiefs and give them your recommendations."

"President" Cheney hung up and smiled. "One more call, and we make the world safe for democracies."

Suddenly, as abruptly as the music had begun, it stopped. All that was audible was the sound of hushed, televised commentary of the British Open.

The phone rang. Cheney answered.

"Mr. President! How are you, sir? Good. No, nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, I must have fallen asleep." He checked his watch. Precisely two hours and five minutes had passed since he sat down in front of the TV set.

"Yes, I'll be happy to tell the press. Just a routine Saturday morning."
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About The Author
Diana West is a contributing columnist for Townhall.com and author of the new book, The Death of the Grown-up: How America's Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization.
 
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(40 comments so Far)
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Reply # 1
Date: Jul 30, 2007 - 12:21 PM EST
Surprise - war kills
Bad comparison, for two reasons. First, the 10-15 million doesn't distinguish between combatant deaths and noncombatant deaths. Second, the North Vietnamese invasion was a war of imperialism, and it inflicted a lot of state-sponsored murder DURING PEACETIME after the conquest was consolidated; America's wars in Asia were do-gooderism intended to defend fragile nations and to prevent the spread of Communist totalitarianism. Korea was a draw, which is better than what happened in Vietnam.

Laos and Cambodia were boneheaded strategy. If we'd fought Vietnam like a real war, we would have invaded the enemy nation instead of bombing its invasion routes in Laos and Cambodia. The war-of-containment strategy was part of the reason the war dragged on as long as it did.

I'm unaware of any significant noncombatant casualties from the Bush 41 round of the Iraq War. Bush 43 has gone to tremendous lengths to avoid collateral damage in the current phase of the war, and in Afghanistan. Even the already dead are spared:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14823099/

Our forces need to be a little less Ned Flanders, without going to William T. Sherman extremes.
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Reply # 2
Date: Jul 29, 2007 - 10:38 PM EST
The real story
War opponents (with some exceptions, like Jane Fonda) don't have any love for the enemy. They suffer the delusion that the enemy can be reasoned with or contained. This applies to the Cold War as well, especially the unilateral disarmament types.

War hawks don't love war any more than police officers love shootouts. They support war in instances where they judge non-war to be costlier in lives, property and liberty than war.

For instance, during the past three decades 7.5 million people died at the hands of the Hanoi government.

http://www.matus1976.com/nucleus/index.php?itemid=14&catid=1

Nobody on the antiwar left thought this would happen. If they'd paid attention to the history of Communism they wouldn't have been surprised.

The antiwar left is similarly naive about the consequences of an American pullout from Iraq. And this time such a pullout threatens American civilian lives. Islamic terrorists were at war with us before we went to Iraq, and even before there was an al-Qaeda. An abandoned Iraq will fall to one (or more) of them - possibly Iran will take the Shia portion - and they'll have the resources of an actual country to draw upon to plot their next attacks by against the West.
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