Thomas Wictor

I have trouble with my balance. Meniere’s disease causes rotational vertigo attacks, and down I go. So I’d like to ask some of my fellow Americans: Is it hard to keep your balance when you stand on dead bodies while trying to score political points?

Today I’m reading a lot of gloating. Some Americans are happy that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is overrunning vast parts of Iraq.

That’s an incredibly foul way of thinking, and only degenerates feel that way. They’re very stupid too. Here’s a monumentally stupid quote, for example:

Oh yeah, in case you forgot… before George W. Bush decided to go into Iraq, Saddam Hussein was a sworn enemy of al Qaeda.

Nope. Sorry. After so many years its hard to find active Internet links to articles outlining Saddam’s ties to al Qaeda and other jihadist organizations. Also, the horrendous dishonesty of political fanatics masquerading as journalists muddies the water. Still, there’s incontrovertible proof that Saddam supported jihadists.

This piece describes some of the evidence while also showcasing the lies of a “journalist” deliberately trying to mislead. These are the conclusions that still stand, after ten years of arguing.

1. Saddam Hussein’s regime—secular as it was—worked with Islamic radical terrorist groups, and this is now proven not only by prewar tidbits of intelligence, but by detainee interrogations and in particular captured documents and tapes.

2. Saddam Hussein’s regime was a state sponsor of radical Islamic terrorist groups including groups that served as the attack tentacles of the al Qaeda terrorist network, and in supporting these operations the Iraqi regime was in frequent contact with terrorist legends and leaders who oh-so-coincidentally were in charge of two-thirds of the al Qaeda network’s core.

The Pentagon report is called Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights From Captured Iraqi Documents. It concludes that so far there have been no “smoking-gun” operational ties between Saddam and al Qaeda.

Do you you know what “operational ties” means? Carrying out missions in the field together. For example, an al Qaeda cell and Unit 999 attacking an American consulate.

During World War II there were no operational ties between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. There were also no operational ties between the US and the USSR. Does that mean that Germany and Japan weren’t allies? How about the US and the USSR? Ever heard of Lend-Lease, formally called An Act to Further Promote the Defense of the United States? We gave the Soviets tanks, aircraft, jeeps, trucks, and food.

But we didn’t have operational ties to the Soviets. Our fighting men didn’t go into battle shoulder to shoulder, planning and executing attacks as an integrated force. Ths US has operational ties to Macedonia. These are American and Macedonian troops fighting in Kabul, Afghanistan.

The Macedonians have dark helmets and vests, and red-and-yellow flags on their shoulders. That’s a video of operational ties.

Here’s another comment I saw today.

Anybody here who’s upset about Iraq, go over there and stem that tide.

So this is the new standard? I’m also upset about all those Central American kids pouring across our borders.

Do I have to join Immigration and Customs Enforcement or go and stand on the border with my arms spread? Why? I could tell all you people bitching about politics, “Run for office or shut up.”

But I’m not an idiot, so I don’t say idiotic things. Someone also wrote this.

All those wounded and dead American troops, for what?

Americans say this during and after every war. And not just the Average Joe.

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.

—General William Tecumseh Sherman

I can’t tell you how many doctors and nurses tried to save my parents. Mom and Dad died anyway. Does that mean the doctors and nurses wasted their time? All the American troops killed and wounded in Iraq were trying to make a bad situation better. They acted in good faith. The Iraqis were just not up to the task.

Americans were dying for Iraqis. That’s why this sergeant is speaking to the Iraqi cops so brutally. And he was right. Their loyalty was to their clan, their tribe, and their sect. They were also very risk averse.

In the current fighting, the reports are that two Iraqi armored divisions—a total of 30,000 men equipped with tanks, armored fighting vehicles, Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles (MRAPs), artillery, crew-served heavy weapons, and helicopter gunships—stripped off their uniforms and fled from eight hundred terrorists. ISIL had only automatic rifles, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, and gun trucks. It’s clear that the Iraqi armed forces are nonfunctional.

If ISIL continues rolling up cities, Iran will invade Iraq to help the Shi’ites. In that case every combatant who dies will be one less enemy for us to worry about.

Still, you won’t find me gloating. I’m better than that.