No time for Kerry's Europhile delusions

[kg_veteran]

No time for Kerry's Europhile delusions

October 24, 2004

BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
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Maybe I'm getting old. I've been covering politics for 53 years, and that's just since John Kerry's convention speech. I'm sick of this election, even before the Democratic Party's chad-diviners have managed to extend it to mid-December. These are serious times and the senator is not a serious man. And so we have a campaign that has a sharper position on Mary Cheney's lesbianism and the deficiencies of Laura Bush's curriculum vitae than on the central question of the age.

There are legitimate differences of opinion about the war, but they don't include Kerry's silly debater's points. On the one hand, the Tora borer drones that Bush "outsourced" the search for Osama bin Laden to the Afghans, though at the time he supported it ("It is the best way to protect our troops," he said in December 2001. "I think we have been doing this pretty effectively."). But, on the other, he claims he's going to outsource Iraq to the French and the Germans, though neither of them wants anything to do with it.

As for this Bush-failed-to-get-bin-Laden business, 2-1/2 years ago I declared that Osama was dead and he's never written to complain. There's no more evidence for his present existence than there is for the Loch Ness monster, which at least does us the courtesy of showing up as a indistinct gray blur on a photograph every now and again. Osama is lying low because he's in no condition to get up.

But, even if he weren't, that's a frivolous reductive way of looking at this war. He's not a general or head of state; he can't sign an instrument of surrender, and make all the unpleasantness go away. The enemy is an ideology that appeals to various loose groupings from the Balkans to Indonesia, as well as to entrepreneurial free-lancers like the shooter who killed two people at LAX on July 4, 2002. If Kerry's oft-repeated "outsourcing Osama" crack is genuinely felt, it shows he doesn't get this war. And, if it's just cheapo point scoring, it's pathetic.

Almost everything falls into that category. Iraq's messy. So? What isn't? America has no Colonial Office, no political administrators with decades of experience in far-flung climes; its occupation of Iraq was learnt on the fly, because there was no other way. But the ludicrous defeatism over what's at worst a partial success is unbecoming to a great nation. If the present Democratic-media complex had been around earlier, America would never have mustered the will to win World War II or, come to that, the Revolutionary War. There would be no America. You'd be part of a Greater Canada, with Queen Elizabeth on your coins and government health care.

Speaking of which, if there's four words I never want to hear again, it's "prescription drugs from Canada." I'm Canadian, so I know a thing or two about prescription drugs from Canada. Specifically speaking, I know they're American; the only thing Canadian about them is the label in French and English. How can politicians from both parties think that Americans can get cheaper drugs simply by outsourcing (as John Kerry would say) their distribution through a Canadian mailing address? U.S. pharmaceutical companies put up with Ottawa's price controls because it's a peripheral market. But, if you attempt to extend the price controls from the peripheral market of 30 million people to the primary market of 300 million people, all that's going to happen is that after approximately a week and a half there aren't going to be any drugs in Canada, cheap or otherwise -- just as the Clinton administration's intervention into the flu-shot market resulted in American companies getting out of the vaccine business entirely.

The war against the Islamists and the flu-shot business are really opposite sides of the same coin. I want Bush to win on Election Day because he's committed to this war and, as the novelist and Internet maestro Roger L. Simon says, "the more committed we are to it, the shorter it will be.'' The longer it gets, the harder it will be, because it's a race against time, against lengthening demographic, economic and geopolitical odds. By "demographic," I mean the Muslim world's high birth rate, which by mid-century will give tiny Yemen a higher population than vast empty Russia. By "economic," I mean the perfect storm the Europeans will face within this decade, because their lavish welfare states are unsustainable on their shriveled post-Christian birth rates. By "geopolitical," I mean that, if you think the United Nations and other international organizations are antipathetic to America now, wait a few years and see what kind of support you get from a semi-Islamified Europe.

So this is no time to vote for Europhile delusions. The Continental health and welfare systems John Kerry so admires are, in fact, part of the reason those societies are dying. As for Canada, yes, under socialized health care, prescription drugs are cheaper, medical treatment's cheaper, life is cheaper. After much stonewalling, the Province of Quebec's Health Department announced this week that in the last year some 600 Quebecers had died from C. difficile, a bacterium acquired in hospital. In other words, if, say, Bill Clinton had gone for his heart bypass to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, he would have had the surgery, woken up the next day swimming in diarrhea and then died. It's a bacterium caused by inattention to hygiene -- by unionized, unsackable cleaners who don't clean properly; by harassed overstretched hospital staff who don't bother washing their hands as often as they should. So 600 people have been killed by the filthy squalor of disease-ridden government hospitals. That's the official number. Unofficially, if you're over 65, the hospitals will save face and attribute your death at their hands to "old age" or some such and then "lose" the relevant medical records. Quebec's health system is a lot less healthy than, for example, Iraq's.

One thousand Americans are killed in 18 months in Iraq, and it's a quagmire. One thousand Quebecers are killed by insufficient hand-washing in their filthy, decrepit health care system, and kindly progressive Americans can't wait to bring it south of the border. If one has to die for a cause, bringing liberty to the Middle East is a nobler venture and a better bet than government health care.

[mavsman]

Quebec's health system is a lot less healthy than, for example, Iraq's.

Why doesn't he mention the American numbers?

And even though he declared Bin Laden dead 2 1/2 years ago, the US commander in Afghanistan and Colin Powell seem to disagree. Maybe he's right and he is getting old. He should get his "I heart W" ink done and be glad that he's fortunate enough to be able to pay for proper medical treatment, once he needs it.

[kg_veteran]

bin Laden may or may not be alive, but it is downright fraudulent for Kerry to keep repeating his mantra that "Bush had bin Laden cornered at Tora Bora and 'outsourced' the job to Afghan warlords." It's been debunked on multiple levels, and he keeps repeating it in order to deceive the electorate.

As for our healthcare system, it's by far the best in the world. Socialized medicine is NOT the answer.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: kg_veteran
bin Laden may or may not be alive, but it is downright fraudulent for Kerry to keep repeating his mantra that "Bush had bin Laden cornered at Tora Bora and 'outsourced' the job to Afghan warlords." It's been debunked on multiple levels, and he keeps repeating it in order to deceive the electorate.

"Fradulent" huh? That's not quite what was being told back in 02 when it happened:

As the US intensified its airstrikes on Tora Bora, US and Afghan helicopters started to arrive with supplies for the Afghans. Also - as was its pattern elsewhere in Afghanistan - the US began enlisting local warlords. Two - Hazret Ali and Haji Zaman Ghamsharik - would become notorious in the battle for Tora Bora.

Both Mr. Ali and Mr. Ghamsharik say they were first approached by plain-clothed US officers in the middle of November and asked to take part in an attack on the Tora Bora base.

"We looked at the entire spectrum of options that we had available to us and decided that the use of small liaison elements were the most appropriate," says Army Col. Rick Thomas in a phone interview from US Central Command Headquarters in Tampa, Fla.

"We chose to fight using the Afghans who were fighting to regain their own country," Colonel Thomas says. "Our aims of eliminating Al Qaeda were similar."

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As for our healthcare system, it's by far the best in the world. Socialized medicine is NOT the answer.

I'm not aware of a candidate who is proposing anything remotely resembling "socialized medicine". are you?

[mavsman]

As for our healthcare system, it's by far the best in the world. Socialized medicine is NOT the answer

Please elaborate how the American health system is by far better than, say, the Swedish or the German. I'd really like to know.

[Epitome22]

I don't know about the best in the world, but no health care system that leaves such larhe blocks of people uncovered can hardly be the best in the world. 'Socialized medicine' as the conservative scaremongers say, certainly isn't the answer but a two-tier health care system, such as the one Great Britian has and a number of other western liberal democratic countries, certainly can be. No one with a soul would advocate canadian healthcare (even canadians) but it's a well used scare tactic by the American right whenever the issue of extended healthcare is brought up.

[kg_veteran]

Originally posted by: Mavdog
"Fradulent" huh?

Yes, fraudulent.

"Bush had bin Laden cornered at Tora Bora"

Regarding bin Laden actually being in Tora Bora, Colonel John Mulholland, Commander of the 5th Special Forces Group, the man leading the Special Forces on the ground in Tora Bora, said, "Whether or not he was there or not, I truly never had the level of intelligence to say he was or wasn't." General Tommy Franks, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Central Command, said, " I have yet to see anything that proves bin Laden or whomever was there. That's not to say they weren't, but I've not seen proof that they were there."

Regarding having anybody "cornered", Colonel Mulholland said, "It would have been a difficult task for any military to go up in these mountains, search them out and take prisoners. This is incredible terrain, incredible elevations, and truthfully, very difficult with the force available to decisively search every nook and cranny, because there are no shortages of caves in Afghanistan. They probably number in the hundreds of thousands, if not 50 million. They just seem [to be] everywhere, and [they are] natural granite, not man-made. ..."

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"and 'outsourced' the job to Afghan warlords"

U.S. Special Forces were in charge of the operation; Afghan forces were used to reduce American casualties. Saying that we "outsourced" the job implies 1) that we had forces available to do the job, and 2) that we weren't involved at all. Neither is true. Reading from the same interviews linked above, Colonel Mulholland said that we didn't have the American search forces available at the time. Also, as noted above, U.S Special Forces were in charge and led the operation.

I'm not aware of a candidate who is proposing anything remotely resembling "socialized medicine". are you?

I'll have to come back to this tomorrow, along with the other comments about how much better European medicine is...

[Mavdog]

You should read the link I provided of a CS Monitor story KG, it was written during the time of the Tora Bora mission. In it there is validation of Bin Laden's presence at Tora Bora, as well as a review of how the hunt was left up to the two warlords hired by the US to conduct the mission.

It was the use of unreliable Afgans that doomed any chance of catching Bin Laden. It is possible that he couldn't be caught due to his plans to escape being laid well before he went to Tora Bora, but it was a zero chance once we hired the Afgans to do the hunt.

[kg_veteran]

I'll read the link. However, I've already read lengthy interviews with Tommy Franks and Colonel Mulholland, which I linked above. You should read those. They make it clear that nobody knew for sure if bin Laden was there or not, and they point out that sufficient U.S. troops weren't available to make a pursuit into the mountains and caves of Tora Bora at the time the decision had to be made. Thus, the whole argument that we could have used U.S. troops instead of enlisting the help of Afghan troops falls flat.

[kg_veteran]

From the campaign trail today (via the Corner at NRO):

BUSH ON TORA BORA [Ramesh Ponnuru]

What he didn't say in the debates: "Now my opponent is throwing out the wild claim that he knows where bin Laden was in the fall of 2001 -- and that our military had a chance to get him in Tora Bora. This is an unjustified and harsh criticism of our military commanders in the field. This is the worst kind of Monday-morning quarterbacking. And it is what we've come to expect from Senator Kerry." Bush then quotes Tommy Franks, before continuing, "Before Senator Kerry got into political difficulty and revised his views, he saw Tora Bora differently. In the fall of 2001, on national TV, Senator Kerry said, 'I think we have been doing this pretty effectively, and we should continue to do it that way.' At the time, Senator Kerry said about Tora Bora, 'I think we've been smart. I think administration leadership has done well, and we are on the right track.' End quote. All I can say is that I am George W. Bush, and I approve of that message."