November 30, 2003
EVEN THE STUPID PARTY CAN COUNT TO TEN (via Linda Fish-Brown):
These five regimes must go: Mark Steyn lists the countries that must be dealt with if we are to win the war against terrorism (Mark Steyn, 11/29/03, The Spectator)
Profound changes in the above countries would not necessarily mean the end of the war on terror, but it would be pretty close. It would remove terrorism’s most brazen patron (Syria), its ideological inspiration (the prototype Islamic Republic of Iran), its principal paymaster (Saudi Arabia), a critical source of manpower (Sudan) and its most potentially dangerous weapons supplier (North Korea). They’re the fronts on which the battle has to be fought: it’s not just terror groups, it’s the state actors who provide them with infrastructure and extend their global reach. Right now, America — and Britain, Australia and Italy — are fighting defensively, reacting to this or that well-timed atrocity as it occurs. But the best way to judge whether we’re winning and how serious we are about winning is how fast the above regimes are gone. Blair speed won’t do.
What about Cuba, Libya, Vietnam, China, and Venezuela? Posted by Orrin Judd at November 30, 2003 7:22 AM
Zimbabwe?
China's cooperation will be necessary in bringing down NK, so we'll just have to put up with them until then. Evil as they are, they're a necessary evil. The others do not represent a clear threat to America from supporting terrorists or pursuing Weapons of Mass Destruction.
BTW you forgot Columbia. Surely the Hispanic terrorists who kill to maintain their lucrative drug trade should be treated the way that Arab terrorists who kill to spread their religion. It would be racist to do otherwise.
Posted by: MarkD at November 30, 2003 1:08 PMDon't miss the forest for the bark: remember France.
Posted by: jim hamlen at November 30, 2003 4:15 PMJim -- good point, let's take advantage of the belief that conservatives can't count and include 12 in our ten.
Posted by: pj at November 30, 2003 8:03 PM