The Ming Report

MADMEN AND SECURITY

July 15, 2004 - The President is touring the upper Midwest telling the friendly audiences his advance team organizes that America is safe and secure because he invaded Iraq. So far 1010 allied soldiers, 890 of them Americans, have given their lives in that invasion. Saddam Hussein lives in a prison not a palace and we are sure that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction. We know that because the new Government of Liberated Iraq declared that country to be WMD free. Of course the previous government of Iraq said the same thing, but the President did not believe it then. Hans Blix said the same thing and the President did not believe it then. He believes it now but he says that America and the world are safer because he invaded Iraq; because the previous regime had the capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction and might have shared them with the world’s terrorists. Given the choice, he says, between believing a madman and defending America he will defend America every time.

I guess that is why he does not invade North Korea. The maximum leader of that benighted country says not only does he possess the capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction but he has in fact produced nuclear weapons. We know that he might sell those weapons to the world’s terrorists – in the run up to Operation Iraqi Liberation we intercepted a North Korean ship laden with North Korean intermediate range ballistic missiles bound for the Middle East. Given the choice the President has chosen not to take Pyongyang’s mad man at his word. Since he does not believe him it isn’t necessary to defend America in that quarter. Since the Korean madman must be lying there is obviously nothing to preempt in North Korea so we are safer for having pulled a combat brigade out of Korea for service in Iraq; we are so safe that we can withdraw the rest of our Korean garrison beyond the range of North Korean artillery just to be sure.

We hear that Iran has an enriched uranium program. UN inspections have said so. The madmen in Teheran admit that they are enriching uranium for peaceful purposes. The madmen in Teheran are defying UN inspections. The President is apparently choosing not to believe the madmen’s admission – but then there are no more troops to deploy to Iran – they are occupied with making America safer in Iraq.

America is safe and secure since the President made the choice to invade Iraq. That is why the President’s Secretary of Homeland Security announced that Al Qaeda is poised to strike America hard between now and November 2, 2004. America is safe and secure and that is why the President’s new acting head of the CIA is making the talk show circuit telling us that America is at a greater risk of attack now than we were before September 11, 2001.

The President posits a choice between believing a madman and providing for America’s security. Given that choice I will opt to provide for America’s security every time. I choose not to believe the madman and that is why I will vote to elect John Kerry as President of the United States – if, that is, the madman lets me vote in November.