don't know if it's been post but here goes;
> NY Post
> TERROR TAKES A STAND
> By RALPH PETERS
>
> October 27, 2004 -- SOLDIERS don't beg. But an old friend of mine who's
> still in uniform came close the other day. He badly wanted me to write
> another column before Election Day stressing that our troops are winning
> in Iraq.
>
> He's an Army veteran of three wars. Now he's working to help Iraq become
> a democratic model for the Middle East. And he's worried.
>
> Not about terrorists or insurgents. He's afraid John Kerry will be
> elected president.
>
> "Kerry's rhetoric is giving the bad guys a thread to hang on," he wrote.
> "They're hoping we lose our nerve. They're more concerned with the U.S.
> elections than with the Iraqi ones."
>
> My pal has been involved in every phase of our Iraq operations — dating
> back to Desert Storm. And he's convinced that the terrorists have risked
> everything to create as much carnage as they can before Nov. 2. Our
> troops are killing them left and right. The terrorists are desperate.
> They can't sustain this tempo of attacks much longer.
>
> But Sen. Kerry insists that we're losing — giving our enemies hope that
> we'll pull out. No matter what else John Kerry may say, the terrorists
> only hear his criticisms of our president and our war.
>
> Let's review what's actually happening in Iraq.
>
> The terrorist stronghold of Fallujah is increasingly isolated. Night
> after night, precision weapons and raids by special-operations forces
> kill international terrorist leaders. Terrified, the local troublemakers
> are trying to play the negotiations card. They know the U.S. Marines are
> coming back. And this time the Leathernecks won't be stopped short.
> Allah's butchers are praying that they can bring down our president
> before terror's citadel falls.
>
> Meanwhile, the Iraqi people have been revolted by the terrorists'
> barbarities. They may not want U.S. troops in their streets forever, but
> they do not want to be ruled by fanatical murderers. Kidnapping aid
> workers and lopping off heads on videotape horrifies decent Muslims. The
> slaughter of 50 unarmed Iraqi recruits did not win hearts and minds.
>
> Every day, Iraqis are more engaged in defending their own country.
> Elections are still on track. The suicide bombings continue, but they
> haven't deterred Iraq's new government. Nor have they been able to stop
> the Coalition and Iraq's expanding forces from cleaning out one
> terrorist rat's nest after another.
>
> Muqtada al-Sadr is quiet as a mouse. Najaf is being rebuilt. Two-thirds
> of Iraq's provinces are quiet. We never see any headlines about our
> Kurdish allies in northern Iraq — because they're building a successful
> modern society in the Middle East. Good-news stories aren't welcome in
> our undeniably pro-Democratic media.
>
> Even the French are uncharacteristically subdued. The serpents of the
> Seine thought they'd seduced the terrorists with a few anti-American
> apples. Instead, they've found that they can't even free two kidnapped
> French journalists.
>
> After their own recent terrorist debacle, the Russians repented their
> criticism of the Bush administration. The Spanish, too, discovered that
> appeasement doesn't work any better for them than for the French — an
> Islamist plot to blow up justice-ministry buildings was recently
> uncovered. And there's more to come.
>
> Terror's appetite is only whetted by weakness.
>
> Of course, the United Nations is still doing everything it can to
> undercut President Bush. Embarrassed by Oil-for-Food corruption
> revelations, the U.N. would like to get back to the good old days of the
> Clinton administration, which winked at outright U.N. criminality.
>
> The terrorists are pulling out all the stops to shed blood in Iraq this
> week. While the media makes every mortar round sound like the end of the
> world, the encouraging news is that the terrorists haven't been able to
> do more. They can harass convoys and murder civilians — but they haven't
> budged our troops or the new Iraqi government.
>
> Of course, the terrorists aren't suddenly going to quit if President
> Bush wins at the polls — but his re-election would be a terrible
> psychological blow to them. They know how high the stakes are in Iraq.
>
> The struggle isn't just about the fate of one country, but about the
> future of the entire Middle East. If freedom and the rule of law get
> even a 51 percent victory in Iraq, it's the beginning of the end for the
> terrori stsandtheviciousregimesthatbr edthem.
>
> Al Qaeda and its affiliates are rapidly using up the human capital
> they've accumulated over decades. The casualties in Iraq are
> overwhelmingly on the terrorist side. Extremist leaders have paid a
> particularly heavy price. But they won't stop fighting because they
> can't. The terrorists have to win in Iraq. They have to defeat America.
>
> The astonishing thing is that so many of our fellow Americans don't get
> it. The terrorists aren't committing their shrinking reserves because
> the outcome's a trivial matter. They recognize the magnitude of what
> we're helping the Iraqi people achieve.
>
> This is the big one. The fate of a civilization hangs in the balance.
> And all we hear from one presidential contender is that it's the "wrong
> war, at the wrong time."
>
> It is. For the terrorists.
>
> Ralph Peters is the author of "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace."
>
>
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