Hugh Hewitt is worked up

John Kerry has gotten Hugh Hewitt so worked up he blogged in large font, very bold words. Hewitt apparently was severely irked at Kerry's claim that Bush fired Gen. Shinseki because he wanted "too many" troops in Iraq (which is clearly false, but that doesn't stop Kerry from making the claim anyway.) Hugh also does a good job of showing how Kerry's words, when clearly understood, lead to the inescapable conclusion that he is living in a pre-9/11 world and thinks we can negotiate our way out of the problem of terrorism.

He's not alone. There's plenty of people in this country who still think, or at least hope, that negotiation can carry the day. These are the same people Wretchard wrote about in the article that I referred to earlier today. People who still live in a fantasy world called the USA and have no concept of what it would be like to live in constant fear, as is the case in Iraq today.

Iraqis have lived in fear for a long time before the US went to war with them, but it was a different kind of fear. When people disappear, as they did when Sadaam was in power, everyone knows what happened to them but the violence is detached, distant. (Unless, of course, it's happening to you!) With terrorism, it's up close and personal, in your face. In Sadaam's Iraq you could feel somewhat safe so long as you watched what you said and who you said it to. In today's Iraq, you don't know when you walk out of your house if you will be blown up simply because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The difference is deliberate. Sadaam wanted obedience, and he got it through fear and intimidation. He didn't want you dead unless you disagreed with him. Cowed, intimidated and obedient citizens were his power.

The terrorists simply want you dead, and there's nothing you can do to change their minds or convince them to leave you alone and attack someone else. If you're there when the bomb goes of, it doesn't matter if you're a liberal or a conservative, if you believe in negotiation or you believe in retaliation, if you think there is good in all mankind or you think that some men are evil.

The difference is the difference between 9/10 and 9/11, between Bush and Kerry, between life and death, between good and evil. Many people don't want to think in those terms. It evokes religion, which many want to avoid in public discourse. It is not religious, however, to point out that some men are evil. You need look no further than Darfur in Sudan to look evil in the face. That's why the "civilized world" avoids talking about such things. Avoiding them doesn't make evil things go away however, and when that evil shows up in your back yard, it may be too late to do anything about it. Almost 3000 of our fellow citizens learned that awful lesson the hard way.

How many more must learn before "we" get it?