US Foreign Policy Day

President Bush gave a major speech on the war on terror. It summarizes all the major points that the Administration should have been trumpeting on a regular basis. In fact, these particular talking points should be routinely and regularly used and expanded by the Administration to counter the BS regurtitated by the media elites who think they know more (and better) than the Administration.

Amazingly, he actually uttered the phrase evil Islamic radicalism (as well as militant jihadism and Islamo-fascism.

Some call this evil Islamic radicalism. Others militant jihadism.

Still, others Islamo-fascism.

Whatever it's called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent political vision: the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom.

These extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christians and Jews and Hindus and also against Muslims from other traditions that they regard as heretics. Many militants are part of global borderless terrorist organizations like Al Qaida, which spreads propaganda and provides financing and technical assistance to local extremists and conducts dramatic and brutal operations like September 11th.

Other militants are found in regional groups often associated with Al Qaida; paramilitary insurgencies and separatist movements in places like Somalia and the Philippines and Pakistan and Chechnya and Kashmir and Algeria.

Still others spring up in local cells inspired by Islamic radicalism but not centrally directed. Islamic radicalism is more like a loose network with many branches than an army under a single command. Yet these operatives fighting on scattered battlefields share a similar ideology and vision for our world.

We know the vision of the radicals because they've openly stated it in videos and audiotapes and letters and declarations and Web sites.

First, these extremists want to end American and Western influence in the broader Middle East, because we stand for democracy and peace and stand in the way of their ambitions.

Al Qaida's leader, Osama bin Laden, has called on Muslims to dedicate, quote, their resources sons and money to driving infidels out of their lands. Their tactic to meet this goal has been consistent for a quarter century: They hit us and expect us to run.

They want us to repeat the sad history of Beirut in 1983 and Mogadishu in 1993, only this time on a larger scale with greater consequences.

Second, the militant network wants to use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country, a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against non-radical Muslim governments.

He mentioned the murders of Daniel Pearl and Theo Van Gogh. And, he maintains that people need to separate the militant Islamists from those Muslims who are peaceful - in other words, don't piss off a billion people by painting everyone with a broad brush.

The terrorists' goal is to overthrow a rising democracy, claim a strategic country as a haven for terror, destabilize the Middle East and strike America and other free nations with ever-increasing violence.

Our goal is to defeat the terrorists and their allies at the heart of their power. And so we will defeat the enemy in Iraq.

We should read into this the following: that our troops will not come home until we have won the fight, and that may take time, despite the nonsensical ravings of the lunatic fringe at the DNC.

Meanwhile,John Bolton tells the UN to rethink its peacekeeping mission.

"Unlike death and taxes, peacekeeping missions should not be permanent," Mr. Bolton told his colleagues, according to several diplomats who were present at the closed-door session. The demand to stop helicopter flights, he said, should be used as "a pivot point" from which the council should contemplate ending the Eritrean-Ethiopian border dispute rather than keep an indefinite peacekeeping force there, he said.

Secretary-General Annan called an emergency Security Council session Tuesday night to address the situation in Eritrea, but Mr. Bolton spoke to the larger issue. His remarks carry a lot of weight: America, which is the largest contributor to the U.N. budget, with 22%, covers an even more substantial percentage of the $5 billion peacekeeping budget - 26.5%, or $1.2 billion a year. In some peacekeeping missions it contributes almost half of the annual budget.

For example, America pays $190 million a year toward the $400 million mission in Congo.

Certain peacekeeping missions' reason for being has diminished over the years. The oldest existing U.N. peacekeeping post has been stationed in Jerusalem since 1948 to keep a ceasefire line that was defunct in 1967. A force now down to 45 troops has been patrolling the Indian-Pakistani border since 1949. Critics say that the modest force plays an insignificant role in maintaining peace between the two regional powerhouses, now equipped with nuclear weapons.

U.N. diplomats, however, are reluctant to consider scrapping such missions. "There were lots of violations along the border" with India along the years, Pakistan's ambassador, Munir Akram, told The New York Sun. Noting that a new cease-fire has been agreed to recently, and that either side might violate its terms, he added, "If there's no objective presence there to say who started it, I think there is possibility for mischief."

And this doesn't even address the situation of peacekeepers simply standing idly by as groups murder and rampage - see Rwanda, Congo, and Sudan. Bolton's idea seems to be that too many countries rely on the UN to be a scapegoat for continued problems, rather than trying to work the differences out.

Technorati: UN, Bush, Kofi Annan, terrorism, terrorist.