Get the bad guys and move on

Victor Davis Hanson, in this piece, puts an eloquence to an idea I've thought would further our cause in Iraq for quite some time. Basically, ignore world opinion (who wants to be liked by the French anyway?), obliterate the bad guys wherever they may seek cover by letting it be known a holy shrine is no longer holy when an element of terror is granted refuge within it's walls, give the new Iraqi government much of the accolades for doing so ("invaluable help," etc.), and move past this sort of self imposed drawing out of the conflicts; simply end the bad guys and move on.

If only I could articulate that in the way Hanson does; here's a snip:

We have to return to an audacious and entirely unpredictable combat mode; put on a happy, aw-shucks face while annihilating utterly the Baathist remnants and Sadr's killers; attribute this success to the new Iraqi government and its veneer of an army for its own 'miraculous' courage; ignore the incoming rounds of moral hypocrisy on Iraq from Europe (past French and German oil deals and arms sales), the Arab League (silence over Iraqi holocausts, cheating on sanctions), and the U.N. (Oil-for-Food debacle); explain to an exasperated American people why other people hate us for who we are rather than what we do; and apologize sincerely and forcefully once — not gratuitously and zillions of times — for the rare transgression.

Read the whole article; good stuff in there.