From the courageous leader of The Ayn Rand Institute

A take you no doubt haven't heard:

Dear Editor:

The blame for the recent murder of 18 Americans in
Mosul lies not only with the insurgents who initiated the attack,
but also with the Bush Administration's suicidal policies. The
insurgency would have been crushed long ago, and yesterday's attack
averted, were it not for America's altruistic policy of placing the
lives of Iraqi civilians above its own self-defense.

America must destroy the insurgency if we are to implement a
non-threatening government in Iraq. This can be done, but to do so we
must make the insurgency's complicit civilian population--those who
harbor and support the insurgents--pay for the violence that they
abet. We must enforce their complete surrender to our presence. Thanks
to such a policy, during the occupation of Japan zero soldiers were
killed by insurgents and the threat posed by the country was ended.

Shamefully, the Bush Administration has been unwilling to make hostile
Iraqi civilians pay for their crimes. Time and again, it has treated
Iraqi lives as sacrosanct and American security and soldiers as
dispensable. It is in the name of sparing civilians that our soldiers
have been ordered to follow crippling rules of engagement that have
cost hundreds of their lives. It was in the name of sparing civilians
that we withdrew from Fallujah in April, and in November allowed
thousands of insurgents to flee to places like Mosul. Such
capitulations have preserved and emboldened the insurgents, while
giving hope to Islamic terrorists worldwide.

To win this war we need a fundamental shift in our moral priorities.
We need to see the military place the lives of Americans--including
American soldiers--above the lives of Iraqi civilians. To those who
insist that we continue to sacrifice for the sake of Iraqi civilians,
I say that the death of 18 Americans this week, and the many more
to come, are on your heads.

Dr. Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute

2121 Alton Parkway #250
Irvine CA 92606
949-222-6550 ext. 226



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