My original post was that the Left had not made any substantial contributions to the war on terror, including efforts all over the world, not just in Iraq. I stand by this, and it's an attitude that long precedes 9/11.

Have you seen one demonstration by the usual activist groups against radical Islam or bin Laden? Did you ever see any against oppression in Afghanistan or Iraq before 9/11?*

The police, military, and other forces around the world are doing an excellent job right now. While nations like France and Germany have not supported our military actions in Iraq, they have been cooperating fully with police and other efforts to stop and destroy terrorism in Europe and elsewhere, and have made a lot of progress.

Raoul responded that it wasn't a war on terror in Iraq until we attacked, which I assumed meant that we had "generated" terrorists that weren't there before. My reply was that the people attacking us, either Iraqi or otherwise, were terrorists or thugs long before we showed up, and have just taken up arms against coalition forces in Iraq.

To some people the bomb going off near an embassy is terrorism, while one of Saddam's goons hauling someone off in the middle of the night for torture and an eventual mass grave apparently is not. I don't draw a line between the two, and submit that the 300,000 victims of Saddam's terror prior to our arrival there are part of the whole terrorism picture.

Notice the neat carriage returns.

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*To be fair, at least one prominent exception does come to mind. NOW and the leftist women's movement were in fact protesting the treatment of women by the Taliban before 9/11. I don't know if they ever held marches.