TAKE OUT SADDAM FIRST: Blogging pioneer
Andrew Sullivan links to this remarkable editorial in which the
Los Angeles Times strongly endorses ousting Saddam:
"With the collapse of the Taliban and Bin Laden's disappearance, the Iraqi leader remains the great symbol of virulent anti-American, anti-Israeli and anti-peace defiance. Unlike the hesitant Syrians and Libyans, he is unequivocal about the need to destroy Israel, tomorrow if the Arabs would only allow his troops to get to Israel's borders. Hussein, furthermore, is the great financier of Palestinian suicide terrorism. Every family of Palestinian shahid (martyr) receives between $10,000 and $25,000 from him, an amount almost 10 times the average annual income of Palestinians . . . Hussein's removal from power and the fall of his regime would thus be a devastating blow to the rejectionist front. It would immediately change the balance of political and propaganda power in the Middle East and the entire Muslim world. It would send an unequivocal message to Syria, its Hezbollah ally in southern Lebanon and the ayatollahs in Iran that the regional rejectionist party is over. It would force jihadists and Bin Laden's remaining followers to recognize that the destruction of the Taliban in Afghanistan was not an isolated Western victory and that they are next in line . . ."
