Orson Scott Card on the war in Iraq

Orson Scott Card looks at how Bush is doing in Iraq, saying the best answer is a book called The Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror, by Richard Miniter.

Some money quotes:

Contrary to Kerry's deliberate deception, Bush did not "let Osama get away" at Torah Bora. It was winter in extraordinarily rugged country. All the forces that could be brought to bear were deployed, but no one, not even Bush, can defeat weather and terrain all the time. Nor is Iraq is a distraction. In fact, there is simply no doubt among honest people who know anything at all that Iraq under Saddam was a sponsor of terror, that it had ties to Al Qaeda, and that it was a dangerous source of shelter, training, weaponry, and funding to international terrorism. The Iraq campaign has diverted nothing and distracted no one. The work being done against terrorism has vastly increased and improved during the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns. The Bush administration is using appropriate levels of force and funding. There are times when pumping more money and manpower into a particular area does not make things go better, it makes them go worse.

...and...

The point is that irresponsible politicians like Kerry are free to make false accusations against President Bush -- about how he is distracted from the real war, etc. -- and they know he can't answer, because he cannot prove how well the war is going without exposing and, probably, ending secret cooperation from Muslim governments. In other words, Kerry is free to be irresponsible, dishonest, and unfair precisely because he knows that President Bush puts national security ahead of his own political advantage.

...and

Naturally, most of what President Bush has personally done is to choose from the many alternatives presented to him by his advisers. The president doesn't go out and personally collect information; he does not personally develop weapons systems; he does not lay out specific military campaigns. Bush has, however, made clear strategic choices that made it possible for our forces to be effective in the war on terror. For one thing, the decision to hold state sponsors of terror accountable transformed the war into something that we might win. Without the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, governments would still behave as if they could thumb their noses at us with impunity; those campaigns are the foundation of the newly cooperative attitude of many governments.

...and finally,

Kerry is the enemy of American military power, even when used multilaterally in support of international law. He will never, ever be capable of using our military effectively or carefully, despite the lies he tells during the process of a campaign. And I call them lies because they so obviously are lies. Democrats speculate without evidence about President Bush's and Vice-President Cheney's motives all the time, accusing them of deception without a shred of evidence. But Kerry's claim to being tougher and smarter about military matters than Bush is so obviously false that we should be laughing whenever he makes it. He has been wrong on every defense system, on every vote in his entire political career. If Kerry's will had prevailed, we would have no military that was capable of resisting our enemies. And that is precisely the reason why the fanatic left wing of the Democratic Party is so eager to elect John Kerry. Because they know he's lying about his intentions concerning the war. They're counting on it. If they believed that he actually meant what he says about the war on terror, they would never vote for him.

...but read the whole thing.