Why Terrorists Went to Iraq

RUSH: I’ve got a phone call here quickly that I want to take because it will help me segue and transition into a story. It’s from <a target=new href=”http://www.milfordct.com/”>Milford, Connecticut</a>. This is Steve. Hello, sir. welcome to the program.
CALLER: Rush, it’s a great honor to talk to you. Mega dittos from Connecticut.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: I have a question. I was hoping you’d be able to give me your ideas on it. Why do you think there’s so much more terrorism in Iraq than there is in Afghanistan, given, you know, both wars and the same area of the world?
RUSH: That’s a good question. That’s an excellent question, and I’ll do my best here to answer it because I think I have an answer. By the way, before I do that I just want to alert you folks: A big winter storm up the East Coast, New York, New England, Washington, anywhere from six to 12 inches — and I want to assure you people that live in that area of the country, those areas that reporters have been dispatched and will be standing in the snow with cameras showing you the snow, just so you’ll know that it is snowing, and they will tell you not to go out and leave your homes and they will tell you to put chains on your car and they will warn to you leave early for work, and they’ll warn you to stock up at the store to get foodstuffs in case you get snowed in, and they will take about the next 12 hours to do that. I just did it for you in 30 seconds. Now, I’ll move on to answer the question: “Why are there no insurgent attacks in Afghanistan and there are in Iraq?” The simple and fastest answer to it is that our campaign in Afghanistan was widely successful. It is why you’re not hearing any news out of there. We routed the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and we forced them either into caves where they’re still holed up or they’re hanging around the Afghan-Pakistan border and they’re afraid to show their face.
Now, there is a possibility here. I gotta bunch of military briefings when I was over there, and the US military is preparing for a spring offensive from the Taliban. There always is one when the snows melt and it gets warmer because it makes getting around a little bit easier, but they’re ready for it, and they don’t know how large it will be. They don’t think it’s going to be very big. But the Taliban and Al-Qaeda fled. They fled across borders and they were pretty well routed, is the short answer to this. They’re just not there. In Iraq, that rout is still in the process of taking place, or this victory is still in the process of taking place, and it is happening. The disappointing thing about the news coming out of Iraq is that it doesn’t accurately report our success. All we get is that a bomb today killed a record number of people, and, of course, the conclusion, “Oh, it’s going backwards,” or we’re losing ground and so forth. But it’s the exact opposite. The elections have taken place. There is a cascading domino effect going on throughout the region and we are routing these people. I talked to some military people who had been in Fallujah, and they described what they did and how frustrated they were with the reporting that came out. They routed Fallujah! Fallujah isn’t really a problem anymore, but those are individual cities, and there’s still some skirmishes going on, and these Ba’athists of the Saddam regime fled to friendly neighbors like Syria, sought refuge, and then have had reinforcement shipped in from all over the place.

The Taliban, in terms of its control of Afghanistan, is not a ruling government. The Taliban was just an oppressive bunch of thugs that had villages and some of the cities dominated and so forth, but they were not nearly as organized a government as what the Ba’athists of Saddam were in Iraq. In fact, the military still has plans. I mean, you should have seen the way we had to get around over there. Let me just describe this for you. Whenever we moved, which was constantly — and this is whether it was in Kabul, wherever we went — the only thing that didn’t go with us was the SUVs that we were in because they’re at these various locations. But our security detail, we each, in our SUV, we each had a shooter, a contract former Special Ops or military person that’s loaded to the gills with guns and knives. It was incredible. I don’t know what the guns they were carrying were, but they fired 1200 rounds a minute. Just incredible. In fact, one of the guys in the security detail — I kid you not, real name — Cannon Ball. That was his given name! Last name is Ball. His parents named him Cannon — with two N’s! And, you know, these guys are the closest thing the US has to supermen. These all come from the Special Forces ranks. But our little bubble is what it’s called. When we moved around, there were five SUVs, and let me see if I can describe this to you. The whole point when you leave the compound is you never stop, you stop for nothing. You keep moving. And it’s not a convoy where each car is behind another.
These cars are constantly weaving, in back, in front and sideways to each other to always present a moving target so the convoy is not ever a very real long thing. Two of us driving side by side, and it didn’t matter who was in the way. The sirens are blaring. People are jumping out of the way. Cops are getting out of the way. Traffic is stopped to let us go through. Clearly it’s Americans because the Suburbans are the largest vehicles on the roads over there, and in fact I asked after one of these couple of days of this, I said, “Is this really wise?” I asked one of the security guys, “This is nothing but the raw exercise of power.” He said, “That’s exactly what it is. We are taking no chances with our cargo, sir. It is the raw exercise of power. Nobody’s going to get to you or anybody else in this convoy,” and I said, “What about the effect on the Afghan people?” He said, “You looked at ’em as we drive by?” Yeah. “What are they doing?” I said, “It looks like they are staring at us in awe.” “That’s what we want.” I said, “You don’t think they’re going to end up disliking us?” “You sound like a liberal, sir. What are you worried about whether they like us or not? We’re trying to keep you alive and everybody else in this convoy, and you’re worried about whether or not they like us?” “I know, but we’re here. We’re trying to forge a partnership.”
“Sir, they are happy we are here. Do you see anybody frowning at us? Do you see anybody throwing anything at us? Do you see any of them flipping us the bird? Do you see any of them standing in our way trying to stop us?” I said (stammering in fear), “No-no-no-no-no, sir, no, sir.” “Good. This is the way we’re going to move you. This is the way we are trained to do this,” and it didn’t matter where we were. Wherever we got off the plane, these guys traveled with us and got on SUVs that were waiting for us, and that’s how we got around. I mean, we didn’t stop. We stopped for nothing. There was no such — and we ran into plenty of traffic jams and they just miraculously parted like the Red Sea for us. I was always in the third SUV from the front. There were two in front and two behind, and after awhile you get used to it and it’s just the way it is. The first couple trips, I’m saying, “Whoa, what is this?” because there’s always the thought there could be one of these insurgents out there that’s, you know, lurking, waiting to launch some kind of an attack, and these guys’ job is to see to it that doesn’t happen or, if it does, that nobody gets hurt. These are fully armored vehicles. You can’t open the door of the SUV by yourself. These guys have to get out and pull it open. It’s too heavy. It’s fully fortified. They’re incredible. These things are… You talk about up-armored? (Laughing) Everything over there was up-armored.
END TRANSCRIPT