Posted on 10/18/2006 2:26:04 PM PDT by Stone Mountain
Santorum defends Iraq war
By ALISON HAWKES
Bucks County Courier Times
Embattled U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum said America has avoided a second terrorist attack for five years because the “Eye of Mordor” has been drawn to Iraq instead.
Santorum used the analogy from one of his favorite books, J.R.R. Tolkien's 1950s fantasy classic “Lord of the Rings,” to put an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq into terms any school kid could easily understand.
“As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else,” Santorum said, describing the tool the evil Lord Sauron used in search of the magical ring that would consolidate his power over Middle-earth.
“It's being drawn to Iraq and it's not being drawn to the U.S.,” Santorum continued. “You know what? I want to keep it on Iraq. I don't want the Eye to come back here to the United States.”
In an interview with the Bucks County Courier Times editorial board late last week, the 12-year Republican senator from Pennsylvania said he's “a big "Lord of the Rings' fan.” He's read the first of the series, “The Hobbit” to his six children.
A spokesman for Democratic opponent Bob Casey Jr. questioned the appropriateness of the analogy.
“You have to really question the judgment of a U.S. senator who compares the war in Iraq to a fantasy book,” said Casey spokesman Larry Smar. “This is just like when he said Kim Jong II isn't a threat because he just wants to "watch NBA basketball.' ”
According to a Harrisburg Patriot-News editorial, Santorum said the North Korea dictator “doesn't want to die; he wants to watch NBA basketball” as a reason why Iran is the bigger nuclear threat.
Faced with a no-fantasy re-election battle against Democratic challenger and state Treasurer Bob Casey Jr., Santorum has positioned himself as strong on national security.
To counter Casey's claims that Santorum voted with President George Bush “98 percent of the time.” Santorum pointedly mentioned their areas of difference, specifically on Iran and its nuclear weapons program.
He called the Bush Administration's policy to negotiate with Iran “at worst appeasement and at best constructive engagement, either of which are wrong.”
“They believe you can negotiate with [Iran President] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs on the issue of nuclear weapons and you cannot,” Santorum said. “You cannot negotiate something away from someone who has a messianic vision to a religious conviction that they need this weapon.”
Santorum said he managed to work out an agreement between Congress and the White House on a plan to toughen sanctions and fund Iranian pro-democracy groups. But he seemed frustrated by questions about U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq.
“I don't think you ask that question,” he said. “I know that's the question everybody wants to ask. But I don't think anyone would ask that question in 1944, "Gee, how long are we going to be in Europe?' We're going to be in Europe until we win,” Santorum said.
Asked whether he thinks U.S. troops will be in Iraq a half-century later, as they still are in Germany, Santorum said “potentially.”
“Having a presence there as we have since the Gulf War in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait is certainly not against the interests of America if, in fact, we're welcome to be there,” he said.
Santorum insisted the U.S. needed to take out Saddam Hussein because he “by all accounts, had weapons of mass destruction ... he was fomenting terrorism, he was paying for terrorists to kill Israelis and he was supporting terrorist objectives.
“To say we're being bogged down in Iraq, I disagree with you,” he said in response to a question. “We are fighting the war that we are engaged in — Islamic fascism — in Iraq. We are fighting those people right now, the people who, if we left, would come here and destroy us.”
The 911 Commission report found that while Saddam had been in contact with al-Qaida, there was no evidence the contacts ever turned into “a collaborative operational relationship” or that Iraq cooperated in the attacks against the U.S.
Santorum demurred on the growing strength of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the U.S.'s first post-9/11 nation-building effort, and the failure to capture Osama bin Laden.
“You know, what we have is a lousy enemy,” Santorum said about the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan. “This enemy is really tough. And I underestimated this enemy ... and the problem is [the] American people underestimated this enemy.”
According to his campaign and published news reports, Casey also doesn't support a timeline for troop withdrawal. Casey criticized Bush for going first to Iraq, the weakest link in the “Axis of Evil,” while Iran and North Korea have developed nuclear capabilities.
Casey has been invited to meet with the editorial board, but hasn't yet agreed to do so.
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I was just thinking today, based on his votes, if Santorum were in OH, he'd be leading by 25 points. We have a guy who voted against ANWR, for the "committee of 14," and co-sponsored the Brady Bill, and is having trouble---and yet in PA, you have one of the best conservatives in the Senate, in trouble because he's too conservative.
It's good stuff. That speech always get me a little misty. It's a shame the actor is such a flake... but that speech is classic, and it fits so well.
I can't recall what book it was, but I loved the line where SamWise tells Frodo that some things are worth fighting for.
What do you know about the upcoming movie "Flags of Our Fathers"?
Good analogy.
What a nicely-parsed sentence, and so very Clintonian. After saying that Saddam would never have anything to do with al-Qaida, the evidence came out that, yes he did. So they have to rewrite their statments with more qualifiers. "Saddam never met with al-Qaida on Tuesdays".
Another nod to the Clintons is "there was no evidence". Bill and Hillary could say, "you will find no evidence" because they knew it had been destroyed, or they were still sitting on it.
Aragorn's speech was given with the understanding that they still had a tiny bit of hope left, even if only a few knew what that hope was.
Theoden's speech was given in the face of utter desperation, knowing that they had absolutely no hope of survival, much less victory. They had sworn on their souls to fight, and they would show the enemy a terror that even a terrorist enemy would fear.
The words were powerful enough in the book. Bernard Hill had the genius to add the visuals, and PJ had the wisdom to go with it.
That scene grabs me by the throat every time.
ping
You're absolutely right about that. The Theodoen speech really does grab me too, and yes, on that other level where the understanding is total hopelessness, yet the imperative to charge into chaos knowing that the mission may be lost.
It chokes me up too.
"Ride! Ride to ruin! and a red sun rises! Death!"
Ouch. Theoden. misspelled it. Nuts.
I like that analogy!
I still remember the thrill of watching LOTR's epic battle on the big screen, when the eagles dived toward the enemy, I turned to the friend who had accompanied me to the cineplex, and we both laughed and said, (It's) the Air Force! (The comparisons to the War on Terror were too strong to miss.)
There are great analogies in the LOTR that can be used to describe the War on Terror.
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