Mohammed Atta, Abu Nidal, Saddam, and Pessimism

In his always-insightful Spectator column, Paul Johnson recently wrote about George Bush saying that, “no Western leader since Winston Churchill” has been able to “so defy expectations and so overachieve” to the point of actually “bringing about a transformation of the world.” The president has been able to "defy every tenant of the current reigning ideological orthodoxy--the orthodoxy of pessimism--simply by quietly and confidently doing what he knows to be right."

Going even further this week, he elaborated on this notion saying that, “I don’t think we sufficiently appreciate the amount Mr. Bush has achieved, at such speed and at such comparatively small cost in lives. He has destroyed the two most malignant and dangerous Muslim regimes, and set up military occupation of those countries, which makes it impossible to reestablish them or anything like them. Both these campaigns were brilliantly conducted at great speed.”

Now, with the capture of Saddam as well as the confirmation that Mohammed Atta, the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, was trained in Baghdad by Abu Nidal under Saddam’s direction, the president’s achievement seems all the more momentous.

With the Dow up, the unemployment figures down, the war on terror apparently succeeding, and the will to press on as strong as ever, Johnson argues, this poor fallen world is still more than a little dangerous and imperfect "but it is getting better all the time.” That's just got to be driving the nay-sayers abolutely bonkers! Oh no! Something is going right! Determined action, moral pluck, and humble courage seem to be winning out over haughty elitism, simpering skepticism, and political correctness! Mohammed Atta, Abu Nidal, Saddam, and Western pessimism all knocked flat. Gee, who'd a thunk it?