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June 8, 2006 | By Nathaniel Ward
Persistence pays off in Iraq: Zarqawi dead
Terrorist ringleader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in an airstrike in Iraq.
Top Iraqi al Qaeda thug Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed Wednesday outside of Baghdad by a precision air strike, American and Iraqi officials announced today. “Getting Zarqawi,” Heritage’s James Carafano writes, “does demonstrate the resolve of the United States and its allies in the global war on terrorism.”
“This war can be won with determination, persistence, and a strategy that frustrates the terrorists’ mission to intimidate free peoples and slaughter innocents with impunity,” Carafano added.
“The death of Zarqawi couldn’t come at a better time considering the violence we’ve seen in Iraq in recent days,” Heritage’s Peter Brookes writes on National Review Online. “While we must remain sober about the future, Zarqawi’s demise certainly is a shot in the arm of the new Maliki government, in fighting the insurgency in Iraq and the broader war on terror.”
Brookes notes an interesting fact in the early news reports: Zarqawi’s location was given up by his associates. “This sort of ‘actionable intelligence’ is critical in prosecuting an insurgency and, perhaps, most importantly shows significant discord in al Qaeda’s ranks,” he explains.
“This means that every al Qaeda, every Sunni, every foreign jihadist insurgent leader will be looking over his shoulder in the days to come instead of concentrating on planning and executing attacks, wondering if there is a traitor in his midst—and his downfall is just around the corner.”
In a statement this morning, President Bush cautioned that “we can expect the terrorists and insurgents to carry on without him. We can expect the sectarian violence to continue.” This is the unfortunate truth—and it’s all the more reason to remain firm in Iraq and remain committed to victory.
“To build on this victory,” Carafano concludes, “the United States and its allies must stick to their strategy in Iraq: continue to build up Iraq’s domestic security forces, support the government, and allow Iraqis to reclaim responsibility for their own future.”
Liberals are wrong on the death tax
In 2001, Congress phased out the death tax, so that it would be completely eliminated by 2010. But there’s a catch: the tax is scheduled to come into full force again in 2011.
On Tuesday, The New York Times editorial page came out against total repeal of the death tax, claiming that such an action “would cut taxes for the wealthiest families.” Other liberals joined the fray as well. Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby called repeal “unfair, while that newspaper’s editors claimed that repeal “would encourage hereditary elites to entrench themselves.”
These newspapers are recycling a tired liberal myth: that repealing the death tax once and for all only benefits the wealthiest Americans.
MyHeritage.org has put together a Myth Buster to debunk this liberal distortion. These are the facts on the death tax.
Repealing the immoral death tax will benefit all Americans. The death tax:
- Punishes hard work by small business owners and hurts their families
- Affects the millions of Americans who are employed by small businesses
The death tax is a poor tax policy because it:
- Discourages savings and investment
- Undermines job creation and wage growth
- Prevents the economy from achieving its full potential
- Contradicts the central promise of American life: wealth creation
The death tax is immoral because it punishes those people who tax policy is intended to help.
- Women and minority small-business owners
- Farmers
- Workers
- Low-income people
In fact, the death tax is in many ways a regressive tax, since the wealthiest Americans can end up paying less.
Marriage amendment rejected
 The Senate voted Wednesday to reject the Marriage Protection Amendment, garnering only 49 of the required 60 votes to end debate on the subject and allow an up-or-down vote on the amendment. The amendment would have defined marriage as between one man and one woman and would have prevented activist courts from redefining the traditional definition of marriage to include same-sex marriage.
How to fix education
According to a recent study, Heritage’s Dan Lips reports, almost a third of eighth-graders have a “below basic” understanding of math, and almost that many have “below basic” reading skills.
Worse, our nation’s public schools are not up to the challenge. In fact, 2,112 schools have been identified as not making adequate improvements over the past five years.
Instead of turning to the same failing public schools for solutions, Lips writes, America should allow parents to choose which schools their child attends. “The Bush Administration’s America’s Opportunity Scholarships for Kids initiative would provide real school choice to American parents,” he explains.
“In addition to helping these children,” Lips continues, “the Opportunity Scholarship initiative would provide a model for how federal, state, and local policymakers can provide better educational opportunities for America’s disadvantaged students through student-centered reforms.”
Until pork do us part
Many Congressmen seek to defend their special-interest earmarks against charges of waste and corruption. But as Americans for Prosperity noticed the other day, one Congressman went so far as to get married on his own pork project.
The Associated Press reports that the Congressman was “married on a former railroad bridge overlooking Damascus on the Virginia Creeper Trail.” It turns out, according to the Congressman’s campaign website, that he secured a $750,000 earmark to convert the old railroad trestle into a modern bike path.
In other news
- The Bush administration has weighed in against the racist and unconstitutional Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act. "The administration strongly opposes passage" of the proposal, reads a letter from the Bush administration to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, since such a proposal would "raise difficult Constitutional issues."
- A top United Nations official accused the United States on Tuesday of “failing to stand up for [the UN] against its domestic critics” and permitting “too much unchecked U.N.-bashing and stereotyping.” America’s ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, replied that “to have the deputy secretary-general criticize the United States in such a manner can only do grave harm to the United Nations. And even worse was the condescending and patronizing tone about the American people.”
- Reporter Bill Sammon of The Washington Examiner notes that the media has been downplaying President Bush’s victories in order to stick to its “conventional wisdom of a presidency on the skids.” These victories include the confirmation of Judge Brett Cavanaugh and CIA Director Michael Hayden, plus the extension of the tax cuts and some foreign policy advances.
- The World Cup soccer tournament begins Friday in Germany. Here’s hoping the Americans beat the rest of the world at their own game!
Coming up at Heritage
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Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
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