RUSH: Pete in Tucson, Arizona, as it’s time to go to the phones, you, sir, are first. It’s great to have you with us.
CALLER: Good to hear from you, Rushbo. Mega Vietnam veteran and law enforcement dittos, Rush. Oh, man, it’s an honor to talk to you, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I’m pretty excited. The topic I wanted to bring up was I came across this article, I’m a Vietnam veteran, I came across this article in of all places the Washington Post by an author Josh White, and it said: “Soldiers in Iraq Say Pullout Would Have Devastating Results.” I was like, like blown away, I couldn’t believe it, talking about dozens of soldiers had mentioned leaving Iraq would have devastating consequences.
RUSH: Yeah, I’m like you. I have that story here, holding it here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. It is strange. It’s dated today. Here’s the headline: “Soldiers in Iraq Say Pullout Would Have Devastating Results — For the U.S. troops fighting in Iraq, the war is alternately violent and hopeful, sometimes very hot and sometimes very cold. It is dusty and muddy, calm and chaotic, deafeningly loud and eerily quiet. The one thing the war is not, however, is finished, dozens of soldiers across the country said in interviews. And leaving Iraq now would have devastating consequences, they said. With a potentially historic U.S. midterm election on Tuesday and the war in Iraq a major issue at the polls, many soldiers said the United States should not abandon its effort here. … The soldiers declined to discuss the political jousting back home, but they expressed support for the Bush administration’s approach to the war, which they described as sticking with a tumultuous situation to give Iraq a chance to stand on its own.”
There’s even a liberal soldier here, Pete, “Capt. Jim Modlin, 26, of Oceanport, N.J., said he thought the situation in Iraq had improved between his deployment in 2003 and his return this year as a liaison officer to Iraqi security forces with the 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, based here on FOB Sykes outside Tall Afar. Modlin described himself as more liberal than conservative and said he had already cast his absentee ballot in Texas.” The question now is will it be counted. “He said he believed that U.S. elected officials would lead the military in the right direction, regardless of what happens Tuesday. ‘Pulling out now would be as bad or worse than going forward with no changes,’ Modlin said.” So it is an amazing story.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, they even mentioned about the victory in Iraq. Did you see that part? You’re talking about victory is a moving target, they said that one relies heavily on the Iraqi people gaining trust in the Iraqi security forces and the ability of the Iraqi government to support essential services.
RUSH: Well, you know, yeah, I did, and I tell you, the reason I’m hesitating is because you’re taking into another area I had intended to do later but let me go ahead and do it now. All last week, when it was announced that the Saddam verdict was going to come down on Sunday, what was the reaction we got? “Well, there’s going to be chaos! There’s going to be rioting in the streets. It’s going to be hellacious. It’s going to be horrible.” Then there was even some Democrat speculation that Karl Rove had timed the verdict to come out on Sunday as a November Surprise, just like Rove is manipulating the gasoline prices. Well, from what I have read, ladies and gentlemen, they are dancing in the streets in Iraq. Well, of course in Tikrit they’re mad, that’s where Saddam’s from, but countrywide and in Baghdad, these riots have not taken place. In fact, they kicked Ramsey Clark out of the courtroom. 
They said, “No, Mr. Clark, you are the disruption, you get out,” threw him out. All of the things that they told us, just like they told us the elections wouldn’t happen — I’m talking about the liberals and the media — just like they told us that there wouldn’t be enough voter participation if the elections were held, it was too soon. Everything they’ve said wouldn’t work has worked. Now the Iraqis are not rioting. They’re celebrating. They’re throwing parties. They’re happy for this. And now we’ve got international experts — and I’m getting back here, Pete, to your point about what you quoted as victory being a moving target over there.
We have the New York Times and the European Union, European Union saying, “I think the death penalty is uncalled for,” they’re saying collectively there, they’re totally opposed to it, doesn’t make any sense, won’t advance anything. New York Times has gone out and found legal experts and human rights activists, how quaint, to question the validity of the proceedings in the trial and to suggest that perhaps Saddam did not get a fair trial. The Democrats continue, if you just give them a chance, to show us whose side they’re on. This illustrates something else, too. They have a total misunderstanding of how Arabs, Iraqis, do things. You know, one of the reasons we didn’t put Saddam on trial was to let the Iraqis do it themselves, and everybody that’s critical now of the verdict and the sentence of hanging is running around saying, “Well, this is convoluted. War crimes trials like this; it has been a mockery. Why, Nuremberg, that’s the model of a war crimes trial, why, this is crazy, 39 days of testimony, that’s not nearly enough. Saddam didn’t have a chance. His attorneys are being murdered and judges are being murdered.” That’s the way they do things, folks, and we left it up to them. They have a court system. We didn’t impose one on them. They have a trial system, and it’s being used here far better than Saddam’s. If Saddam thought you were guilty and wanted you dead, that was it.
Saddam had a trial. They’re just different than we are, but we have all of these pinheads, these pointy-headed intellectuals who are running around trying to throw their standards of everything onto the Iraq conflict, from the war to the judicial system, to how we’re handling the friction between the three rival tribes, the Sunnis, the Shi’ites, and the Kurds, when in fact this is the way they do things. It may look like a mess to us, it may look like a mess to these intellectuals who have all these fears about war crimes trials, but this is how they do it. That was the whole point of granting them sovereignty, to handle their own affairs in their country, democratic fashion.
I mean all these people saying we shouldn’t be imposing our will, now they want us to impose our court system on these people even though we shouldn’t be imposing democracy on people, we shouldn’t be imposing ourselves, we shouldn’t be doing it ? and now all of a sudden we should? And why? Because the Saddam verdict is not what they wanted, they don’t like the hanging? They’re afraid of the political results? Democrats are running around saying, “It won’t mean anything, it won’t mean anything.” Okay, then why you worried about it? I’ll tell you, on the face of it, just with the basic news that’s attached to this; it establishes that there was a worthwhile reason to rid this place of the guy. At that elementary level of this, it scares the Democrats all to hell.
No, I’m not making it up. It’s the UK Telegraph. “Saddam death sentence sparks dancing on streets of Baghdad. Thousands of Iraqis sang, danced, and unleashed celebratory bursts of gunfire yesterday as Hussein finally faced the consequences of his tyrannical rule in a Baghdad courtroom. At the conclusion of his 13 month trial the former dictator found guilty of crimes against humanity and told by the chief judge he would be hanged. Saddam was shaken but defiant as the sentence was read out in the court, set up to try him and his allies. He tried repeatedly to drown out the judge by shouting, ‘God is great and long live Iraq.’ His defense team condemned the verdict as victor’s justice.”
My friends, remember this, when we meet at dawn tomorrow, remember this: Saddam Hussein would never have been convicted for war crimes if we had listened to Democrats. The verdict that came out over the weekend would never have been reached. Saddam Hussein would still be in power, because the only real war criminal in Nancy Pelosi’s America is George W. Bush. This is all your choice tomorrow. We meet at dawn.