Orson Scott Card, Smoking!

Orson is the one American that everyone should read before the election.

Orson Scott Card (Democrat, Sci-Fi writer, historical fiction writer and American Patriot) in an article titled "Why We Are Winning and How We Can Still Lose" reviews the book called Shadow War: The Untold Story of How Bush Is Winning the War on Terror, by Richard Miniter.

This is another outstanding review. He is a great writer who is also a patriotic American. There has not been a more articulate Democrat speaking out on behalf the President and the American people during this election year. He starts:

Kerry and the other Democrats have made a series of charges against President Bush and his administration -- that the Iraq campaign was a distraction from the "real war" against Al Qaeda; that the Patriot Act is not necessary and that it is being abused; that Bush "let Bin Laden get away" at Tora Borah.

Are these charges true?

What follows is an outstanding review of the book. Bottomline he states, "This is the one book that every American should read before this election."

Toward the end of this column he expresses how each candidate would or has contributed to the war on terror.

Bush's Personal Contribution.

Naturally, most of what President Bush has personally done is to choose from the many alternatives presented to him by his advisers. The president doesn't go out and personally collect information; he does not personally develop weapons systems; he does not lay out specific military campaigns.

Bush has, however, made clear strategic choices that made it possible for our forces to be effective in the war on terror. For one thing, the decision to hold state sponsors of terror accountable transformed the war into something that we might win. Without the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, governments would still behave as if they could thumb their noses at us with impunity; those campaigns are the foundation of the newly cooperative attitude of many governments.

Bush also made a very specific decision that has been crucial. He decided, against the advice of many, to order that some of our remotely-piloted surveillance aircraft be armed. He had to overcome much institutional resistance to get it done -- but because of his foresight and insistence, when a Predator spots a terrorist driving along a lonely highway in Yemen, we don't have to wait an hour for a jet to be scrambled from an aircraft carrier. The Predator that spotted the bad guy can launch its missile and kill him on the spot.

We owe that capability to President Bush, just as the Union troops in the Civil War owed their fast breech-loading rifles to President Lincoln, who virtually forced these weapons on a reluctant military.

Most important, though, is the fact the President Bush has shown, since 9/11, a firm resolve to carry the war to the enemy and to keep fighting over the years it will take to bring the war to a successful conclusion.

The troops, as a whole, believe in President Bush's leadership, and don't you doubt it. They know that when they go into battle, their efforts will not be wasted.

It is a well-known fact that actual combat soldiers invariably express an attitude of cynicism about "those idiots" who give them stupid orders and foul things up. And nothing gets you ridiculed more quickly in a combat unit than an expression of gung-ho patriotism or enthusiasm for combat.

But underneath the social behavior of soldiers is their deep morale. Regardless of what they say, they have to believe in their cause and trust their leaders or they can't fight.

It's too hard to overcome natural fear and put your life at risk, if you don't have a powerful underlying belief in the worthiness of your cause and the effectiveness of your leadership.

Our enemies have that morale -- they believe in the lies their leaders tell them about how God wants them to blow up innocent people in order to bring the world into subjection to "God's will" as interpreted by Osama Bin Laden or Ayatollah Khomenei. They believe that if they die, their cause will be advanced.

Under President Bush, our soldiers also believe in their cause -- and their cause is not a lie. They know that because they are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and a hundred other smaller struggles around the world, they are protecting their homes and families and their way of life.

They know that their leaders are being careful of their lives while providing them with training and equipment to make them as effective as possible in the field.

They know that no army in history has ever been so powerful against its enemies while being so protective of innocent civilian lives.

They know, above all, that they are led by a President who intends to win and believes in their struggle.

That is the minimum condition for victory. Without that morale, without those firm beliefs, soldiers fight like ... well, like the Arab forces that have been swept away by Israeli armies in the past. (And when Arab soldiers believed in their commanders and were well led, as under Anwar Sadat in 1973, they showed the clear difference that morale makes.)

What Would Kerry Contribute?

John Kerry is quite possibly the worst possible commander-in-chief for a nation at war that has ever been seriously considered during a political campaign. There is no aspect of the war on terror that his record shows him capable of or even interested in promoting.

And despite his claim that he could assemble a multinational force to firmly pursue our enemies, we know this crucial fact: In 1991, when we had a U.N. resolution, a multinational force, and an enemy that had invaded another country, threatened to control the world's supply of oil, and had a record of using weapons of mass destruction which we knew he had, Kerry still voted against the Gulf War.

Kerry is the enemy of American military power, even when used multilaterally in support of international law. He will never, ever be capable of using our military effectively or carefully, despite the lies he tells during the process of a campaign.

And I call them lies because they so obviously are lies. Democrats speculate without evidence about President Bush's and Vice-President Cheney's motives all the time, accusing them of deception without a shred of evidence.

But Kerry's claim to being tougher and smarter about military matters than Bush is so obviously false that we should be laughing whenever he makes it. He has been wrong on every defense system, on every vote in his entire political career. If Kerry's will had prevailed, we would have no military that was capable of resisting our enemies.

And that is precisely the reason why the fanatic left wing of the Democratic Party is so eager to elect John Kerry. Because they know he's lying about his intentions concerning the war. They're counting on it. If they believed that he actually meant what he says about the war on terror, they would never vote for him.

If as Orson says "Shadow War" is the book "every American should read before this election", then I would say Orson is the American that everyone should read before the election.