The Captain says the case is closed, and he’s right about that. Realistically, though, it was closed long ago, and the only reason we keep arguing these same things over and over is because the petulant, whiny brats on the Left won’t let it go and admit they were wrong all along. As with their mindless “Bush stole the election” mantra, nothing matters to them except that the world conform to their view, and reality, truth, and cold, hard facts be damned. Facts, you say? Why, yes indeedy:

A few days ago, I posted a translation of a document culled from the captured Iraqi documents that the US found during Operation Iraqi Freedom. This particular memo, dated March 17, 2001, comes from a brigadier general in the Iraqi Air Force and requests a list of volunteers from all units under his command for suicide attackers. The memo explicitly explains the targets for these terrorist attacks, as the original translation from Joseph Shahda shows…

The top secret letter 2205 of the Military Branch of Al Qadisya on 4/3/2001 announced by the top secret letter 246 from the Command of the military sector of Zi Kar on 8/3/2001 announced to us by the top secret letter 154 from the Command of Ali Military Division on 10/3/2001 we ask to provide that Division with the names of those who desire to volunteer for Suicide Mission to liberate Palestine and to strike American Interests and according what is shown below to please review and inform us.

When I posted this document, readers of this blog questioned the accuracy of the translation. People know that Joseph translated this for Free Republic, a strongly pro-war website, and that it was distributed by Laurie Mylroie, another pro-war commentator. Skeptics felt that this pedigree lent itself to a possibly warped interpretation of the memo. While the accuracy of the translation remained in question, the actual text — which showed an active Iraqi terror program aimed at Americans — would not get the attention it deserved.

In order to solve this problem, I decided to hire two Arabic translators on my own.

I found a translation service, Language 123, that employs a number of translators who work as free agents. The first translator, Nabil Bouitieh, works in the UK as a full-time translator for several government services. He has language certificates from Karl Marx University in Dresden, the German Cultural Center in Damascus, a degree in translation from Polytechnic of Central London, and a Masters of Diplomatic Studies from the Diplomatic Academy of London. Separately, I also hired Hamania H, who works from Damascus. She earned several degrees in language at Saint Joseph University in Beirut, including masters in translation, foreign languages, and bachelors in both areas and in law as well.

Neither of them knew that I had asked the other to translate the document. I split out page 6 from the original PDF and sent it to both along with payment. They both returned their translations today, and their results make it clear that Joseph Shahda had it right all along.

You will note that all three translations of this document — performed by three different people working independently of each other — all translate this section almost identically. All three explicitly show that the Iraqi military had ordered a call for volunteers to carry out suicide attacks on American interests, six months before 9/11 and two years almost to the day prior to our invasion.

This confirms that Saddam Hussein and his regime had every intention of attacking the US, either here or abroad or both, using members of their own military for terrorist attacks. That puts an end to all of the arguments about whether we should have attacked Iraq, we now know that Saddam and his military planned to attack us. This one document demonstrates that had we not acted to topple Saddam Hussein, he would have acted to kill Americans around the world.

UPDATE: Why “case closed”? Because this shows that Saddam had recruited suicide bombers to attack American interests — showing that destroying Saddam’s regime is an integral part of the war on terror, not a distraction.

Tell me again, Leftorrhoids, how Saddam’s Iraq was a peaceful, idyllic haven for sweet, innocent kite-flying children. Tell me again how Saddam had no plans or desire to attack Americans or, as these docs put it, “American interests.” Tell me again how Bush is a bigger threat, and a worse villain, than Saddam ever was.

Alternately, you could try your usual “reality”-based tactic of moving the goalposts yet again, claiming that none of this matters, that even if Saddam wanted to do us harm (and there can be no further argument about this — not from any reasonable person, anyway), he was well-contained by those collapsing and ineffectual sanctions you were all so anxious to do away with before the war.

Or perhaps you could just add to our entertainment and delight with another useless, pointless, frothing rant in the comments about how the Chimperor has doomed us all because of Kyoto, or Halliburton, or Cheneygate, or Fitzmas, or some such other off-topic and logic-bereft flogging of one of your long-dead hobbyhorses.

Or, better yet, you could just blow your anti-American antiwar bullshit right out your ass. I’m probably just about the only one in the blogosphere who’ll put it that bluntly (well, okay, besides Misha), but by God, somebody’s gotta say it.

It’s really as simple as this: Saddam Hussein was an enemy of our country, a promoter of terrorism, a provider of safe haven, money, and other aid to terrorists. Destroying his regime was essential to the WoT. And nothing any combination of snot-nosed, bedwetting antiwar pissants says will ever change that stark reality. The liberal position on this has collapsed so completely with each successive document translation as to resemble nothing more than a week-old pancaked possum on an Alabama roadside in August by now.

The Axis of Evil is real, and it remains a threat. Bush understated the roster by at least one (Saudi Arabia) for god only knows what reasons; hopefully, the next President can and will rectify that inexcusable error. But, no matter what trouble and woe may still confront us in post-war Iraq, the AofE’s numbers have now been reduced by one more just the same. And no thanks for that whatever are due to a dismayingly large number of American liberals — who were and are completely wrong, and who have been all along; who have cynically betrayed their own ideals with their blockheaded refusal to face facts; who have chosen to exercise their precious freedom of thought and expression by aligning themselves with their country’s enemies; and who clearly oppose not just Bush, not just his methods or strategery, but the WoT itself. It’s sad, but it’s true. At this late stage, there is simply no other possible conclusion to be reached.

Update! Christopher von Hitchens drives another spike into the Joe Wilson/Niger uranium Nosferatu:

It was from Niger that Iraq had originally acquired uranium in 1981, as confirmed in the Duelfer Report. In order to take the Joseph Wilson view of this Baathist ambassadorial initiative, you have to be able to believe that Saddam Hussein’s long-term main man on nuclear issues was in Niger to talk about something other than the obvious. Italian intelligence (which first noticed the Zahawie trip from Rome) found it difficult to take this view and alerted French intelligence (which has better contacts in West Africa and a stronger interest in nuclear questions). In due time, the French tipped off the British, who in their cousinly way conveyed the suggestive information to Washington. As everyone now knows, the disclosure appeared in watered-down and secondhand form in the president’s State of the Union address in January 2003.

If the above was all that was known, it would surely be universally agreed that no responsible American administration could have overlooked such an amazingly sinister pattern. Given the past Iraqi record of surreptitious dealing, cheating of inspectors, concealment of sites and caches, and declared ambition to equip the technicians referred to openly in the Baathist press as “nuclear mujahideen,” one could scarcely operate on the presumption of innocence.

Well, sure you could — if you were an idiot, with a political bat rattling around in your belfry (BDS) so vexingly as to have unhinged you completely. Which is just the unenviable position so many antiwarriors find themselves in even now. Too bad the liberal Renfields refuse to give up pining for their faithless, factless master: the notion that Saddam was harmless. To persist in that delusion, from whatever motivation, is to reveal oneself as not only completely unsuited to be entrusted with the wartime leadership of this nation, but as being only a short step from outright dementia.

Straitjackets, and plenty of them, stat!