Where would you 'engage' them?

Pete Hoekstra has a question for the folks who want us out of Iraq.

'If you won't engage radical Islam in Iraq, where will you engage it?'

Uh, Afghanistan?

The question is so stupid it easily meets the Dawkins criterion for ridicule. Why does he say "engage" when he means "fight"? "Oh, I think Antarctica would be a fine place to engage radical Islam, only a few penguins to bother." "Oh us anti war people are just wimps, we don't want to fight anyone anywhere, we are not real men like that buff Pete Hoekstra." "Let's fight em in Indonesia, there's more Muslims there than anywhere else."

It is quite clear that there is no better place for a war than Iraq. Of course, Iraq is also a really bad place to have a war.

If we take his comment seriously, it implies that we have to fight 'radical Islam' somewhere, be it Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Algeria, etc. I suspect that comment will not make any friends in the Islamic world.

It is worth remembering also that the Congress did not vote to authorize a war against radical Islam in Iraq. (a)
AUTHORIZATION.—The President is authorized to use the
Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary
and appropriate in order to—
(1) defend the national security of the United States against
the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and
(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council
resolutions regarding Iraq.

I have to say that on rereading the authorization, I do not see how it applies to the current situation. Iraq poses no continuing threat to the U.S. (never did, of course.) I haven't gone throught the laundry list of relevant UNSC resolutions, but common suggests that none are still relevant.

What Hoekstra really wants to say is if we don't fight them there we will have to fight them here, that favorite idiocy of the pro-death pro-war faction in this country, but he has somehow acquired a gram of shame.