Point 'em toward the clue phone
James Taranto in Best of the Web:

What puts us in mind of this is another Y2K-like scare in the air: the fear that America liberating Iraq will cause a new wave of Muslim terrorism. The argument isn't that Iraq will use terrorism as a tactic in the war; indeed, many of the same people issuing this warning also steadfastly deny that Saddam Hussein has anything to do with terrorists. Rather, it is that overthrowing Saddam will inflame the Muslim world and provide the impetus for more terror.

This claim--call it Y2K3--is everywhere, but we'll just cite a few examples. The Washington Post's William Raspberry, in a column that rehearses every defeatist argument he can cram into 800 words, declares: "Even a war that ostensibly would be waged against terrorism would have the likely effect of generating new legions of anti-American terrorists throughout the Arab world, and maybe here as well." Over at the New York Times, poor little Nick Kristof got himself so spooked over the putative threat last week that we hope he's sleeping with a night light on. And the Associated Press reports that the Vatican hopes to convince Washington that liberating Iraq isn't worth "irritating a billion of Islamics," in the words of Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the pope's secretary of state.

These boys just haven't been keeping up if they think the current level of Islamic terrorism is somehow acceptable. And they haven't got even a whiff of a clue, if they think rolling over would stop the terrorists. I wonder if any of them have heard of "Live Free or Die" or "Don't Tread on Me" or "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!"? I know, it was left out of their textbooks, and there was a lot of bumpf instead about how it was all the fault of the USA.

On the other hand, I'm sure Kristof is quite fetching in a burqua.