Wes Vernon, NewsMax.com
Thursday, May 13, 2004

“People need to see visibly that these things are going on,” Sen. James M. Inhofe, R-Okla., told NewsMax.com today.

In the videotaped beheading of 26-year-old Nick Berg, Americans need to see this face of evil for themselves, the senator said, “because people tend to weaken, and they don’t know the nature” of the monstrous foe that wants to kill Americans “until they see something like this.”

“We’ve seen it before. We saw it with the Wall Street Journal reporter [Daniel Pearl].” But, “Never since Adolph Hitler have we seen anything like this.”

That is why this war on terror “is so important,” in the senator’s view. “And the only way to keep this from happening in the future to more and more people — and maybe many, many people — is to win this war against terrorism.”

Sen. Inhofe, whose affable personality, combined with his stalwart conservatism, has made him am effective advocate for principle on Capitol Hill, told NewsMax the “purely political” effort to oust Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would, if successful, only aid the very enemy we face.

The GOP senator believes it is particularly deplorable that presumptive Democrat presidential nominee John Kerry is using the “Rumsfeld should resign” jihad to raise money.

“Those who are demanding that he [Rumsfeld] resign are people who really hate George W. Bush and want to inflict damage, with no regard to the fact that you can’t change your chief in the middle of a war.” That, the Oklahoman says, “is totally unreasonable, but that’s the kind of people we’re dealing with.”

President Bush has vowed to go after the people who did this to Berg, but the senator was reminded those terrorists are prepared to die for their cause.

“Going after them is simply continuing to prosecute the war on terror, and I’m sure that’s what he is doing, and this should be an additional motivator for him,” Inhofe concluded.

Editor's note: