The three-year-plus war that began on September 11 is the strangest conflict in our history. It is not just that the first day saw the worst attack on American soil since our creation, or that we are publicly pledged to fighting a method — “terror” — rather than the concrete enemy of Islamic fascism that employs it.
Imagine that a weak Hitler in the mid-1930s never planned conventional war with the democracies. Instead, he stealthily would fund and train thousands of SS fanatics on neutral ground to permeate European society, convinced of its decadence and the need to return to a mythical time when a purer Aryan Volk reigned supreme. Such terrorists would bomb, assassinate, promulgate fascistic hatred in the media, and whine about Versailles, hoping insidiously to gain concessions from wearied liberal societies that would make ever more excuses as they looked inward and blamed themselves for the presence of such inexplicable evil. All the while, Nazi Germany would deny any connections to these “indigenous movements” and “deplore” such “terrorism,” even as the German people got a certain buzz from seeing the victors of World War I squirm in their discomfort. A triangulating Mussolini or Franco would use their good graces to “bridge the gap,” and seek a “peaceful resolution,” while we sought to “liberate” rather than defeat the German nation.
A third edge for the terrorists lies in the West itself. After 40 years of multiculturalism and moral equivalence — the wages of wealth and freedom unmatched in the history of civilization — many in the United States believe that they have evolved beyond the use of force. Education, money, dialogue, conflict resolution theory — all this and more can achieve far more than crude Abrams tanks and F-16s.
A bin Laden or Saddam is rare in the West. In our arrogance, we think such folk are more or less like ourselves and live in a similar world of reason and tolerance. The long antennae of the canny terrorists pick up on that self-doubt. Most of the rhetoric in bin Laden’s infomercials came right out of the Western media.
As September 11 fades in the memory, too many Americans feel that it is time to let bygones be bygones. Some now consider Islamic fascism and its method of terror a “nuisance” that will go away if we just come home. We are a society where many of our elite believe the killer bin Laden is less of a threat than the elected George Bush. Al Qaeda keeps promising to kill us all; meanwhile Ralph Nader wants the wartime president impeached for misuse of failed intelligence.
The terrorists have only one hope left to win the war they launched upon us: The hope that the American Will can be weakened; broken...
If they are right, may God have mercy on our souls.
1 comment:
I think that it is important to remember that in truth the "War on Terror" has in fact gone nowhere in the past two years.
Afghanistan is still home for OBL; well the best intelligence says he is somewhere between there and Pakistan.
The "War on WMD in Iraq" became the "War on Terror in Iraq" which then transmogrified into "Bringing FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY to Iraq". The sad fact is that it is rapidly becoming the "War to save George's Face".
I don't think that the war can be "lost" - in the sense of the future.
I sadly, most sadly, believe that over the past 18 months and on into the future "the allies" efforts in Iraq have achieved (will achieve) nothing more than creating more martyrs for the Islamic extremists, and empowering their new recruits as the US (in particular) continues to weaken its own position.
Yes, there have been successes by the Americans. No question of that.
The problem for the Americans is that bad sh!t sticks to the goodies because they are fighting against it, whereas the same bad sh!t is a legitimate weapon of war for the baddies.
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