The USA has troops fighting in numerous locales, especially Iraq and Afghanistan, against the most brutal of enemies. Israel is engaged in a ground war against a terrorist organization that murders Jews with rockets and calls for Israel’s annihilation. India has endured many years of Islamic terrorism, including the recent atrocity in Mumbai. The British have home-grown a population of Muslim terrorists, though thanks to the skill of their police and counter-intelligence forces, managed to prevent a gigantic episode of mass murder.
This is a global war. There are many fronts. The Leftist delusion that this is all Bush’s fault would be comical if it were not dangerous. 9/11 happened before we invaded Iraq, after all. The “Bojinka” aircraft massacre plan would have occurred long before that. The first WTC attack almost brought down one of the Twin Towers, and was meant to.
This is a long war. It has been going on for a long time, and will be with us for a long time to come. The countries whose flags are on our masthead are finding themselves compelled to be allies in a war they would prefer not to be involved in. But they are in it, like it or not.
The “Islamic fascists” as President Bush calls them, are going to be defeated. But not soon, and at no small cost.
The Aussie flag belongs up there, too, and these days, the Canadian — given that the jihadis were caught planning to behead prime Minister Harper.
“The “Islamic fascists” as President Bush calls them, are going to be defeated.”
Not unless and until we can disassemble the media machine that is acting as the propaganda wing of the baddies.
Yeah, I’ll put up more flags.
Though I am usually critical of leftist views on the war on terror, I doubt that it can be won by brute military force. I think there is something inherently wrong or rather say different in Muslim society that gives them the feeling that they are being opressed. To give you an example, I have known educated muslims in India who feel that the “state has let them down”. I argue that the same “state” has let down so many other castes/sects but this hasnt prevented them from making progress and by progress I mean getting educated, getting better jobs and hence having a better standard of living. No wonder the muslim community in India has one of the lowesr literacy rates and consequently the lowest employment rates as well.
I think one of the main reasons is that they dont have a strong leadership setup. For a good part of the 58 years of post independence history of India the community has been used by political parties for votes. Only now is that some muslims are coming forward to form parties of their own but unfortunately they believe that their upliftment largely depends on the political power that they wield. Instead if they have good intentions they should be asking muslims to have lesser number of kids and sending them ll to school…. coz education is a sureshot way to climb the social ladder.
This war will not come to an end until they begin to introspect.
Sid,
Muslims are told that they are superior. so if they find themselves in a bad position, they assume its a conspiracy by infidels.
Muslims in america are on the average successful, that is why there are no domestic suicide bombers yet/
Re: “islamic fascists”
I read recently that this term has only recently entered the President’s vocabulary. Is that true?
Re: “Not unless and until we can disassemble the media machine that is acting as the propaganda wing of the baddies.”
This one will be tougher than it looks at first blush. The problem includes not only our corporate media but the rising international media sources in the Middle East. Tony Corn’s Policy Review essay on WWIV makes some interesting observations in this regard:
http://www.policyreview.org/000/corn.html
“Since the end of the Cold War era, the U.S. has enjoyed an unprecedented “command of the commons,” but as the 2003 Iraq war made painfully clear, in contrast to the 1991 Gulf War (during which CNN had a global monopoly), the U.S. no longer enjoys the “command of the airwaves.” Throughout the 1990s, the emergence of global satellite televisions in Europe (Euronews) and the Arab world (Al-Jazeera) have combined to create a new correlation of forces; and while the Pentagon has recently traded the traditional concept of “battlefield” for the more comprehensive concept of “battlespace,” military planners and commanders alike have yet to fully realize that ours is as much the age of the “three-screen war” as that of the “three-block war.”
…
Al Qaeda and Al-Jazeera, though more recent phenomena, have managed in less than two decades to become the recruiting, training, and advertising bases of the global jihad.
…
The illiteracy rate in the Middle East being around 38 percent, television is the most common source of information — and disinformation. Granted, not all the 120 existing Muslim satellite television stations are jihadist; but thanks to those that are (from al-Manar to al-Jazeera), the percentage of Palestinians endorsing suicide bombings has already jumped from 20 percent to 80 percent between 1996 and 2002. In Iraq itself, and for similar reasons, the number of suicide bombings has jumped from one a week to 20 a week in the past 18 months; and 12 months after the beginning of the Iraq war, the percentage of Muslims worldwide supporting suicide bombing against U.S. forces in Iraq ranged from 31 percent in Turkey to 70 percent in Jordan, according to a Pew survey. As it now stands, the Middle East is at once undereducated and over-(dis)informed.”
Re: “Though I am usually critical of leftist views on the war on terror, I doubt that it can be won by brute military force.”
Tony Corn’s essay addresses some of the peaceful things that need to be done to confront the problem. He had more solid suggestions for action than I’ve seen elsewhere. He seems to approaching it from a State Dept. background.