Posted on 10/04/2005 4:05:19 AM PDT by Convert from ECUSA
Let's be honest. The so-called "Global War on Terror" is not going brilliantly just now. While our forces on the front lines continue to do their difficult missions with courage and competence, morale is sagging at home. Receding memories of September 11, 2001 and a sense of lost momentum -- if not of futility -- have combined with the effects of natural disasters and political ones. Support has eroded for the war effort and for those who lead it. Worse yet, our enemies are emboldened by the demonstrations and calls for withdrawal from the Iraqi front. They redouble their efforts to kill and maim Iraqis and, if possible, American and other Coalition personnel. These terrorists are confident that doing so will reinforce popular demands to set an early date for bringing the troops home. All other things being equal, this cycle could continue for some time in a sort of death-spiral. The problem is that its end result would be not only defeat and mayhem in Iraq. It would have devastating consequences far beyond the Tigris and Euphrates. That is because we are not, in fact, fighting a global war on terror. It is a global war, all right. But it should instead be called the "War for the Free World." Such a designation has the following advantages: • It is accurate. We who love freedom are locked in a struggle to the death with totalitarian enemies who subscribe to ideologies that require our destruction. Sound familiar? The Nazis, Fascists, Imperial Japanese and Soviet Communists had in mind for us the same fate. We had to wage war effectively (using non-military as well as military means) on a global scale to defeat each of them in turn. Today, the immediate threat to the Free World comes from Islamofascism
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
-- yet another totalitarian ideology, this time masquerading as a religion. Most Muslims around the world do not subscribe to the Islamist agenda. They are increasingly being forced to embrace it, or at least go along with it, however, under threat of violence or other coercive techniques. By demonstrating our resolve to resist the Islamofascists and to help non-Islamist Muslims to do so as well, we can enlarge the Free World and secure the allies we will need to prevail. • It makes clear that the war is about much more than Iraq and Afghanistan. Seductive as the idea sounds, withdrawing from such far-flung battlefields is no solution. Since the fight is about nothing less than whether there will continue to be a Free World -- one in which we are able to speak, publish, assemble, vote and practice our religions as we wish -- ceding ground to our enemies will only bring closer the day when we cannot do any of those things. • It restores the moral clarity that Americans -- and other democracies -- typically need to sustain war's expensive costs (in both human and financial terms). There can be no moral equivalence between our Islamofascist enemies on the one hand and, on the other, those who are fighting and dying to protect freedom here at home and, as a bulwark for our own security, to promote it elsewhere. Shortly after September 11, President Bush rightly said to the nations of the world "You are either with us or against us." That is true. You are either part of, and willing to help defend, the Free World or you are with the unfree. The latter are at best, playing a double-game. Among them are nations like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China and Russia -- all of whom profess friendship, but are simultaneously working to support our enemies and undermine the interests of the Free World. In theory, it is possible carefully to make tactical arrangements with such states. As a practical matter, however, doing so usually results in a loss of moral clarity and an overlooking of the unfriendly, if not overtly hostile, things they do. Examples include successive U.S. administrations; giving the Saudis a pass as they continue to underwrite Islamofascist proselytizing and terror; tolerating the training of terrorists in and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction from Pakistan; ignoring China's arms and oil deals with our Islamist enemies; and overlooking wholesale Russian transfers to China of weapons designed to kill Americans. • It harkens back to a time when the American people understood that they had a critical role to play in the war effort, just as they do at the moment. Today, as in the past, we need to fight as though our lives, fortunes and freedom depend on it, for indeed they do. We need to put the country on a true war footing in which every American can and must be asked to play a part in order to preserve the Free World. Now is, in short, the time for a return to first principles. Properly labeling the present conflict is not a panacea. But making it clear that we are engaged in nothing less than a War for the Free World will make it easier to take the steps necessary, both at home and abroad, to secure the victory we literally cannot live without.
Ping!
Well articulated. Thanks for posting article.
The media is doing its best to make sure that Vietnam repeats itself. Their lies and deliberate disinformation campaigns led to the turning of public opinion here at home away from the war.
It was clearly obvious to anyone who lived through the Vietnam War period that the media tricks employed then were being re-loaded for the Iraq War and the WOT when they media shutdown reruns of the 9/11 attack. The last thing that leftists and the MSM wanted was anyone remembering why we went to war in the first place.
As this article points out, we're falling for it.
More's the shame on us for letting the MSM and the leftists get away with this tactic and not demanding our free speech rights to be informed by seeing 9/11 video footage on a regular basis. Despite our good intentions to "Never Forget", we have allowed the media to manipulate the news so that we are forgetting.
That "we" crap sticks in my craw, Dusty, because I'd sure like to know how I'm "allowing" them to do anything. What the hell are we supposed to do? Courtesy of people like George Soros and Peter Lewis, etc., they could get all sorts of ad revenue pulled and still flip the bird to us. I can think of a couple of ways to put the fear of God into them, but they aren't exactly legal, let alone moral.
The media didnt make up Operation Rolling Thunder where pilots were not allowed to bomb SAM missle sites while they were being constructed only when they were shooting down our planes ,or pilots were also not allowed to bomb the ports in the north where all the food and ammunition was coming in to supply the communist troops,That was because the " Breakfast CLUB " of Lyndon Johnson and Robert Mcnamara were running the War from Washington.They did not know what was going on .
I hate to say itn but when you read our men launch these offensives into these towns on the border this month then you read a month later they have to go back it makes you wonder if history is not repeating itself.
Well said, DustyMoment!
"yet another totalitarian ideology, this time masquerading as a religion. Most Muslims around the world do not subscribe to the Islamist agenda. They are increasingly being forced to embrace it, or at least go along with it, however, under threat of violence or other coercive techniques. By demonstrating our resolve to resist the Islamofascists and to help non-Islamist Muslims to do so as well, we can enlarge the Free World and secure the allies we will need to prevail."
- In other words...we need to destroy the ideology of Islam. Islam was founded in evil and is at the root of the global conflict. It's time for muslims to stop venerating a murderous, pedophile, rapist, torturous, thieving, thug and psychopath as a prophet.
This is a war for the message at home, while our troops are fighting away. We have to fight the message of the left with our own message. Letters to editors, calls to talk shows, actually carrying a sign at a demonstration.
See my new tagline, as I retire my old one: Do not believe the garbage the media is feeding you back home. ---Allegra (in Iraq)
-- yet another totalitarian ideology, this time masquerading as a religion.
Not true. It may be a bogus religion, but our enemy actually believes it is doing its god's bidding. That creates a very different mandate than if the ultimate leader is a human being.
Islam is a kind of religion that is offended by all other faiths and ideas. So if you are a serious, believing muslim you know that the best way to prevent insult to Islam and Allah is for the whole world to serve Allah, or to at least live under Sharia. Good muslims believe that is required of them by their god.
How much more powerful is that than an ideology?
The enemy is incorrectly defined by our leadership (as well as by commentators, like this one). I know, I know...everyone says "well, you can't define the enemy as devout Islam, can you?" I agree, that is an awfully tall order. But what if it is the truth!
Additionally, if we are at war with a religion, can we defend ourselves against it with military might ONLY. I think that after we honestly define the enemy, we need to honestly define the frontlines of this war. Some are military fronts, some are political and social, and others are...what? But whatever they are, they aren't just military. IMO opinion our leadership is greatly underestimating the danger and the nature of this enemy. This is not a conventional war...and it cannot be won with conventional thinking and conventional weapons and strategies only.
You said it; until we start viewing it as much of a threat as Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan were in the 30s and 40s, and as Communism was (and is) in the 40s-80s - and gear our nation accordingly.......
It's truly ironic that at a time we're winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, we've apparently lost the hearts and minds of many Americans.
Exactly!
..."Thanks to Ross Perot, we had 8 years of Clinton/Gore."...
The blame for Clinton/Gore being elected can be laid directly at the feet of that little bastard Perot. His ego and hatred of GHWB got in the way of any thought processes. His professions of "love" for America are offset by his near-traitorous action of entering the election in 1992, throwing the vote to Clinton. What followed is sordid history, damaging America more than any other period in modern history.
talking point for discussions with friends (and others) who do not yet see the distortions the "news" is selling ---
With a total focus of every major news organization on New Orleans after the hurricane and flood, they reported lies and distortions of the situation there. Also they virtually ignored reporting on Mississippi and Alabama, because it was more difficult to get the story, and the situation couldn't be portrayed as quite so desperate.
If "news" media cannot investigate and relay the truth in our own country, how can we rely on anything they print or show about the situation in Iraq?!
--Boris
Thanks C from E, for the ping.
Good points but I just wish our leaders had enough faith in the people of this country to say ,we did not send 500,000 troops to Iraq because we dont intend to take over the country only to throw out the dictator,we know this is a dirty job and we have to sacrifice some of our people in order not to inflame the entire middle east .We all know this is what is happening ,I agree that progress is being made and at a terrible cost to our troops ,but be up front that this is a limited operation because it has to be .
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