Pearl Harbor occurred on 9/11. That decision was easy and uncomplicated. Here we must think carefully before deciding who will feel our wrath. Declaring war on Al-Qaeda would be like declaring war on the six aircraft carriers that launched the Pearl Harbor raid. Declaring war on "all terrorist groups" would be like declaring war on all Japanese aircraft carriers, or perhaps all Japanese warships and aircraft that had fired on us before the declaration of war.
The Pearl Harbor raid was only the biggest of a series of coordinated, devastating attacks from one end of the Pacific Ocean to the other. In the same 24-hour period, Japanese Army troops boarded the USS Wake Island, a gunboat anchored in a Chinese river, and captured the ship without a shot being fired. There was a submarine that surfaced off Midway Island and opened fire on our Marines with its deck gun. Japanese Army aircraft bombed our forces at Guam, Wake and the Philippines, and were followed within days by invasions in all three locations.
In those first 24 hours, all those attacks put together didn't cause as many deaths or as much damage as the Pearl Harbor raid. But they clearly communicated a comprehensive threat from an enemy that had made half of the world's surface into a combat zone.
Evidence of links between Al-Qaeda and Iraq is scarce. But there is no doubt that the terrorists who deliberately targeted and murdered five American students in Jerusalem in the summer of 2002 were sponsored by Iraq. There is no doubt that the terrorists who murdered Leon Klinghoffer and Robert Stethem in the 1980s were sponsored by Iraq.
Declaring war on Al-Qaeda and the Taliban would be like declaring war on the six carriers that launched the Pearl Harbor raid, plus the 16 ships that had escorted them, and ignoring the other attacks at Guam, Wake, the Philippines, Midway and China. We had to defeat the entire Japanese Navy and Army.
We also had to destroy the shipyards that built the warships, the factories that produced the aircraft and machine guns and artillery, and -- most important -- the training system that produced the pilots, the sailors and the soldiers. We had to declare war on Japan.
We have to declare war on not just the terrorist groups, but their sponsors as well. Invading Afghanistan and Iraq are only the initial campaigns of a war that will probably last 100 years. We have to destroy the training system that produces the young Muslim fanatics, who believe that the best way to die is in the cockpit of a hijacked Boeing 747, crashing into a skyscraper full of American civilians.
Declaring war on the entire Muslim religion would be like declaring war on Asia. Like the Muslims, there were millions of Asians (in the Philippines, China, India and even Vietnam) who were our allies. The vital contributions they made to the war effort saved hundreds of thousands of American lives. There were also millions of Asians who were neutral in that war, just as there are hundreds of millions of Muslims who are neutral in this one.
We must identify those radical elements of Islam -- whether they are secular socialists like Saddam Hussein and the Assad regime in Syria, or fundamentalist religious fanatics like Osama bin Laden and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- who have been brainwashing young Muslim men to murder Americans.
And we must resolve to neutralize each of them as soon as they are identified.
You say we must "resolve to neutralize each of them as soon as they are identified."
May I say that I would prefer to kill each of them as soon as they are identified as an active combatant.
Right, Bryan. It's only 99% of the Islamic world that makes the other 1% look bad. Islam is as Islam does.
Very thoughtful - I agree
Well, you just identified them. So, what do we do next, bomb them? I'm all for it. :-)
Hey, good to see ya, Bryan.
Excellent post.
And thanks for the invite to a very thoughful and appreciated posting
(Also Hugh Hewitt's commentary was great.)
Concur. But I bet you've missed several of the most valid comparisons, several of which you probably would not care for one bit.
Are you familiar with the Islamist terrorist attack known as the Broken Hill massacre? This war has been going on for quite some time, and the enemy knows it.