Hunker Down, America: Terror War Will Last for Decades

The Orlando Sentinel ^ | January 26, 2004 | John C. Bersia

[quidnunc]

'I don't care if you call it World War III, World War IV or whatever. It's scary."

That was how one of my students described the current wave of terrorism, which began about a generation ago and really cranked up after the Cold War's end. President Bush repeatedly referred to the conflict in his recent State of the Union address, drawing special attention to the hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers deployed worldwide to counter the challenge.

Naysayers, who are predisposed toward disregarding what the president asserts on most any topic, believe that he exaggerates the danger. They see other motives in his keeping the nation fearful, on guard and distracted by global terrorism, such as a free hand for Bush to pursue his broader political agenda.

The critics have a point, but Americans should not allow such perceptions to keep them from viewing the terrorist threat with clear eyes. Simply put, the president has not overstated the zeal, reach, power and relentlessness of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Americans who doubt the prevalence and malevolent intentions of those groups do so at their own peril — and at the risk of psychological trauma, should ignorance leave them as unprepared for future terrorist attacks as they were on Sept. 11.

Instead, Americans had better steady themselves for the long haul in this struggle. The war against terrorism will continue through post-Bush presidencies, both Republican and Democrat, for decades to come.

-snip-

[js1138]

Now just as soon as you have been jailed or liquidated for expressing dissenting opinion, we can continue with the parallels to 1984.

[aristeides]

If somebody put in jail isn't even allowed to see a lawyer, how are we supposed to conduct any discussion with him?

[Henrietta]

Don't worry, he hasn't thought that far in advance...types like him rarely do!

I guess we should only worry about our personal freedoms when WE get put in jail, or as he says, "liquidated." Query: how can you fight for your rights after you are liquidated? Seems like it would be a bit difficult...

But hey, we're all free, right! Ignore the man behind the curtain! If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about!

[backhoe]

-Time to kick the tires & light the fires, folks- terrorism gathers across the World...--

[Henrietta]

And check out his home page, he has a list of people that he thinks should be suspended for their anti-Christian speech. Or should they be "liquidated?"

[Henrietta]

"Now just as soon as you have been jailed or liquidated for expressing dissenting opinion, we can continue with the parallels to 1984."

I'll continue with those parallels any time I want, thank you. Whatcha gonna do -- add me to the list of people on your FReeper page whom you want banned from FR for incorrect expression of opinion?

[Hollywoodghost]

The war is almost won. Slowly we are cleaning out the rats nets and sorting out the terrorists. It will be over when the Arab-Isreal thing gets sorted out (it will happen and in our lifetimes). War is just too messy to go on for a long time. Even the 100 years War was an on and off thing.


See you in time's square for the Victory Party when they bring in Osama.

[aristeides]

Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil.

[aristeides]

Shouldn't that be in Victory Square?

[Henrietta]

Every time you post a link like that, the terrorists win! Now shut up and pay yer taxes like a good citizen. /sarcasm

Thanks for link!

[mercy]

Yes it will go on for decades because we are so twisted as a society that we do not punish mass murder. We think it somehow more noble to succumb. We smashed the Nazis and the Japs by bombing whole cities. When villiages and neighborhoods spawning terrorism are wiped out maybe the Islamonazis will calm down. As it is now they are laughing at us because they know that for every leader of theirs we take, every bomb builder, they have a dozen just finishing up training and ready to take over.

This is just getting started folks. What we are doing so far will not even slow the tide.

[mercy]

I wish you were right. Our controllers will not listen to our wrath. They will expend more judicial force against tax-paying citezens wishing to expel the Moslems amoungst us than against the terrorists within our own borders.

The World Powers do not want Islamofascism crushed. It is the equalizing force they depend on to limit US power.

[Pagey]

Not from the article, but for your perusal.

Professor Madden states:"...no doubt in time to come the whole sordid affair will be remembered as the Crusades are – Christian violence against poor innocent Muslims. The Crusades were an effort to stop a Muslim military campaign which had already defeated large populations of Christians in the Levant, but all anyone in the West remembers today is the Muslim lie that it was a campaign of vicious, unprovoked aggression by a lot of money-mad plunderers..."

There is probably no area of Western history subject to more misunderstanding, ignorance and direct distortion as the history of the Crusades. One heroic scholarly effort to sift the truth is being made by Thomas F. Madden, associate professor and chair of the Department of History at Saint Louis University. Professor Madden is the author of numerous works, including A Concise History of the Crusades, and co-author, with Donald Queller, of The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople. Professor Madden finds that “the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression – an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands."

Professor Madden’s research has established that Muslim armies were "extremely successful": "Palestine, Syria, and Egypt – once the most heavily Christian areas in the world – quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East".

"That is what gave birth to the Crusades. They were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense".

We just can't call it a 21st Century Crusade can we-----wouldn't want to alarm anyone now. Tell a friend.

[luvbach1]

Unless the terror schools turning out the next generation of terrorists in several islamic countries are stopped by Islam authorties themselves, an unlikely prospect unless/until the West makes it too costly for them to maintain/tolerate them, this will be a 100 years' war, if not longer.

[luvbach1]

Obviously 9/11 was not a sufficient wake-up call for some. But agree the next one may be. I am not sure any more. This is not the United States of December 7, 1941.

[luvbach1]

The terrorist organizations' military infrastructure will be destroyed.

That's a military infrstructure? I call it a terrorist activist infrastructure. But no matter. So long as their respective states harbor them, their terrorist indoctrination schools, and their training camps, the infrastruture will be continually replenished.

[mrsmith]

There will always be "terrorists": there will always be pirates, murderers and extortionists.
Without the State support terrorism is a criminal matter not a military one.
We will finish sundering that State support and terrorism will be handled criminally.

That's when the "war" is over.

[JasonC]

The link does not remotely work...

[JasonC]

"The first time a homicide bomb goes off in one of our malls or restaurants or elsewhere, it will be the end of militant Islam"

Oh horsefeathers, it already happened, you think the WTC was patty-cake or something? The reaction they are going to get is the reaction they are getting. Some people understanding it is war, others sticking their heads in the sand. Unanimity does not happen on this earth.

[quidnunc]

JasonC wrote: The link does not remotely work...

Both links work just fine.