Ok, rather than rewrite and revise my last post, I’ll just clarify a bit. Maybe it will be clearer, although I’m writing today with a greater lack of sleep than yesterday. And, up front, my apologies for any Arabic words I misspell. Anyhoo:
I supported and still do support what we’re doing in Iraq. In the end, if we’re successful, Iraq will be a free and prosperous nation and a likely ally and business partner. It’s entirely possible that the career politicians who called the Iraq War the “wrong war at the wrong place, wrong time” will be bitching about jobs being outsourced there. Possible, I said. If we do it right. The same is true for Afghanistan, although that country will require a great deal more investment in infrastructure and human capital before serious investments come its way.
Let’s consider exactly how big a threat this is to Iran, Syria, Pakistan and our good friends in Saudi Arabia. If we prove successful in Iraq, we then wield a greater weapon than anything we have in our nuclear arsenal. We can, in fewer than 5 years, completely undo what a cadre of mullahs and revolutionaries, or Stalinist dictators, or Bizaj shock troops or Mukhbarat secret police or imams and fedayeen took 30 or 40 years to build up. We can undo theocracies and autocracies and replace them like spare parts with democracy and federalism and separated church and state. And we can do it at will, anytime we want, without taking any other nation’s or the United Nations’ leave, and on the flimsiest of excuses.
Already anytime we want we could once again become death, destroyer of worlds. We have the missiles to spare. We’re freakin’ Shiva over here. But that’s not what we want to do. We can do worse to the theocrats and baathists. And worse is what they see us doing to them when they look at Iraq and Afghanistan. With this threat, we can force reforms upon their countries, one way or another. With those reforms comes less social support for terror and more stability in the region.
But this is only the first and worst part of the War on Terror, if we are to truly win it. A war is won when your enemy can no longer resist you.
It’s not enough just to cut out a cancer. You have to make sure it hasn’t spread or stop the metastasis if it has. The cancer of Islamism is malignant and has spread to Europe already, to Southeast Asia and the Phillipines, to Africa and possibly to the US. We cannot let these tumors grow either, or we’ll have wasted our efforts so far.
We have to contain the teaching of religious hatred towards the West and towards our allies, specifically Israel. We have to stop the flow of wahabi literature and broadcasts out of Saudi Arabia. We must discredit through military defeat Hizbollah and Janjaweed.
We must arrest, question and imprison imams in the US and Europe preaching jihad against our nations or against other religions. If we let them live. Some should be made examples of. Abu Hamza comes to mind. We will have to use spies and surveillance of mosques to do this. Deep cover agents will have to infiltrates centers of a religion that may be harmless in fact. Freedom of religion – it has limits, just like freedom of speech does. Your rights stop when you use them to harm others. Or rather, consequences kick in when you do.
Until we take these concrete steps, we will not have won this war. We will have the spectre of terrorism, the new sword of Damocles, hanging over us. Until we stop the spread of the hate, our enemies can still resist us.
Now, perhaps we could get others to do some of this for us. That would be nice. Maybe the Israelis really will crush Hizbollah next time. Maybe sanctions will work against Iran. Maybe Pakistani intelligence services will continue to feed us information about terror cells and support coming from their country. Maybe the Afghan government will be able to fight the remnants of the Taliban on their own soon. Maybe the Saudi royals will find ways to end the internal reign of the wahabi clerics. Maybe the Palestinians will begin to realize that statehood is more than attacking Israel. Maybe the world will take action in Darfur and Somalia.
But we can’t count on that. “Maybe” isn’t going to win this war. Neither are the half-measures we’re currently employing, as great a weapon as they are.
Oh, and, what he said.
Filed under: Commentary, Rants
Ok, that rambled too. Oh well. It’s late.
The President’s rewording of the war couldn’t happen at a better time. In the wake of Fox News reporters’ conversion at gunpoint, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s defiance concerning nuclear weapons and our continued struggle in Iraq, and the recent terror scare, it’s simply time to call a spade a spade. This has been a war against a radical faction of Islam from the get go. It’s time to stop treating Islam with kid gloves. It is a large part of the problem with its inability to police itself and our fear of offending them. I like that they’re offended by “Islamofascits.”
I actually find the word “islamofascism” apt, but unwieldy. I’m coming to appreciate Islamist more. A.) is easier to type and B.) is just as accurate. When was an Islamic Republic ever not ruled by racist, militant dictatorships that preyed on their own people in between conquests?