Posted on 08/21/2003 6:44:39 PM PDT by Utah Girl
After the first two conventional military victories in Afghanistan of November 2001 and this spring in Iraq, the recent bombings suggest that we are now entering a third phase: A desperate last-ditch war of attrition in which our enemies feel that bombing, suicide murdering, assassination, and general terrorism against Westerners the world over might still achieve what conventional military operations did not. The idea is to make life so miserable for Iraqis, and so dangerous for foreigners, that the United States will withdraw, thus allowing either a fascist autocracy or terrorist theocracy — in the manner of the Taliban or an Afghan warlord — to emerge from the chaos.
Indeed, the abhorrent assault on a U.N. complex in Baghdad — taken together with the near-simultaneous murdering of innocents in Jerusalem, the recent attack on the Jordanian embassy, and the bombing of Iraqi oil and water pipelines — may suggest to critics of the Americans that the enemy is recouping and gaining the upper hand.
Far from it. We are indeed entering a third phase. But it is not quite what most people think, since it has brought a brutal clarity to the conflict that the terrorists may not have intended. For those who were still unsure of the affinities between the West Bank killers once subsidized by Saddam, Baathist fedeyeen, the Taliban, and al Qaedist terrorists, the similarity in method, the identical blood-curling rhetoric, and the eerie timing of slaughtering during peace negotiations and efforts at civil reconstruction should establish the existence of a common enemy. It has been fighting us all along — a general fascism, now theocratic, now autocratic, that seeks to divert the Middle East from the forces of modernization and liberalization.
Contrary to the latest round of punditry, the liberation of Iraq did not stir up a hornet's nest nor create ex nihilo these terrible alliances. No, they are natural expressions of the hatred manifested on 9/11 that will continue until either we or they are defeated.
The intifada was unleashed during negotiations and concessions. The World Trade Center and Pentagon were bombed in a time of peace after a decade of forbearance in the face of continual affronts. The killing in Afghanistan focuses on aid workers and restorers. And the U.N. complex in Baghdad was not a casualty of war, but rather targeted during the postbellum efforts to feed, clothe, and rebuild civil society. There is a pattern here.
From the detritus of Wednesday's terror will arise a new grim acceptance that despite all our brilliantly rapid military victories we are not yet finished in this war for civilization, and that there are a group of killers — whether Baathists, al Qaedists, West Bank murderers, or Iranian and Saudi terrorists-who shall give no quarter. We should never forget that. In the euphoria of the three-week victory many of us rightly still worried that under the new restrictive protocols of postmodern warfare the age-old laws of conflict were for a time being forgotten: The ease of postbellum occupation is in proportion to the level of punishment inflicted on the enemy.
Our careful air campaign, the inability to sweep down into the Sunni triangle in the first days of the war from Turkey, and the abrupt collapse rather than the destruction of enemy forces in the field paradoxically resulted in thousands who ran away rather than were defeated. We immediately ended the fighting and began the humanitarian effort to help the helpless — even as our enemies and their jihadist friends saw that magnanimity as the removal of the stake driven through their vampirish heart.
Yet tragically whether an enemy is engaged in battle or in the street, there always remains a finite number of recalcitrant diehards who must be killed or captured. So while it was amazing that Saddam's army dissolved in April, we should always remember that many of them still must be dealt with in August and September — both to eliminate combatants and, just as importantly, to send a message to foreign terrorists that it is a deadly mistake to take on the United States military.
The current choice of soft and largely civilian targets, while in the short-term horrific and depressing, is also instructive. The Baathist remnants and assorted terrorists who are now their allies have declared themselves not only enemies of the United States, but murderers of innocent Iraqis, Jordanians, and U.N. officials at large. They brag that they are driving infidels and Westerners of all stripes from sacred land. In fact, the current indiscriminate killing was a strategic mistake. It is a sign of desperation and can only unite the global community in its belief that terrorism, suicide murdering, and the agents of rogue regimes really do constitute a nexus of opposition to the forces of civilization — and must in return warrant universal resistance from the world at large.
Blowing up petroleum pipelines and vital water supplies in a scorching summer is directed at the Iraqi people, not just the American military. That nihilism reminds both us and the Iraqis that there is no going back to Saddam or descending into anarchy. The terrorists wish to make life as miserable for Iraqis as they do for Americans, and are willing to kill both for their own political ends. The net result of that desperate gambit will be a grudging acceptance that those who seek to end water, gas, food, and freedom in Iraq are the enemy, not us — and thus only Iraqi assistance can end the terror that threatens themselves.
What should be the American response to the latest terrorism? There will of course be the normal post-calamity bickering and recriminations: Not enough troops? Unwise dismissal of Baathist police and army? Failure to incorporate U.N. and international peacekeepers? These are important issues to be adjudicated, but they and many others still to be raised do not get to the heart of matter.
Our astonishing defeats of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban cannot blind us to the reality — unchanging since 9/11 — that we are in a war to the end with those who wish to destroy Western society and all that it holds dear. Both tactically and strategically this is a conflict that our enemies cannot win — given their military inferiority and accompanying failure to offer an attractive alternative to the freedom and prosperity of the West.
This doom the nihilists grudgingly accept. Thus the past week in Afghanistan, in Baghdad, and in Jerusalem they have once more embraced the tactics of the bomb-laden truck and suicide belt to demoralize civil society and to win the only way they can — as was true in Beirut and Mogadishu — by eroding public support for the continuance of war. Otherwise, they will lose and the virus of reform and legality will only spread.
Because September 11 was a direct consequence of our early failures to confront our enemies, our general response to the latest challenges should be even greater defiance. It is time to bring to fruition the president's warning of nearly two years ago, that one is either with or against the terrorists. So Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, from which our enemies (many now in Iraq) operate, must either close their borders, turn over terrorists, and join the ranks of civilization — or chose the side of barbarism and accept the terrible consequences of such a fatal decision. And for the short term, we must continue on course-employing counterinsurgency tactics to go after the terrorists in the field, accelerating the transfer of governance to Iraqis to increase their visibility and responsibility in the conflict and restoring infrastructure to Afghanistan and Iraq.
It is the American way and the nature of our media culture to exaggerate setbacks and ignore successes. Thus even as our television screens seem to be overcome by panic and fear, high-ranking Baathists continue to be arrested in Iraq, terrorists find themselves stymied in achieving another 9/11, and the reconstruction of Iraq continues.
Our real problem? We must shed our complacency that has habitually arisen after the absence of another 9/11 attack in the United States, and the rapid victories in Afghanistan and Iraq, and press on. Either the Middle East will be a breeding ground for terrorists and rogue regimes that threaten sober nations and peoples the world over, from Manhattan to Jerusalem, or it will desist and join the rest of the world. It really is as simple as that.
Yes, there are huge complicating factors that he doesn't address (European and UN weasels and the politics of fear being promoted by the Bush-haters here at home) but all of these will respond (and fall into line) with forceful and consistent leadership in the next phase in the war on terror by President Bush if prosecuted with strength and consistency.
Maybe this is too optimistic, and I know it falls short of the "full-out war on Mohammadism" (sp?) advanced by some fellow Freepers, but I think it is the right strategy. It's time to put others in charge of the "nation building" within Iraq and Afghanistan and return our soldiers to the task of the war on terrorism -- they do that so well. And time to take the fight to Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia as too much recent evidence shows them to be aiding and abetting these latest terrorist attacks.
Just my 2 cents!
For VDH I would recommend Carnage and Cultrual and An Autumn of War.
For Ralph Peters Red Army and War in 2020, for fiction, his works under the Pen Name Owen Parry and Beyond Terror, non fiction.
You are welcome
There are three entities that strongly oppose our policy in Iraq -- the French government, al Qaeda, and the Democrat Party (and its media enablers). Howard Dean is basing his campaign on promises to undo Pres. Bush's two tax cuts, and his foreign policy might as well be "Bring back Saddam, and tell him we're sorry." And he's the leading Democrat.
It's impossible to see all of what the Administration is doing in the Middle East, because it's like defusing a very complex timebomb. But I trust that they know what they're doing, and that they have Israel's interests at the forefront.
There is a concerted push to create a global caliphate. Leaders as diverse as Putin and the PM of Singapore have displayed proof of this. The last caliphate was turkey's ottoman empire. These peaceful people gave Armenians a choice...convert to islam or die. To their credit hundreds of thousands rejected islam's choice.
turkey is still a muslim country. They betrayed us this spring to curry favor with the EU, looking for acceptance into that club. If the EU lats them in it will spell the beginning of the end for them as a culture.
Cheney himself told reporters over a year ago that the war against islamist terror will not be over in his lifetime or the lifetime of anyone else in the room.
Welcome to the new, blood soaked reality...brought to you courtesy of islam.
There will be a third option as well. If the islamics ever detonate a nuclear device on our soil there will be an immediate escalation into nuclear retaliation.
Mecca won't like it.
There is a concerted push to create a global caliphate. Leaders as diverse as Putin and the PM of Singapore have displayed proof of this. The last caliphate was turkey's ottoman empire. These peaceful people gave Armenians a choice...convert to islam or die. To their credit hundreds of thousands rejected islam's choice.
turkey is still a muslim country. They betrayed us this spring to curry favor with the EU, looking for acceptance into that club. If the EU lats them in it will spell the beginning of the end for them as a culture.
Cheney himself told reporters over a year ago that the war against islamist terror will not be over in his lifetime or the lifetime of anyone else in the room.
Welcome to the new, blood soaked reality...brought to you courtesy of islam.
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We are in a world war that has nothing to do with Saddam Hussein. Our side is being led by another sequential member of a presidential dynasty whose last member to do anything of real substance was Prescott Bush back in the age of the big woods. At this point the family and leadership is characteristic of the later French kings who dabbled with life as protected eternal children or teenagers. In his silly proclamation of Mohammedism being a religion of peace, Bush has allowed the enemy to employ successful guerrila tactics that will destroy us.
The action against Saddam Hussein is nothing but a little kid president playing soldier while civilization is losing the overall real conflict.
Broadcast authorities interpreted John 3:18, which reads that "whoever does not believe stands condemned," as suggesting that Christians were above the law, and so, shut down Ankara's Radio Shema.
The decison is being appealed.
Publicly advocating religion is, to say the least, extremely déclassé in Turkey. The Turkish Army and Kemalist ideologues watch religious activity like hawks.
In February 1997, the military released a list of some hundred corporations with which it would have no dealings in the future and which were investigated as financial supporters of Islamic movements. These corporations, include the Ülker food processing giant, the IHLAS holding corporation, and the thirty-six-company Kombassan cooperative. The army listed 19 newspapers, 20 national television stations, 51 radio stations, 110 magazines, and 1,200 student fraternities as engaging in "subversive Islamic activities."
Evangelical Christian missionaries are allowed in Turkey, as long as ther behavior is kept private and so, outside the realm of the State.
Ataturk considered religion the main culprit in maintainingTurkey's backwardness. Kemalist ideology still reflects this. Religious censorship is not directed at Christians per se but is applied to all religious activity with a rather broad stroke. Given Islam's historical impact on Turkey and the rest of the world, I rather tend to agree with them.
Yes, BTW, I am irritated that Radio Shema was closed down, but to interpret this as the nefarious deed of an Islamic government against heathen elements is quite frankly stupid.
I will repeat my feelings to you for the last time. I do not trust turkey as an ally. The modern turkish history is replete with irrefutable examples of duplicity and last minute flip flops (turkey's dealings with Hitler are well documented as is its reversal in 1945 as a way of getting access to the nascient UN). If my government decides to up the ante and offer more to turkey than its other suitors (FR/DEU) then it only shows that turkey can be bought.
If the world where a global street turkey would be standing in a mini-skirt at the corner leaning against a lamp post.
Have a nice day.
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