Winning or losing a war depends in large part on how committed the combatants are to victory. The whining and moaning about the so-called war on terrorism is increasing in both numbers and volume and is amplified by much of the media, which has assumed the role of megaphone for the political left. The number of individuals who insist that this war is not one we can win are increasing and has even spread into the president’s own party.
This war is winnable and is being won, the whiners notwithstanding. However it is not winnable in the type of unrealistic timelines expected from most North americans. We have through our cultural institutions been conditioned to believe that complex and difficult problems can be solved in 42 minutes, leaving us plenty of time to raid the fridge until the next complex and difficult problem is posed. We tend to forget what is transpiring in Iraq and afghanistan is real life, not television. as such, these problems are not solvable in the space of a prime-time slot.
World War I took over four years to complete and World War II took even longer. Both wars involved combatants that were easily recognizable and vast bodies of troops and materiel. The war on terrorism is different in that the paradigm through which we see war has changed, making it almost unrecognizable. But make no mistake; the war on terrorism is war in the true sense of the word and because of its nature will take significantly longer to win than a conventional war might.
If you’ve just arrived from the planet Zongo or been in a coma for the past 12 years, this war has been raging for over a decade. If you haven’t been outside the solar system or in a persistent vegetative state, then I’m sure you will remember the World Trade Centre bombing of 1993 and the attacks on U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. Then there’s the attack on the USS Cole in October of 2000 in Yemen and of course 9/11 in New York, 3/11 in Spain and 7/7 in London.
Now I know that a lot of people try to rationalize recent terrorist attacks by claiming they are the result of our incursions into afghanistan and Iraq. The only problem with that line of reasoning is that all the terrorist activities prior to October 7, 2001 occurred before the U.S. attacked afghanistan. This means there must be other reasons why al Qaeda has chosen to attack the West.
Many critics of the war on terrorism suggest that some of the reasons we are being attacked include the so-called "root causes", our support of Israel, yada yada yada. There is something woefully sick about the self-loathing displayed by much of the left as they attempt to find ways to blame ourselves for being attacked. It would never occur to those who lay the blame for the terrorist attack at the feet of the victims to blame a woman who had been raped because she dressed in a provocative manner. Yet they have little or no problem accepting the blame for 9/11 or other terrorist outrages. I, for one, do not buy the idea that we should blame terrorism on the victims of terrorism.
Most recently the media positively gushed about "Mother" Sheehan, who they claim has "absolute moral authority" to condemn the war in Iraq because of the loss of her son, Casey. Sheehan and some 50 supporters staged a demonstration outside the president’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. The reason for the demonstration was that she demanded a meeting with the president. What the media often fails to include in their stories is that Ms Sheehan had already had a meeting with Mr. Bush and that her son was killed during his second tour of duty in Iraq, for which he volunteered.
Sheehan’s protest became the rallying point for every fruitcake leftist organization in the U.S, including moveon.org, buzzflash.com and monkeyslam.com. It also brought to the fore the tired and decrepit icons from the Vietnam era, including Joan Baez and Tom Hayden.
One of the other things that many media luminaries find convenient to omit about Cindy Sheehan is that she is totally unbalanced. Her claims that the U.S. is using nuclear weapons in Iraq and poisoning the environment there can only be the ravings of someone not in touch with reality. Her claims that Mr. Bush is the world’s most dangerous terrorist are ludicrous in the extreme. Why would George W. Bush want to meet with someone who wants to berate him, particularly since he has met with her previously?
If we are to win this war on terrorism we must display the will to win. In april of 1944 as the invasion fleet for Operation Overlord was being assembled in Britain, the government enacted a law making it illegal for unauthorized persons to come within 10 miles of the seashore where the invasion force was being assembled. and we complain about the Patriot act being arbitrary and authoritarian.
The will to win includes doing what is necessary to ensure that the enemy loses. Sucking and whining only encourages our enemies and will ultimately result in the death of more innocent people, both on our side and theirs.