Not to put too fine a point on it, but not yet!
This broadly titled enemy known as international terrorism may prove to be the most formidable foe ever known to the free world. It is rooted in Islamic extremism, fueled predominately by a primitive desire to vanquish all infidels, beginning with Israel and ending with much of the free world.
It's army is bigger than most will let on, scattered to all corners of the earth, operating largely below radar in more than 60 countries, employing the most brutal tactics known to mankind, usually against soft civilian targets with the intent of consuming the hearts and minds of innocent people all over the globe with fear. Even the most powerful military on earth can't win a war its people won't allow it to fight.
Many people prone to fear are more than happy to accommodate the threat. Some are even willing to immediately capitulate, in the name of a temporary false sense of peace. The notion that we are somehow winning this war seems dubious at best. Yet it's an ambitious notion that we must embrace, because we cannot afford the alternative.
No matter how anti-war one might be, a brief history lesson and a glimpse at today's realities around the world will lead you to the undeniable conclusion that this is an enemy we must either confront now or succumb to later.
Those who honestly thought this war would be fast and easy, have either not done their homework, or they are accustomed to fooling themselves as a means of personal psychological survival. Politicians who spread good news of our positive advancements in this war are simply rallying the troops to a worthwhile cause. Conversely, politicians who can only focus on every obvious setback are providing aid, comfort and encouragement to those we must somehow defeat.
I'm not suggesting that we have no advancements in this cause by the way. I believe our best and brightest serving in uniform are doing a miraculous job in their daunting task. I also believe good news is just as important as bad news in this effort. God knows our press prefers the negative headlines that sell more papers. I'm not jumping on that bandwagon ever.
But the fact is - this is an enormous, complex and very difficult undertaking. Ridding the world of entire culture bred, born and raised to kill, is a job that could take a while. This culture of death and destruction, often found hiding beneath an innocent looking burka, wasn't made in a day and its threat to the free world won't be eliminated in a day either.
By design, Iraq is the current central front in this war. But it won't be for long. We have seen much advancement since we reluctantly accepted the invitation to engage in this war. But we are very likely to see the overall picture become much worse, before it can become any better.
This threat to freedom loving people everywhere is not new. In fact, part of our problem is that this threat was ignored and allowed to fester for far too long, gathering breadth and strength while we foolishly pretended that their grasp could never reach our shores. We were wrong… dead wrong. The list of politicians who got this wrong is long and distinguished and it crosses all party lines. Now here we are…
Bush pointed out at the very beginning, soon after 9/11, that this war would be long and difficult, with many ups and downs. It will be fought on many fronts by many means. It will likely not end in this or maybe even the next administration. But it will eventually be won.
He was right about all of this. Nobody has been exempt from attack in this war. England, France, Germany, Spain, Israel, even other Muslim nations like Saudi arabia, they are all fronts in this war and they have all come under attack. You can think this war is all about america or George Bush if you like, but the evidence won't even remotely support such a claim.
In my estimation, the next central front in this war is most likely to be Israel itself. I say this on the basis of watching the storm gather. I say this because our enemy has been beaten on every conventional front repeatedly, meaning that they must now somehow strike at the weakest most exposed targets in order to remain in the battle at all.
WND's Jerusalem Bureau writes today, "al-Qaeda leader in Palestine soon to be revealed.”
The same reporter talks in another column of "Iran has opened an "ideological embassy" in the Palestinian territories to espouse Shia Muslim beliefs – including Islam's waging of a final, apocalyptic battle against "evil". (Evil, meaning Israel and all infidels of course.)
Meanwhile, The World Tribune reports "Palestinian missiles for first time hit Israeli infrastructure.” Iraq, India, Pakistan, afghanistan and Saudi arabia are all experiencing varying levels of sectarian civil unrest. The battle lines are being drawn on this sectarian divide and fighters are being recruited not on a national loyalty basis, but rather upon this ideological basis.
Iran remains defiant in the face of the entire free world, the IaEa and the UN Security Council, completely determined to one way or another, develop a nuclear weapon. Iran's outspoken new President has repeated his call for the elimination of Israel over and over. He has spread propaganda accusing the west of bombing the Golden Dome and other religious sites, when it is in fact, al Qaeda, with the support of Iran's government, who seeks to disrupt Iraq's march towards freedom by inciting sectarian violence in many parts of the Middle East.
The truth is - the west has no beef with Islam or the vast majority of the Muslim community. Just as most Christians are not David Koresh, most Muslims are not Bin Laden. But we have a very serious beef with Muslim extremists who have been blowing up innocent civilians in countless nations of the world for decades and this problem won't go away, it must be defeated.
If we learn nothing else from 9/11, we must learn that the world is much smaller than it once was and that not every human being can be trusted with freedom, let alone atomic weapons.
are we winning the war against international terrorism? Not yet. It is an ambitious undertaking. an undertaking which we have no choice but to win in the end, how ever long that might take, how ever costly it might be. Every individual, politician, member of the press or average citizen, has a responsibility to be a part of the solution. But we each have a right to be a part of the problem too. It isn't complicated…choose.
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