Clarity on the war
Currently, it's very easy to succumb to the spin of the Old Media on the war on terror.
CNN wants you to wring your hands about so called "prisoner abuse" and to forget all about American civilians being burned to death and strung up in Fallujah. Brokaw, Rather & Jennings (the Bermuda Triangle of critical analysis) all want you to believe that our presence in Iraq has been a complete disaster and that Saddam Hussein is a victim of American imperialism - they want you to forget 9/11 and the beheading of Nick Berg.
A good friend of mine found himself getting sucked in by the constant drumbeat of the Old Media and their allegiance with the enemy and wrote the following piece. I believe it is a good reminder of what the war is all about.
THE WILL TO WIN
It may go without saying that the terrorists believe they can defeat the United States. However, in the present chaos that is Iraq, we are in danger of proving them right.
Osama Bin Laden has long believed that the American people have no stomach for casualties; that we do not have the will to fight. While we are the most powerful nation in the history of mankind, Bin Laden thinks we have grown decadent and soft and will not wield our power in our own defense.
He may be right. After the national embarrassment of the Iraqi prison scandal (and the incessant television coverage of it), recent polling shows public morale slipping, along with support for the war. Headline after headline, column after column, editorial after editorial, the implication has been: we cannot win in Iraq, and that to try to do so is to also lose the War on Terror. Having declared "Mission Accomplished" before the worst killing had even started, and with pre-war intelligence on WMD's now discredited, the President's poll numbers have fallen, and the once strong and determined tone of the Bush White House has been replaced with apologies.
Bin Laden could not have scripted it better himself.
He was in Afghanistan in 1984 to help fight the Soviet invasion of that Muslim country. Seeing the Soviets defeated, he first tasted victory against a superpower. He saw that it could be done. What's more, Bin Laden saw that the Russian disaster in Afghanistan was a very large domino in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of their superpower status. He believes that the same could be done to the United States.
The Bush Administration's response to 9/11 was no doubt the exact response Bin Laden had hoped for: to draw us into the trap of Afghanistan. The plan was to wear us down, break our will to fight, and then drive us back out, defeated, drained, and demoralized. Once defeated in Afghanistan, we would not attempt to stop them from spreading Islamo-fascism over the rest of the region. If they could also destroy our economy with cataclysmic attacks on our centers of finance, and wreak havoc on our populace with mass murder, then the end of American superpower would not be far off.
Of course, it did not work out that way. Afghanistan is now free, with a Western-style republic, and can no longer be used as a home base for terrorism. So far, all other terrorist attempts on American soil have been thwarted, and the economy is slowly recovering from the shock it withstood three years ago. And until recently, the majority of American people have remained united and resolute behind the Bush Doctrine.
That is why the situation for the terrorists is so desperate, and why the fighting in Iraq has been so intense as of late. We are rapidly approaching the handover of basic governance to the Iraqi people, thus planting the seed for another secular democracy in the Muslim world.
If the US succeeds in Iraq, it will be a disaster for the terrorists and their dream of fundamentalist tyranny across the Middle East. If we fail, the terrorists will have a new base from which to operate. With both Iran and Iraq in the grip of ayatollahs, and with the West's will to resist broken, Saudi Arabia and the rest would not be far behind. Factor in real weapons of mass destruction and the end of Israel, and the horrible equation is almost complete.
In other words, we must stay the course. We must keep fighting. We must think less of winning the PR campaign and think more of winning the military campaign. We must stop apologizing for liberating 25 million Muslims. We've never been closer to winning, or closer to losing, the War on Terror, than we are right now.
It may go without saying that the terrorists believe they can defeat the United States. However, in the present chaos that is Iraq, we are in danger of proving them right.
Osama Bin Laden has long believed that the American people have no stomach for casualties; that we do not have the will to fight. While we are the most powerful nation in the history of mankind, Bin Laden thinks we have grown decadent and soft and will not wield our power in our own defense.
He may be right. After the national embarrassment of the Iraqi prison scandal (and the incessant television coverage of it), recent polling shows public morale slipping, along with support for the war. Headline after headline, column after column, editorial after editorial, the implication has been: we cannot win in Iraq, and that to try to do so is to also lose the War on Terror. Having declared "Mission Accomplished" before the worst killing had even started, and with pre-war intelligence on WMD's now discredited, the President's poll numbers have fallen, and the once strong and determined tone of the Bush White House has been replaced with apologies.
Bin Laden could not have scripted it better himself.
He was in Afghanistan in 1984 to help fight the Soviet invasion of that Muslim country. Seeing the Soviets defeated, he first tasted victory against a superpower. He saw that it could be done. What's more, Bin Laden saw that the Russian disaster in Afghanistan was a very large domino in the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of their superpower status. He believes that the same could be done to the United States.
The Bush Administration's response to 9/11 was no doubt the exact response Bin Laden had hoped for: to draw us into the trap of Afghanistan. The plan was to wear us down, break our will to fight, and then drive us back out, defeated, drained, and demoralized. Once defeated in Afghanistan, we would not attempt to stop them from spreading Islamo-fascism over the rest of the region. If they could also destroy our economy with cataclysmic attacks on our centers of finance, and wreak havoc on our populace with mass murder, then the end of American superpower would not be far off.
Of course, it did not work out that way. Afghanistan is now free, with a Western-style republic, and can no longer be used as a home base for terrorism. So far, all other terrorist attempts on American soil have been thwarted, and the economy is slowly recovering from the shock it withstood three years ago. And until recently, the majority of American people have remained united and resolute behind the Bush Doctrine.
That is why the situation for the terrorists is so desperate, and why the fighting in Iraq has been so intense as of late. We are rapidly approaching the handover of basic governance to the Iraqi people, thus planting the seed for another secular democracy in the Muslim world.
If the US succeeds in Iraq, it will be a disaster for the terrorists and their dream of fundamentalist tyranny across the Middle East. If we fail, the terrorists will have a new base from which to operate. With both Iran and Iraq in the grip of ayatollahs, and with the West's will to resist broken, Saudi Arabia and the rest would not be far behind. Factor in real weapons of mass destruction and the end of Israel, and the horrible equation is almost complete.
In other words, we must stay the course. We must keep fighting. We must think less of winning the PR campaign and think more of winning the military campaign. We must stop apologizing for liberating 25 million Muslims. We've never been closer to winning, or closer to losing, the War on Terror, than we are right now.
Well done.
posted by Preston @ Tuesday, May 18, 2004
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