southchild

Don’t miss this outstanding article in Time magazine,… Why That’s Ridiculous by Charles Krauthammer on the knee-jerk tendency of some people to blame ANY terrorist attack in the world on the US action in Iraq. Expect this reflexive, mindless rubbish to continue. But the chief arguments — Iraq was a distraction, and Iraq increased terrorists recruitment — are not only tenuous but also largely irrelevant in the bigger picture: the long war that we face to defeat worldwide, Islamic fascism. Krauthammer writes,

The fact is that the war on terrorism is a very long war. It is not decided by a battle here or there. It would not have been won by stopping in Afghanistan and spending the rest of our lives going cave to cave looking for bin Laden and his henchmen. Kill him and shut the cave, yet jihadism would continue.

It would continue because it is a sickness incubated within Arab/ Islamic culture, a toxic combination of repression, corruption, intolerance and fanaticism, fed by tyrannical regimes eager to deflect popular anger from themselves onto the American infidel. Until that political culture changes fundamentally, jihadism will thrive.

The naysayers of our actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, whose collective memory seems to have been purged of the pre-9/11 terrorist attacks during the Clinton administration, will continue to play this lame, blame game. Whether the attack is in Spain, London, Bali or Timbuktu, it will somehow be the fault of the US action in Iraq. Their hatred of President Bush and his every objective guarantees that the left will blame the US for every “wrong” in the world while offering nothing constructive in return. After all, it’s hard to offer constructive advice on how to win the war against Islamic fascists when one denies their existence. The cry-baby left should take their collective thumb out of their mouths and discuss Krauthammer’s compelling conclusion,

On 9/11, the U.S. was rudely injected into a Muslim civil war–the jihadists are intent on conquering the entire region and re-establishing an ancient caliphate–except that only the jihadist side was really fighting. By taking the fight to the Arab/ Islamic heartland, the U.S. has forced Muslims to commit. The most remarkable effect of the wars to liberate Afghanistan and Iraq is that, whereas on 9/11 we stood alone against the terrorists, today there are two large and energized Muslim populations–with legitimate governments building armed forces–engaged in the same struggle against jihadism as we are.

It is those allies who are critical in ultimately winning the war on terrorism. The terrorists may have recruited their new Atta, now splattered on the walls of the Baghdad mosque he has suicide-bombed. We have recruited tens of millions of Afghan and Iraqi Muslims–with Lebanese and others to follow–opposing that Atta as they attempt to build decent, moderate, tolerant societies.

I’ll take our recruits.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 14th, 2005 at 7:39 pm and is filed under General, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.