My Blog

Some people keep insisting that the war on terrorism isn’t a real war, because you can only be at war with a country, and “terrorism” isn’t a country. The problem is, a worldwide network of well-organized and well-funded terrorists has declared war on us. When someone declares war on you, and demonstrates the ability to effectively attack you on your own soil, killing thousands of civilians and attacking the Pentagon, you are at war with them whether you <em>call</em> it a war or not. It’s pointless to say “they aren’t a country so we can’t be at war with them,” when they’re clearly at war with us. There’s a significant difference between the war on terrorism and any previous wars we’ve fought. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a war. We’re at war with an international network of radical Islamic terrorists. The fact that the enemy isn’t one sovereign nation makes this war extremely difficult to prosecute, because it’s literally a war without borders. But does that mean we should give up and go home?

Their leaders have declared that they will not stop until they’ve succeeded in annihilating our culture. Because they’re fanatics, I believe them. These are not rational people. They believe they will defeat us. If they perceive that we’re too weak to continue the battle, it will give them strength to pursue it more vigorously.

There are radical Islamic fundamentalists just about everywhere in the world. Wherever they are, they’re a potential or actual threat, not just to us, but to anybody they deem is an infidel. We need to stop them, both because there’s no other nation on earth powerful enough to do it, and because we are, have been, and will be again, targets of their terrorist activity.

The people who say we should have stayed in Afghanistan because that’s where Bin Laden was before 9/11, or that we should focus on Pakistan because he’s probably there now, don’t understand that Osama bin Laden is not the enemy. He’s only one leader in a vast network of terrorist cells, spead throughout the world. You can’t kill the Hydra by chopping off its heads; you have to disembowel it. That means cutting of its source of funding. Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia are the biggest sources of funding for Islamic terrorism. (Saudi Arabia is ostensibly our “ally,” so they will undoubtedly be the last one with which we engage, if it should come to that…)

IMHO, this war will ultimately be fought in every country that harbors or funds terrorists, because it’s a war on terrorism, not on a particular country. The countries that fund terrorism, and the countries where the terrorists organize, plot, stage, and train their operatives, will either fight with us or against us. If they commit to eradicating the terrorists within their borders, we will fight alongside them. If they side with the terrorists, we will fight against them.

Withdrawing our troops now, as the Democrats want to do, would leave the spoils to the enemy, and give them a chance to regroup and grow stronger. And they <em>will</em> attack us again. I’d rather the war be fought over there by trained soldiers who volunteered to fight for their country than have it come here and be fought by suicide bombers against civilian targets.

Do you remember 9/11? Do you remember how you felt inside when you first learned what had happened? Or has it been glazed over by the media bombarding you with the same images over and over until you were finally inured to the reality of it, and it became just another media event? It was real. And it can happen again. And again. And again, and again. And, if you don’t believe me, ask an Israeli what it’s like to never know from day to day if the bus you take downtown, or the pizza shop your kid stops in with their friends after school, is going to be blown up by terrorists. Do you think it can’t happen here? Don’t forget, it already has.