By Klaus Rohrich
Friday, July 20, 2007
When Islamic terrorists rammed two airplanes into the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center it was an act that few people imagined possible and even fewer saw it coming. That was nearly six years ago and the West's ongoing struggle to forestall further terrorist incidents continues with our side voluntarily hamstringing itself in the name of "human rights". In the hierarchy of rights the most basic human right, being the right to life, should trump all other rights, including the right to free speech, the right to free association as well as the right to freely practice a religion, particularly if that religion's tenets include detonating one's self and killing non-believers in the name of holy war.
As such, there is little or no excuse for Western security agencies to allow Islamic terrorists enough leeway to execute future attacks. The idea that airport security personnel are taking a close second look at an Irish grandmother's knitting needles and studiously ignoring young men of obvious Middle Eastern origin is ludicrous. A brief look at the vast majority of terror cells that have been exposed and arrested over the past six years shows that an overwhelming number of those nabbed are named Mohammed or Ahmed and not Colleen or Sean.
The logical inference here being that security and immigration personnel should be particularly vigilant in processing individuals who happen to fit within certain demographics and charges of profiling be damned.
There is an obvious lack of will among Western nations as they hand wring and navel gaze about the motivation of Islamic fundamentalists that see us as an enemy, despite our avowed intentions of achieving a peaceful resolution of our differences through negotiations. Only problem is what's to negotiate when the starting position of radical Islam is our complete annihilation?
There is an old Arab saying: "A falling camel attracts many knives". It's one of those sayings that seems to be particularly relevant now when people like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid publicly announce that the war in Iraq is lost and clamor for a complete withdrawal of all troops. If I were the al Qaeda leadership, I'd be cheered by the shenanigans of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, as well as some Republican lawmakers, who can't seem to surrender fast enough.
This is a war that has been a long time coming and it will take an even longer time to bring it to a conclusion. The question is what sort of conclusion is acceptable to us? Are we committed to being victorious and are we prepared to do what's necessary in order to ensure victory? Moreover do we have a clear picture of what being victorious looks like?
Culturally, we have become accustomed to having complex issues resolved within a fifty-two minute span that is frequently interrupted in order to accommodate commercials. Regretfully, real life issues do not get resolved that quickly or that neatly and wars require a particularly long time and substantial sacrifice to win.
People tend to compare the war on terrorism and its components to the Vietnam War of more than 30 years ago. The word "quagmire" is bandied about often when referring to events in Afghanistan and Iraq and the general consensus appears to be that we should declare victory and hurry home.
Had that attitude been prevalent in the years between 1939 and 1945 we might all be speaking German or Japanese now. The resolution to that conflict came about as a result of a massive expenditure of human capital, a willingness to sacrifice personal considerations in favor of the common good and a ruthless pursuit of the enemy and its assets wherever they were found.
The war against radical Islam is no different in that the same elements are necessary in order to secure victory. Unless we come to that realization and act on it, it's not inconceivable that we might all be living under Sharia law in the not-too-distant future.
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