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JUST THE FAQs
A Final Word
By H. David Blalock
During the Clinton administration the US turned a practically blind eye to attacks on Americans at home and abroad. Buried under a mountain of self-inflicted scandal, Clinton and his cronies scrambled pathetically small responses to terrorist acts more out of self- than national interest. Backed by Congress, Clinton sent US soldiers overseas without a UN mandate to prosecute political legerdemain. These forces were not allowed to actually wage war, only "protect the peace". If American lives were lost in the process, it was unfortunate but unavoidable. Kosovo and Bosnia had all the potential to be another Vietnam.
Clinton was lucky. He acted unilaterally but his "Teflon" political coating bailed him out, the rest of the world community only signing on when it became evident the US actions would be successful. The absence of a strong anti-American power such as the old USSR allowed the US to infiltrate the shattered communist regimes without effective resistance. The region was stabilized, but the UN took the credit. The US role was downplayed overseas and soon even the UN started believing its own press.
Months have passed since Arab terrorists attacked New York and Washington. In response, the US acted quickly to create a nominal "coalition" and toppled the Middle Eastern government most representative of those attackers&Mac226; beliefs, putting all Islamic countries on notice that the US will not be attacked with impunity any more. In typical partisan fashion, the social democrats are crying "foul" at the possibility the US may have to move unilaterally to stifle the developing Islamic threat to our very homeland. When the social democrats were in power in Congress, the use of US military force was allowed to divert attention from problems within the government itself. Now that the social democrats are in the minority, suddenly even defending America against a demonstrated and real threat is, in their opinion, uncalled for and inappropriate, hasty and dangerous.
To face up to terrorism here at home and be part of the solution instead of part of the problem, we must individually become educated in all the issues involved. We must examine the political, spiritual, social, and economic issues that surround terrorism, and we must ask ourselves whose interests we should support. There can be no straddling of the fence here. Survival does not stem from compromise, and this is a survival issue for Americans everywhere.
The very first thing we must realize is that the Middle Eastern nations are on the Asian continent. Its cultures, its laws, and its customs are oriental, not occidental, in nature. There is a massive fundamental difference between the oriental and occidental, the most basic of which is the concept of the sanctity of life. The idea that life is sacred and must be preserved means different things to the easterner than to the westerner.
No one, no matter who they are or where they live, wants to die without meaning. No one wants to die unremembered. Oriental power brokers, political and religious, play to this need. They use fanaticism and mysticism to fill the void that education and meaningful employment fill in western society. Therein lies the "inscrutability" of the oriental: his lack of respect for human life.
The oriental sees human life as a commodity to use for either personal or national gain. If he can use his own or another&Mac226;s life to forward a particular agenda, he believes it gives that life purpose. You cannot reason with this mindset from any other basis than the one they recognize. They simply will not be able to grasp the basics of the plea. The bottom line is that, since human life is not sacred to the oriental, diplomatic negotiation is simply a waste of time.
The Islamic Caliphates, who derive their ruling authority from the Prophet Mohammed himself, have historically reigned through force of arms. They seldom respond to negotiation from any stance other than that of military superiority. They have steadfastly rejected cultural change even when confronted with irrefutable evidence that doing so damages the quality of life of the general population. Islam is the worst kind of feudalistic state, one completely controlled by a few powerful warlords who are granted legitimacy by a decentralized spiritual authority manifested in the Imams and Ayatollahs. There is no real central leadership with which to bargain, even at a national level. Militant religious and political factions stand ready to assassinate or unseat any leader who might seek to normalize relations with nations outside Islam, as they did Anwar Sadat.
War is waged by these factions in the same manner as has always been done. Whereas the west no longer considers "conventional warfare" a viable method of prosecuting hostilities, the east literally glories in it. While the west uses surgical bombing and differentiates between "combatant and non-combatant" targets, the east considers everything not with them to be the enemy, regardless of whether the person is armed or not, uniformed or not. Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Al Queda, and the like are waging war, not just terrorism. They are engaged in full-fledged, declared war with Israel and all her allies, including the US.
It is imperative we understand that the war against terrorism is a war against an idea, not a people. It is in fact the most basic of all struggles, the struggle between that which gives life and liberty and that which oppresses individual identity in preference for the continuance of an impersonal, unreasoning dogma.
There are too many factors in this struggle to outline in a simple series of columns such as these. However, if there is anything this series needs to impress on the reader it is this: in this struggle, ignorance is deadly. If you do not take the time to discover the details of what this war is about, you will become a victim. That is a certainty.
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