Some Thoughts on the War Against Terrorism

My brother-in-law, a Vietnam veteran, just left for Iraq. He can’t tell us exactly where he is going, but we know it will be somewhere in the infamous Sunni Triangle. We know it will be very dangerous for him there. We realize that lots of Islamic terrorists are operating in that area. They set up roadside bombs designed to kill soldiers traveling in convoys. They pack cars with explosives and detonate them in places where soldiers are likely to be. They wrap young women in explosives and send them into crowded places to be homicide bombers by killing themselves and as many others who happen to be standing nearby as possible. They employ lots of cowardly tactics such as these. The one thing they won’t do is put on a uniform and face the coalition forces straight up like real warriors would. They really are despicable wretches who have no courage or moral integrity. But, even so, they can, and do kill American soldiers –like my brother-in-law, albeit in a cowardly fashion.

We’re very proud of his patriotism and his dedication to the military which he has chosen to make his career and his life. But we’re afraid for him at the same time. We don’t want anything bad to happen to him. He has a wife, five children and several grandchildren who need him desperately. He is a good man and doesn’t deserve to be killed by some faceless Muslim terrorist in a far off country. We want to be sure that, if the unthinkable should happen, his sacrifice wouldn’t have been in vain. We are desperate to believe that his sacrifice, should it happen, as well as the demise of the other 1,700 Americans who have died in Iraq won’t have been for nothing.

Some people don’t think any cause is worth dying for. The committed anti-war zealots would have us just lie down and let the Muslim terrorists take over. They would have done the same for Hitler. I dismiss them out of hand. They are kooks. Always have been. Far more dangerous are the leftists in this country. They hate Bush and therefore are against this war. All of the reasons they are against this war have to do with hating Bush and his political philosophy. It really is that simple. Ted Kennedy, George Soros, Dick Durbin, the mainstream media and all the rest of them hate the Iraq war against terrorism because they hate George W. Bush and all that he represents. They hate patriotism. They hate true religion. They hate capitalism. They hate freedom. Karl Rove had it exactly right. Conservatives saw the 9/11 attack as an act of war by enemies of freedom and prepared to defend our country. Liberals saw it as a call to be more understanding and tolerant of those who think differently and jumped in to defend the terrorists.

They hate the fact that Bush was president when 9/11 happened. They hate it that George Bush rallied the country in the wake of that attack. They hate the unity and patriotism that swept the country after we were attacked. And they immediately set to work to diminish and destroy the feelings of unity and patriotism the nation was experiencing after the twin towers and 3,000 Americans were destroyed. They started calling 9/11 a “tragedy” instead of what it really was: a craven attack on the United States of America by a foreign power. They refused to show the attack on TV after just a few days. They refused to show people jumping to their death from the towers in desperate attempts to escape the terrorist’s flames. They refused to denounce the street celebrations staged by the radical Muslim community, even in this country, after the attack. They began to second guess the motives behind Bush’s decision to fight terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq. They predicted tens of thousands of deaths if we attacked the terrorist regime in Iraq. They trotted out every nay-sayer they could find to belittle Bush and his team. They are, to this very day, doing everything they possibly can to cause the American people to loose faith in our efforts against terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere. From the very beginning, Kennedy and his ilk, have been against any effort to destroy Islamic terrorism, –and they are still today. They feel this way because they hate Bush, they hate freedom, they hate liberty, and, sad to say, they hate America.

Right after the 9/11 attack, George Bush made it very clear to all Americans that this war against Islamic terrorism would not be easy. He was resolute and made it very clear that it was going be a long hard slog. He also made it clear that any nation or group who isn’t for America and its fight against radical Islamic terrorism, is against America and the fight against terrorism. Anybody who isn’t for the defeat of evil, embodied in Islamic terrorism, is thus supporting evil –including the left in this country, no matter how much they deny that fact. It has been, and will continue to be difficult. Good men and women have died. Other good men and women unfortunately will yet die. It will take a long, long time and we will suffer many setbacks along the way. Nothing worth accomplishing is ever very easy.

My brother-in-law knows it will be hard and dangerous. But because he loves freedom, liberty and democracy, he is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. And while that concept seems to be totally lost on committed leftists like Kennedy, Michael Moore, and the rest, hopefully most Americans still believe in it. We will win this war against Islamic terrorism if we can defeat the efforts of the global Islamic terrorists, and their leftist allies in this country. We can only hope that in spite of the massive efforts by the left in this country to discourage us, true Americans will retain the will to win this war against terrorism. If not, the deaths of all the Americans who have died so far in Iraq, in the World Trade Center, in Afghanistan and elsewhere will truly have been in vain. And that would be a great tragedy.