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A Cold War approach to the war on terrorism
Standing in the thick mud before a giant Paladin howitzer, Capt. John Benoit, an artilleryman from the Louisiana National Guard, looked Gen. John Abizaid squarely in the eye and asked bluntly: How's the war going? Many soldiers, even those who give no quarter when fighting insurgents, tend to clam up in the presence of four-star brass. So when Abizaid, commander of all U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, finds a group like the Louisiana grunts willing to ask tough questions, he sticks around. And he doesn't just answer their questions but tries to share his view of the war in Iraq and what he sees as the larger struggle against Islamic extremism.The insurgency, Abizaid acknowledged, has grown worse over the past year. There's no defensiveness on that point, though, as he segues into a discussion of why the insurgents--particularly the radical Islamists--must be confronted. "What we can't allow to happen is guys like Abu Musab Zarqawi to get started," Abizaid told Benoit and the soldiers of the 1-141 Field Artillery. "It's the same way that we turned our back when Hitler was getting going and Lenin was getting going. You just cannot turn your back on these types of people. You have to stand up and fight." Abizaid's military command covers an area that stretches from Somalia through the Arabian peninsula, and into Iraq and on to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Throughout that mostly Islamic region, Abizaid argues, a critical struggle is going on between the forces of moderation, who are pushing for democratic reforms, and of extremism, who are pushing for the imposition of a rigid interpretation of Islamic law. Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-02-23 |
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