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| Home Front: Politix |
| AWOL |
| 2007-05-01 |
| By Robert Spencer Has it ever happened before, in the history of the world, that almost six years into a major conflict, half of the intelligentsia of a nation fighting the war was not convinced that there was even a war on? Such was the implication of a moment during Thursday’s Democratic presidential candidates’ debate. When asked, “Do you believe there is such a thing as a Global War On Terror,” candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, and Christopher Dodd raised their hands. John Edwards, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel kept their hands down. ... One of those tools would be to identify the enemy properly. Republican candidate Mitt Romney did so when commenting on the Democrats’ debate: “I wish they’d have spent more time as a Democratic field talking about the threat of global jihad, talking about what specifically they would do to prevent the nuclear armament of Iran.” The global jihad -- that is what those who would conquer and subjugate us call their activity. For what we are fighting today is not precisely a “war on terror.” Terror is a tactic, not an opponent. To wage a “war on terror” is like waging a “war on bombs”: it focuses on a tool of the enemy rather than the enemy himself. A refusal to identify the enemy is extremely dangerous, as it leaves those who refuse vulnerable to being blindsided by attacks coming from quarters they did not think could possibly be threatening — as the White House access granted by both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to now-jailed jihadists such as Abdurrahman Alamoudi and Sami Al-Arian abundantly attests. A forthright acknowledgement that we are facing a renewed jihad would go a long way to preventing that sort of diplomatic and intelligence embarrassment. This is not really as far-fetched as it may seem. Jihad terrorists have declared war on the United States and other non-Muslim nations; all the U.S. and Western European countries need to do is identify the enemy as they have identified themselves. Rest at link |
| Posted by:ed |