Ten Reasons Why the West Will Lose the War on Terror (the pessimist’s view)
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by DL
The following was inspired by an article by David Selbourne in The Times of London
1. The West lacks the will to survive. We make mountains out of trivial political issues, such as humiliating terrorists, and obsess instead about the rights of people who will cut our throats at the first opportunity. 9/11 has been relegated to historical movie status, not the “wake up call” it should have been. Too many Americans view the war with radical Islam as an inconvenience or a political problem and not something that concerns and threatens their very existence. A reality check is essential for survival.
2. The West is selfish and divided. Politics and party have become the priority and survival has been relegated to the closet. Politics no longer stops at the water’s edge, but war has become a thing to manipulate for political advantage. The voters seem to not care that undermining the war effort for political gain is the order of the day, as long as their lifestyles aren’t compromised or discomfort brought down upon their heads. Our enemies and our politicians play that to their advantage. We have exposed to all our enemies, our soft divided underbelly and naively expect that they will but rub it for us.
3. The West is too open and too naive about war. We have lost our smarts about what a war is. War is not a “made for TV movie” with a pre-written script – the other side writes its own game plan, while we foolishly and openly talk of withdrawal schedules. The same people who demand such schedules would react in horror were their favorite coach to announce the play he’s going to use next. Mistakes are always made in war. It is in correcting and adjusting, that victory comes about, but never without a will to survive, and that means a will to fight and die in the first place. “Supporting out troops” - means stifling our open disagreements about details. Enough with the armchair generals, and the “neutral, but biased” media - we have lost our sense of the evil of treason.
4. The West is illiterate about faith and martyrdom. It is essential to know your enemy. For liberals to continue to preach multicultural moral equivalency is, but evidence that we act in ignorance of the seriousness of the enemy’s intent and will to die for his cause. Islam, as understood by these radicals, is not a religion of country club requirements and manners. Failing to comprehend what drives this enemy is a guaranteed road to defeat.
5. The West is reactive not proactive. It is failing for reasons of domestic political caution, to prepare for international war. It only looks backward such as the current fascination with “who caused 9/11, Bush or Clinton?” It’s as if we’re in denial that the simple unaltered fact is that we were attacked – not once on 9/11, but many times by radical Islamists. They have openly declared war on our nation and have pledged to eradicate each of us while we lack sufficient concern to prepare to fight the most difficult battle of this country’s existence. We have failed to mobilize the major elements of a society at serious war. For example, we fail, for political reasons, to reinstitute the draft and the types of things necessary to engage the enemy fully, as we go about our daily business wondering, or even actually debating, if attacking the terrorists over there is better than waiting to have them over here.
6. The West refuses to become energy independent. The fuel of radical Islam is our petrol-dollars. No war can be fought successfully when the enemy controls the energy and our economy through our own continued foolish choices - choices we make because of a paralyzing political fear of radicalized environmental worship. Russia, Venezuela, and the Mid-east oil producers can be counted on to close us off in a second should it be thought by them to be to their advantage. Undermining and bringing down super-power America is already their desire. All that is necessary is the minutest turn of events. The eminent war with radicalized Islam offers much more than minute potential, when it comes to affording them opportunity. Energy is victory and lack of sufficient energy is defeat. Our domestic eco-politics have chosen to aid the enemy.
7. Our borders are sieves. and remain waiting conduits for subversive entry and terrorist activity. Moats weren’t invented because of curiosity or convention. They were created, because in an evil world, the enemy and the danger he presents needs to be kept out of peoples homes. “The Trojan Horse” mentality we play with our open borders is suicidal. Again, domestic politics by both parties, not security, is the priority that drives our border policy. A policy, I would predict, that history may very well write in chapter one of, “How Great Nations Have Fallen” (In Arabic of course).
8. The moral case for war. Though we debate about Iraq and the “War on Terror” we really have not as a nation, understood and accepted the moral case to fight radical Islam on the moral level that they fight us. We have lost the concept of it being of the highest morality to defend oneself. In a day where WMDs are available and petrol dollars and sophisticated weaponry are funneled to radical regimes or Jihadists, morality requires that we either surrender or capitulate to radical Islam, or we fight. We have failed to make the case for fighting evil to the nation and we have failed to win agreement by both political parties about that core concept. Instead, we play gottcha politics with details and nuance.
9. Propaganda. We fail to use it to bolster our unity and to undermine our enemy’s unity and cohesiveness. Perhaps we need to use propaganda in Islam to question the goodness of a God that allows for a faith that is spread by the sword, and a faith that chooses such weapons of conversion as dynamite belts on innocent young Muslims. We need to drop our fear of “cartoon type reactions” and control our multicultural sensitivities when they interfere with our action in this vital area. We need to use propaganda to rally Americans around the need for a common loyalty over and above, lesser things such as ethnicity, class status, and party affiliation, that we may survive as a nation, not a land of competing special interest groups.
10. We lack the decency of a moral society worth fighting for. Beyond the biological urge to survive, there is a moral level that man is able to attain that needs and deserves protection and recognition. When both parties squabble about how much innocent life is moral to take or use for our pleasure, or health, when we laugh at those who believe and live in compliance with nature’s God, we lose our moral authority to fight wars. When we deliberately in the name of liberty, confuse good and evil in order to manipulate and control the minds of the masses, we invite evil and lose the sole basis for fighting any war – which is that we fight against evil.
A society that believes man is incapable of evil is in its death throes. A society that fails to recognize evil is already dead. A country that does battle for neither good nor evil is doomed to lose that battle.
If we fight just to protect our “culture of death” or our radical materialism, be it for hedonist, capitalist, or consumer; we fight for a hollow cause, for mankind chooses to die for great and noble causes – Islamists understand that –we had better learn it or live to regret it.
The Amboy Times kindly cross-posted this article.
As seen at The Conservative Cat, basil's blog
ShrinkWrapped linked with The Council Has Spoken:
Right Truth linked with Desktop publishins agents, what do you think?
Woman Honor Thyself linked with 9-11 Numbers?
The Amboy Times linked with TMH's 10 Reasons
Woman Honor Thyself linked with My 9-11 Struggle
September 11th, 2006 at 19:10
My 9-11 Struggle
Sigh. Sad to admit, my sweet friends, but truth be told we all know that memories of epochal events fade with time.
Which tower fell first? Do you recall?
…
September 12th, 2006 at 01:14
I disagree with #10, but this is a brilliant piece. I will link it.
September 12th, 2006 at 01:24
TMH’s 10 Reasons
Cross posted from TMH’s Bacon Bits Ten Reasons Why the West Will Lose the War on Terror (the pessimist’s view) 1. The West lacks the will to survive. We make mountains out of trivial political issues, such as humiliating terrorists,
September 12th, 2006 at 11:57
9-11 Numbers?
6 years, 8 months
Time it took to build the World Trade Center, from 1966 to 1973
1 hour, 42 minutes
Time it took to destroy the towers, from the first impact to the second collapse
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September 12th, 2006 at 17:59
About number nine
“Perhaps we need to use propaganda in Islam to question the goodness of a God that allows for a faith that is spread by the sword, …”
It sure is nice to get support almost as soon as I wrote this from no less than the pope.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/12/AR2006091200861.html\
“In his lecture, the Pope quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor who wrote in a dialogue with a Persian that Mohammad had brought things “only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
The Pope, who used the terms “jihad” and “holy war” in his lecture, added: “Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.”
September 12th, 2006 at 18:31
Good for Benedict, naming it as it is (in so many words).
The pessimist in me hears ya. The optimist in me is working hard as hell to disagree, to believe that you are DAMN WRONG and that we WILL win.
Great, provocative post, my friend. I submitted it to The Watcher’s Council for this week.
September 13th, 2006 at 13:47
Another source seems to agree,
http://www.nysun.com/article/39539
U.S. May Lose War on Terror, Historian Says
Will we wake up in time? Stay tuned as the left keeps fighting Bush and ingnoring the Islamo-terrorist problem.
September 13th, 2006 at 14:02
Desktop publishins agents, what do you think?
I’ve been having problems with TypePad and they suggested I use a desktop publishing agent like BlogJet, w.bloggar, Zempt. I tried Zempt, but kept getting errors when trying to set up the account. w.bloggar looked like it would be great,
September 14th, 2006 at 09:07
I just must add this support article.
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/columnists/15514605.htm
“To: UBL
From: Philadelphia Cell
Allah Akbar, God is Great!
Greetings from the City of Brotherly Love, honorable Sheik, on the fifth anniversary of our great success against the Infidels. Your words are again proving to be correct. The enemy is not worthy. They really are the Google-glorifying, Blackberry-addicted, lap-dance loving, Starbucks-sucking, Gap-obsessed sectarians you believe them to be.
They have the attention span of young goats and lack any resolve to fight you on your terms.”
Sad but, true! This is one time when I hope I never have to say , “I told you so.”
September 15th, 2006 at 08:33
[…] #8230;”. For second place non-Council post there was an extraordinary four-way tie with TMH’s Bacon Bits’s post, “Ten Reasons Why the West Will […]
September 15th, 2006 at 16:59
I picked up on your piece from ‘The Glittering Eye’; nicely done. I tend toward optimism, but not merely based upon feeling. Rather, it relies upon my experience during the Cold War. I shared a general pessimism and malaise in the 70s and 80s vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. I was attracted to the view that our open society would likely lose the Cold War, given our laxity, unwillingness to fight, our undisciplined nature and our tendency toward slouchng (thank you, Judge Bork). I read books like Revel’s “How Democracy Perish”. Then the Berlin Wall came down (wholly unexpectedly) in 1989, thus destroying my pessimistic preconceptions. (Oh well, one can’t always be right…) The 1991 Gulf War further reinforced the view that our military might was substantial.
So I’ve long since returned to the drawing board, and (somewhat sheepishly) traded in my former pessimism for a cautious optimism about the inner strength of our country. When the chips are down, we unite and focus. We are capable to strength and toughness, far more so than any of our enemies can imagine.
September 16th, 2006 at 10:47
The Council Has Spoken:
This week, most of the nominated posts, not surprisingly, were related to the 5th Anniversary of 9/11. The winning Council post was by Matt Barr, at Socratic Rhythm Method. In Your chance of dying in a terrorist attack, he pointed
September 18th, 2006 at 14:56
[…] rism
Courtesy of Stop The ACLU: by The MaryHunter [Originally posted by DL at TMH’s Bacon Bits] The following was inspired by an article by David Sel […]
September 18th, 2006 at 20:00
As difficult as it is to admit, I find the 10 reasons not just ‘thought provoking’, but down right frightening in their clarity.
The Left seems more intent on protecting the ones who would cut the throats of our children than it does on protecting our way of life.
I believe it was Winston Churchill who made the statement that appeasement was comperable to feeding an alligator in the hope that he will eat you last.
Just this week, some Islamist spokesman made the comment that it would be best for all Muslims to ‘get out of New York City and Washington’.
Could this be a foretelling of another attack? Perhaps this time with some type of nuclear device? Next week? Next month? Next year?
You cannot fight an enemy until you RECOGNIZE him as the enemy.
For some reason, we seem to be caught in a moras where we refuse to make that distinction, and then act upon it.
And, we do so at our own, and our children’s peril.
September 28th, 2006 at 17:25
[…] en Reasons Why the West Will Lose the War on Terror (the pessimist’s view)” by TMH Bacon Bits. 2. (tie) “Countdown To 9/11: My Days With the Dead […]