Hanson

[Annie]

Ours to win or lose:

http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp?ref=/hanson/hanson200406250853.asp

As we neared three years of fighting in World War II, Patton was stalled near Germany for want of gas, V-2 rockets began raining down on England, and we were fighting to take the Marianas in preparation for future B-29 bases. In comparison, what exactly is our current status in this, our confusing third year of war against Islamic fascists and their autocratic sponsors?


THE STRATEGIC PICTURE
Despite all the near paralysis over the 9/11 Commission, Abu Ghraib, denials about the obvious prior "ties" between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda, various "letters of conscience" posted by hypercritical legal grandees, former diplomats, generals, and D.C. apparatchiks, things in the strategic sense are ever so slowly looking up for the United States.

Unlike the Cold War, when our tactical options were circumscribed by nuclear enemies, today the world's true powers are decidedly unfriendly to radical Islam — and growing more so daily.

Two-thirds of al Qaeda's leadership are either dead or in jail. Their sanctuaries, sponsors, and kindred spirits in Afghanistan and Iraq are long gone. Detention is increasingly common for Islamicists in Europe and America. The Hamas intifada has failed. Its implosion serves as a warning for al Qaeda that Western democracies can still fight back. There is also a lesson for America that even in our postmodern world most people still admire principled success: No one is lamenting the recent targeted killings of Hamas bullies or the preemptive assassination of suicide bombers.

Russia looks at al Qaeda through the prism of Chechnya. For all its triangulation it wants America to succeed — as President Putin's amazing but mostly unheralded (buried on page 8 of the New York Times) revelation about Saddam's terrorist plans suggests.

The problem with China's stance toward radical Islam within its borders arises not from appeasement but rather a desire for outright liquidation. India ensures the world that the old chauvinism about Pakistan's heralded "Islamic bomb" has grown mute.

Europe, led by France and Germany, saw a chance for both profit and psychological satisfaction by opposing the United States. But recently it has realized the short-sightedness of such a policy, and belatedly grasped that al Qaeda terrorists despise Euros as much if not more than they do Americans. European ingratitude has just about ensured an end to American subsidized defense of the continent. All this does not mean the world's other powers will aid us — far from it — only that they will continue opportunistically and in public to chide us while privately praying for our success.

So, the world of the radical Islamist shrinks. Moderate Arabs understand that they increasingly suffer from guilt-by-association by about everyone around the world — thanks to bin Laden and his epigones. The parlor game of anti-Americanism has turned deadly. Terrorists kill hundreds in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, ignoring calls from once-appeasing imams to stop dismembering Muslims. Being anti-American in the Middle East does not necessarily win you exemption from al Qaeda. The fascists do not want to put a fashionable Islamic-nationalist veneer on upscale Arabs, but rather to transport them lock, stock, and barrel back to the Dark Ages....

 

[dilloduck]

thanks TKNP

very good obsevations---SO TRUE!

 

[Annie]

Originally posted by dilloduck


thanks TKNP

very good obsevations---SO TRUE!

OK, let me in on the TKNP. You're welcome for the article, now tell me!

 

[Yurt]

Kathianne.... :cof:

 

[NATO AIR]

thank god this is america and we're not oppressing, discriminating and/or killing people just because of their ethnic and religious ties to terrorists.

however, with the exception of the europeans (and the indians who are rapidly learning that fighting terrorism through hard work and investigation is much better than undiscriminatory brue force), i see these russians and chinese as adding to the problem rather than eliminating it.

if your family's been wiped out in an attack by the chinese or russian militaries, don't you think you will hold a considerable grudge against them and their "allies?" i don't trust the chinese anyway.

i think we can win the war on terror, but we have to be wary of "allies" that create more enemies and more terrorists through their piss poor tactics.

we screwed up and allowed chechnya to become a disaster and a terrorist's dream by clinton and other leaders not having the balls to stand up to the russians about it, i hope we don't make the same mistake in the future.

please understand this is not an attack on america or even europe's tactics, strictly the russians and chinese.

and btw, the chinese have been giving the iranians, pakistanis and north koreans aid for years, as well as other nations that should be of a concern to us. pakistan may be our ally because of its military dictators, but their people are staunchly anti-american and anti-western, mostly because of the oppression of their leadership and the two-faced policies denouncing anti-americanism publicly but encouraging it privately and among their own people. let's not forget the pakistanis especially created the taliban and certain elements in the pakistani gov't are still supporting them.

BUT BRAVO ON THE REST OF THE ARTICLE.