The Face of the Enemy

With yesterday's AOTW, I brushed upon a problem that we tend to forget (and most people tend to forget when the threat is not imminent) in our daily wallowing in other issues which, while important, are meaningless if we are destroyed.

That problem is an unrelenting enemy: Islam and its militant followers.

Now before you argue the points about the value of any religion, I will concede that point in most cases. But when a religion is designed to be intertwined with politics, rather than existing with a clear demarcation from government as we have here, moderation and peaceful coexistence become difficult, if not impossible. I'm going to try to clarify this:


First of all, I am willing to admit that, in our history, we have allied with those who would become our enemy to fight the war we were in. In WWII we joined with the Soviets to defeat the Nazis. After this, we sought allies of every stripe to fight the Soviets in the Cold War (which includes our fights in Korea and Vietnam). In the 80's, Iranian terrorists were our greatest Middle East threat, so we provided assistance to Iraq. We've fought them twice since then. And in other parts of the Islamic world, we were assisting freedom fighters in Afghanistan to push out the Soviets. They became the Taliban, and primary enablers of Al Qaeda. Then there's the Arab-Israeli conflict. Need I dive into that mess?

The result of this is that the lines of right and wrong and good and evil have been blurred, mostly for the right reason, but with messy results.

So that brings us up to today's mess and today's enemy: Al Qaeda, and their associated terrorists who use Islam as their justification for eternal total war.

So let's start with that religion of peace, Islam, because while there are millions of otherwise peaceful Muslims, the religion itself is not by design. And considering that the religion and the state are not separate entities in any Islamic country, but are unified to various degrees. This means that an attack on one Islamic country becomes an attack on Islam. And personal choices made by millions of citizens that are an affront to Islam become a reason for a country to condemn us.

The fact is, until the religious/political movement of Islam begins to shift from the intertwined domino model to a form that truly respects those who have not submitted their will to Allah, this war will not end.

So we face several problems. The first is on the domestic front. We can't stop the spread of Islam here, because we are Constitutionally prohibited from doing so. While this in itself is good, we can only attack the enemy when they leave the realm of religion and make with the politics or, at the worse, terrorism. In the past couple of weeks, our post-9/11 FBI has been successful in defusing threats of terrorism. This effort cannot and should not abate. Ever. Because our enemy will not yield.

Second, the war must continue overseas. I won't scream about where we should or shouldn't attack (I leave that to the commanders on the ground). But I will say we need to figure out what it will take to win, then do it. No politics, just hunt down and kill terrorists.

Third, when dealing with potential terrorist (Islamic) countries (Iran, most significantly), we need three categories. First, those countries who are "allies" (because Islam and freedom are not compatible), we need to stay away, only dealing with them out of necessity, leaving the human rights issues to the UN. Second, the ambivalent countries should be treated similar to our allies (limited contact), with increased scrutiny until we can determine their status. As for our enemies, we need to come at them with a coalition of countries to pursue diplomacy, while also pointing lots of weapons at them and drawing a line in the sand. And if and when they put one toe over the line, we start blowing shit up.

However, and fourth, invasion must be an absolute last resort. With few exceptions, most of the Islamic countries will become more hostile, even if we remove an unpopular government. Iraq and Afghanistan have shown us the challenges in doing this, and those were governments the people hated. Compare that with Iran, which is "democratically" elected, with a ruling religious class.

This stems from the fact that, unlike a fight between Judeo-Christian-oriented countries (us, Europe, for example), there is a clash of culture that aggravates the conflict beyond. Add to that the militant nature of Islam, and an invasion of a unified Islamic country is an invitation to make the streets rivers of blood. Instead, we deal with them as we dealt with the last absolutely resolved enemy we fought: Japan. The lesson we taught them at the end of WWII was that we could, and more importantly would, absolutely destroy them without sacrificing millions of our own people. With Islam, that lesson must be taught.

Now before anyone starts screaming that I'm talking about genocide or threatening to blow up civilians, I am talking about it. With a major caveat, that is. Our last resort must be destroying a country completely (turning Iran into a sheet of glass, for example), but we can do massive damage without civilian casualties. But with an enemy who will use civilians to protect their weapons, we must make it absolutely clear that we will, if necessary, kill civilians to take out their weapons. They do not hesitate to target civilians (9/11). We must overcome that aversion.

Very simply, we have seen the dangers that a movement based on fanaticism can do, from every political stripe. The wedding of government, fundamentalist religion, and absolute commitment cannot be defeated by the rules of gentlemanly combat, and mutual understanding. And as history has shown us the path to peace is through the lands of the militant.