It’s amazing to imagine that someone’s thinking can be so twisted to believe that any country would kill thousands of it’s own citizens and wreak millions upon millions of dollars damage simply out of spite for people with ideological differences.

Pride goes before a fall. Its the ultimate offense to pride to think that we could and would ignore them. That they rarely crossed our thoughts as we went on our merry capitalistic way. It would seem to them to be the height of madness and humiliation to consider (much less admit) that as a group, Muslims barely registered in our national conciousness.

I say, if its attention they want then let them have our full attention.

As I’ve stated before on this blog, there is a struggle going on between fundamentalist and moderate Islam and there are man times I fear that the moderates are losing. 

I realize I may get myself into trouble here for saying this, but I do believe that the President’s policies and the invasion of Iraq have done much to fan violent fundamentalism throughout the Islamic world.  If the “Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism” (as the War on Terror is now called) is ultimately a war for the mind and hearts of the Middle East, we are losing this war.  I am not saying that Iraq, Abu Graib or Gitmo justifies Islamic terrorism, but Bush has inadvertantly given Al-Qaida powerful propaganda tools.

As long as this is a war between Christianity and Islam or a clash of civilization, we cannot win.  In that scenerio, the West is fighting Islam on its home turf.  How many of us would want to be invaded by an outside force, even if it had “good” intentions?

The mistakes and miscalculations that this administration has made in the WOT have been costly.

Its entirely possible that the WoT (or the GSAVE has fanned violent fundamentalism. Its also entirely possible that it has merely exposed violent fundamentalism. I can not help but consider that if Hitler had been thwarted earlier, many tradgedies could have been avoided. Would it have given the German extremists more propaganda tools? Probably, but it would have been cost effective in the long run.

The question is not whether or not we’ll have to deal with the extremeists. The question is when, and where. The question is not whether or not we’ll pay a price, but what price will we pay. Ignoring Al-quaida will not make them go away. It will only give them time to grow.

Certainly, there will be mistakes. Wars are fought by humans. Hindsight is 20/20. Not every scenario can be anticipated. Even if every scenario was anticipated, we can’t be prepared for all of them. That said ... I think we are the strongest military machine on the planet. Now is the time for war, before circumstances change against our favor.

Without knowing the source, I remember a quote: “If there must be war, then let it come in my lifetime that my children might know peace.”

I’m writing on my lunch break, so unfortunately it has to be quick and not as detailed as I’d like --

“If there must be war, then let it come in my lifetime that my children might know peace.”

While a nice sentiment, the problem with this quote is that war does not lead to peace.  WWI was of course supposed to be the “War to end all wars,” yet it laid the groundwork for the rise of German Fascism and WWII (some historians conisder WWI and WWII as one big war with a twenty year break). 

I don’t see the problem of the Iraq invasion as a propaganda issue—instead, the human suffering that is caused by the invasion creates the reasons for extremism.  One of the things we often forget is that even under totalitarian regiemes, there exists “normal” life among the population.  Most Iraqis were pre-occupied with many of the same things that we are—work, family, etc.  That has all been disrupted and as Iraqis struggle to deal with the destruction of their communities, who are they ultimately going to blame? We may have the best of intentions, but will someone whose children were killed by American bombs, reconcile their suffering with our intentions?

When I read the quote from yesterday and the quote of today, I am convinced that our actions make no difference.  If we do something that the Islamic fundamentalists take umbrage to, then it will become a rallying cry for future terrorism.  If we are perfect from this day forward and do nothing offensive ever, offense will either be fabricated or recycled from yesterday.

It is with logic and reason that the apologist try to discover the root cause of terrorism which is a fool’s errand, for the terrorists have never subscribed to either.