Stopping terrorists, using all necessary means, is vital in protecting the nation. We cannot win without the use of force and first-rate intelligence. But suicide bombers are merely the expendable, deluded cannon fodder of ruthless ideologues. This has been true with terrorists throughout history. The long-term battle is against the underlying ideas and leaders behind these specific groups of terrorists.

Despite factionalism and fierce doctrinal disputes, our enemies, broadly speaking, constitute a movement, with goals, gurus, ideologues, myths and martyrs. They share a core set of virulently anti-Western beliefs and have common goals: to destroy the moderate (and still majority) wing of Islam, to establish Islamist theocracies that look backward toward a mythic "golden age," to seek the destruction of Israel, and to inflict maximum damage and human suffering through acts of terrorism.

Among its leaders, there is one whose face is as internationally recognized today as Adolf Hitler's was in 1941. He was responsible for Sept. 11. Yet the United States has not made it a primary goal to expose Osama bin Laden as the monster he is, something Roosevelt and Winston Churchill did to Hitler, and American leadership did to communism during the Cold War by demonstrating its moral and intellectual bankruptcy. Bin Laden (unlike Saddam Hussein) has been virtually ignored in public by official Washington.
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Permanent Link posted by J @ 5:47 pm