Anti-Climacus

QUOTE: Michele from A Small Victory:

"I cannot for the life of me imagine why any nation (other than Arab nations) would not stand by our side in the fight against our combined enemies. They have to see that there is no difference now. al-Qaeda, Iraq "insurgents," whatever other terrorist groups are out there - they are one force operating under several identities. There is no time to separate the Iraq from bin Laden. There is no time for semantics or arguing. We are at war. Any country that does not give their all to this war is, for all intents and purposes, siding with the enemy. In their defiance of the coalition of those who want to fight, these cowardly countries are, in essence, declaring to the terrorists this statement: We will not fight you. You're ok with us. Go bother those other countries that want to wage war with you. It's similar to a kid joining sides with a bully just so the bully doesn't pick on him. It's cowardly. And it's wrong.

What can we do to make those countries and their leaders understand that this is a war of ideas, a war of ideologies, and not one about land or oil or even weapons of mass destruction? All the rage pointed at Blair and Bush and Halliburton and the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy is rage misplaced.

Somebody sent me an email that said this was all the fault of the U.S. because "we should have let sleeping dogs lie." Those dogs were never, ever sleeping. Those dogs were in Bali. They were in New York, twice. They are forever in Israel. They were in the Khobar towers, in Scotland, in the waters off Greece, at the Munich Olympics and at the U.S. embassy in Iran. They are a great, big pack of countless mongrels baring their teeth and don't you think for one second that you are safe or that it is George Bush's fault that you are not.

It's hard to wage war against an idea. It's difficult at best to aim a machine gun at someone's ideology. But we must try. There are packs upon packs of militants or insurgents or freedom fighters, as those who love the square quotes call them. They all want one thing; for their way to be rule. For their god to be the only god. For their laws to be the only laws. Freedom is their enemy. How could you not fight against that?"