Stunning Victory in Global War on Terror

The developing story out of Palestine suggests that Hamas will assume majority position in that Country’s Parliament. This is stunning, dramatic, and a significant victory for our side in the war on terror. While many will think I am crazy, I suggest you consider a few realities in this war.

Today, the terrorists we fight are invisible; they’re in buses, shopping centers, movie theaters, open air markets. They’re in commercial airplanes, mingling in hotel weddings, and could be any where, at any time, striking at anything, for any number of reasons or, for that matter, for no reason at all other than to see how many people they can kill. This is the nature of the enemy we face, and they were all given birth, ostensibly, in Palestine.

A Little Context:

The most modest of research into 20th and 21st century history will show the rise of modern day terrorism, on a large strategic scale, goes back at least as far as Ireland; the Catholics against the Protestants and those wanting to retain British meddlings in the country against those who did not. The method and madness of terrorism took the face of indiscriminate bombings of innocent bystanders-killing many men, women, and children, and the collateral destruction of homes and shops and public institutions. The targets seemed random and heartless, the perpetrators labeled mindless, bloodthirsty thugs. Their defense then was that it took these kinds of measures to show the depth of their commitment, and the seriousness of their demands.

Yasser Arafat was a good student of this history; of this type of terrorism, as was many others including Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaida network to name a few. While many have asserted that the racial or ethnic background of Arafat and Bin Laden and others is especially significant in the discussion about the war on terror, that this is somehow a war on Arabs or a war on Muslims, I personally believe this is a convenient coincidence. It could just as easily be termed a war on Nation Hijackers.

History has a long list of Nation Hijackers: Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and Castro to name a few. A case could be made that the leadership of almost every non-democratic country in the world today is ruled by Nation Hijackers. The Royal family in Saudi Arabia, the Syrian leadership, the Jordanian royalty; what these countries have in common most is simply that control is in the hands of those who would kill anyone wishing to replace them, or at least imprison them to prevent any loss of their power, control, or leadership. That these are Arab countries, and that they are fundamentally Muslim, is to me a pure coincidence; what is significant here is that they are ultimately trying to hijack a nation that some of us in the world flatly refuse to allow them to hijack: Israel.

The case of our opponent is, of course, that Israel hijacked Palestine and they are simply exercising their rights to defend themselves against this act of aggression. I am no ancient historian, but I suggest that this back and forth has been going on for thousands of years and is essentially irrelevant from the standpoint of how we go forward from here.

When a person or a group rises up with righteous indignation against some terrible wrong they and their people are suffering, we call it courage and determination; we call them freedom fighters. When freedom fighters win, and assume control of their situation or their country and begin to right the wrongs, we call them free and sovereign nations, or emerging democracies, and other democracies of the world vow to stand by them and help them through their struggle; we call them Allies. When they settle in to their new roles, and become bloated with power and supremacy and begin killing political opponents, killing innocent citizens who would disobey their will, imprisoning anyone in the media who dare openly question their power or authority, we call them Tyrants and Dictators, and we vow to defeat them or remove them or support the next round of freedom fighters who would rise up with righteous indignation. When they kill tens or hundreds or thousands of innocent bystanders to make a point, we call them Terrorists.

Yasser Arafat was a freedom fighter, with righteous indignation against the Israeli advance on, and occupation of, his territory and the Israeli presumption of ownership and control of Arafat’s homeland. While not fully victorious, he regained some of his homeland and control over his people living within it. Like so many before him, he became bloated; unsatisfied that all his demands weren’t met, hostile to the invading neighbor he spent his life fighting to eradicate from the planet. He, and the organizations he controlled or coexisted peacefully with have and continue their execution of terrorist attacks on innocent bystanders while killing themselves as well if it maximizes the kill count. Arafat and his loose coalition of killers included an impressive invitation list, many of whom fight on today.

The war with Osama Bin Laden is because of his position on whose team we’re on in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an admission he has made publicly and repeatedly. He also considers our role and relationship with his homeland, Saudi Arabia, and the extent to which our western ways have dirtied and cheapened his interpretations of Islam to be worthy of our departure from the middle east with a promise never to return or face eradication from the earth. As a show of good faith he had two commercial airplanes flown into the Twin Towers taking out thousands of innocent bystanders.

As an aside on OBL, I am more concerned for Muslims than I am for the US or Israel or any of his bombing targets. Bin Laden’s rabid defense of Palestine and the high profile assassinations of Americans around the world were merely, I’m cynically afraid, his way of getting a ticket to the dance. I believe Bin Laden is doing his own shrewd Nation Hijacking and that Nation is Islam itself. The more successes he has, the more followers he gets. The more followers, the more converts. While this reality is still very dangerous for those of us he wishes to destroy, he will himself be dead one day (by our hands I hope). What will be left behind is an Islam that shames the true Koran, shames Mohammed, and shames the memories of all that fought and died protecting and preserving both.

GWOT Reality Check:

We can’t beat an enemy we can’t see, and we can’t know we’ve won if we don’t know who is supposed to surrender. The center of the war really IS right there in Israel and Palestine, and the greater Middle East. We know Iran is itching to eradicate Israel, but we can assume that if they COULD they already would have. We can assume Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and ALL the others share that sentiment.

That it hasn’t happened yet has as much to do with International responsibility, and membership in the Global Economy Boy’s Club, as it has to do with whether anyone thinks they would lose because the West is better armed and equipped. Frankly, it is more likely that they don’t want to risk losing commerce, access to world markets, profit, and all the terrible “trappings” the West has to give vis a vis Capitalism…the almighty dollar, yen, euro, whatever.

Whether you support President Bush and his foreign policy or not, it must be recognized that some established government and sovereign nation called Palestine must ultimately exist. It must also be recognized, if selfishly so, that Democracy in every Middle East country would be a far better proposition for the US than the various types of governments we face there today. We just know how to deal with them better I guess, but at the very least it is a fair assumption that leaders will come and go as elected by the people, and that entrenched dictatorships would in theory not have a chance to take root.

We needed a Democracy in Iraq with fair and full elections. They were successful and reflected the will of the people. That’s all we can do if we truly respect their sovereignty. We keep saying that we want to spread Democracy around the world, starting in the Middle East, and Palestine has had their own elections; the people have spoken. If we want to be honest arbiters with all countries, and respect the rights of a Palestinian State and an Israeli State to live side by side and work out their difference among themselves, we need to respect this election and applaud it loudly as another show of Democracy taking hold in the Middle East.

I know I know-they were terrorists until 2 days ago…but now they are the Government. We can SEE them. We know WHERE they are and WHO they are. They are out in the light. If their intentions are good; that they want to fix the lives of the Palestinian people, we should support them wherever we can like we have always done. If they establish an honest negotiating relationship with Israel, renounce terrorism, and withdraw their stated purpose to destroy Israel and begin to move towards peace and harmony, we need to say “go in peace”.

If they see this as the next stepping stone toward Israeli eradication well, it’s game on…but we’ll know where and who and we’ll finally have an enemy we can see.

Either way, Hamas winning is a victory for the GWOT. Either they finally get the peace and land agreements done so we can all move on and stop fighting terrorists who want to kill us because we support Israel, or they exact an act of aggression on Israel which will set off a chain reaction that will finally get this resolved one way or another. Either way, I would rather see my enemy and live or die fighting him, than to see this war of attrition…a soldier here a soldier there…a mom and dad and kid on the bus in Haifa, a couple thousand people at work minding their own business in a couple skyscrapers, a couple hundred on a train in Spain. Enough.

“Let’s Get it On”