Know the Enemy

It’s a fact of military life that to be victorious the soldier must know and understand his enemy. An understanding that seems to be lacking in the western nations during our current “war on terror”. First, a terrorist is an individual suffering from severe mental aberrations. A strong and fanatical believer in some specific cause, he considers “his” solution to a real or imagined problem to be the only acceptable answer. And he is quite willing to force his particular view on all others, no matter what their opinion or desire. Brilliant he may be, perhaps even imbued with a touch of genius, but he is not sane as the word is commonly understood by civilized people. Denuding himself into thinking that he is waging a war on behalf of a downtrodden or suppressed population, he has placed himself above the laws of either God or Man in attempting to reach his goal, a goal that he cannot reach by legitimate or socially acceptable means. His sole weapon is the sudden violent death of men, women, and children, friend or foe, randomly selected, in order to “terrorize” governments into doing the terrorists will. Throughout history, all terrorism has ever accomplished is a few senseless deaths, the limited destruction of property, and gives “the government” an excuse to increase the very persecution the terrorist claims to oppose. At present we have a considerable body of terrorist activity committed in the name of Islam. Yet the vast majority of Muslims decry such activity. Do the terrorists really believe they are advancing the cause of Islam? Or do they have some ulterior motive?

By the end of World War I the Mid-east harbored a growing anti-western sentiment, blaming its internal failures on everyone but Muslims, and setting the stage for a major Islamic religious revival known as Wahhabism, a sect which came into full bloom under the House of Saud on the Arabian Peninsula. It is this Wahhabi version of Islam which has infected the religion itself, now finding adherents in almost all branches and sects of Islam, especially among the Shiites. Wahhabiism calls for the complete and total rejection or destruction of anything and everything which is not based in the original teachings of The Prophet. Its most glaring practice is found in the policies of the Afghani Taliban or the Shiite practices of the late Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran. Its Ali Pasha (Field Marshall) is now Osama bin Laden, the leader of the "Third Jihad", who is Wahhabi as were his 9/11 attack teams, 18 of which were also Saudi.

The strategy for this "holy war" did not begin with planning the destruction of the World Trade Center. It began with the toppling of the Shah of Iran back in the late 1970's. With his plans and programs to "westernize" his country, along with his close ties to the U.S. and reluctant acceptance of the State of Israel, the Shah was an easy target. Remember "America Held Hostage"? Thanks, in large part to the hypocritical and disastrous policies of the Jimmy Carter State Department, the revolution was set into motion, the Shah was deposed, his armed forces scattered, and stage one was complete. The Third Jihad then had a base of operations and the oil wealth to support its grand design, or what they call the "Great Caliphate". What this design calls for is nothing less than the replacement of all leadership in any country with Muslim majorities by Wahhabi fundamentalists. This would include Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, Indonesia, all the Emirates, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Malaysia, Indonesia and finally what they call the "occupied territory" of Israel.The strategy of this Third Jihad counts on three goals. First, the U.S. withdrawing from the region just as it did from Southeast Asia following Vietnam. Second, taking control of the oil wealth in the Muslim countries, which would be upwards 75% of all known oil reserves; and third, using nuclear weapons or other WMDs to annihilate Israel. A further outcome of successfully achieving these objectives would be to place the United Nations as the sole arbiter in East/West negotiations, paralyzing western resistance, leading to total western withdrawal from all Islamic dominated countries.

But how do we counter these terrorists? Trying to be a nice guy certainly doesn’t work, it only makes you appear to be a weakling in their eyes, and probably a safe target. At the other extreme is genocide, a morally reprehensible response. But what is a suitable response? The American people are not going to tolerate extended wars or military occupations such as we presently see in Afghanistan and Iraq. Remember also, the terrorists certainly won’t settle for less than “total victory”, whatever they assume that is.

We are in the battle of our lives, a battle which will go on for many years, possibly even generations. If we fail to understand what we are facing or falter in the challenge of "knowing our enemy" the results will be catastrophic. Imagine a world where al Qaeda regimes control 75% of the world's oil, have at their disposal nuclear weapons, legions of willing suicide soldiers, and where our national survival is dependent on the good graces of Kofi Annan and a third world dominated United Nations.