President Bush and his administration spokesmen are
not telling the American people what they really need to know about
this "war." If they don't do that between now and November it may cost
them the election.
The war against terror did not begin on September 11,
2001, nor will it end with the peaceful transition to civilian authority
in Iraq, whenever that may be. In fact, Iraq is but a footnote in the
bigger context of this encounter, but an important one none the less.
This war is what the Jihadists themselves are calling
the "Third Great Jihad." They are operating within the framework of
a time line which reaches back to the very creation of Islam in the
seventh century and are presently attempting to recreate the dynamics
which gave rise to the religion in the first two hundred years of its
existence.
No religion in history grew as fast, in its infancy,
and the reasons for the initial growth of Islam are not hard to explain
when you understand what the world was like at the time of Muhammad's
death in 632 AD. Remember that the Western Roman Empire was in ruins
and the Eastern Empire, based in Constantinople, was trying desperately
to keep the power of its early grandeur while transitioning to Christianity
as a de facto state religion. The costs to the average person were large
as he was being required to meet the constantly rising taxes levied
by the state along with the tithes coerced by the Church.
What Islam offered was the "carrot or the sword". If
you became a convert, your taxes were immediately eliminated, as was
your tithe. If you didn't, you faced death. The choice was not hard
for most to make, unless you were a very devoted martyr in the making.
At the beginning, even the theology was not too hard for most to swallow,
considering that both Jewry and Christianity were given their due by
the Prophet. There is but one God-Allah, and Muhammad is His Prophet,
as was Jesus, and the pre-Christian Jewish prophets of the Torah (Old
Testament). Both were called "children of the book"--the book being
the Koran, which replaced both the Old and New Testaments for former
Christians and Jews.
With this practical approach to spreading the "word"
Islam grew like wild-fire, reaching out from the Saudi Arabian Peninsula
in all directions. This early growth is what the Muslims call the "First"
great Jihad and it met with little resistance until Charles Martel of
France, the father of Charlemagne, stopped them in the battle of Tours
in France, after they had firmly established Islam on the Iberian Peninsula.
This first onslaught against the West continued in various forms and
at various times until Islam was finally driven out of Spain in 1492
at the battle of Granada.
The "Second great jihad" came with the Ottoman Turks.
This empire succeeded in bringing about the downfall of Constantinople
as a Christian stronghold and an end to Roman hegemony in all of its
forms. The Ottoman Empire was Islam's most successful expansion of territory
even though the religion itself had fractured into warring sects and
bitter rivalries with each claiming the ultimate truths in "the ways
of the Prophet". By 1683 the Ottomans had suffered a series of defeats
on both land and sea and the final, unsuccessful attempt to capture
Vienna set the stage for the collapse of any further territorial ambitions
and Islam shrunk into various sheikhdoms, emir dominated principalities,
and roving tribes of nomads. However, by this time a growing anti-western
sentiment, blaming its internal failures on anyone but themselves, was
taking hold and setting the stage for a new revival known as Wahhabism,
a sect which came into full bloom under the House of Saud on the Arabian
Peninsula shortly before the onset of WWI. It is this Wahhabi version
of Islam which has infected the religion itself, now finding adherents
in almost all branches and sects, especially 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 and finds its most glaring practice
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
known as 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
the planning of 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 subdued acceptance of the State of Israel, the
Shah was the soft 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 or murdered
and stage one was complete.
The Third Jihad now 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 the replacement
of all secular leadership in any country with Muslim majorities. 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"
Israel.
As a part of this strategy, forces of the jihad will
infiltrate governments and the military as a prelude to taking control,
once the secular leadership is ousted or assassinated. Such was the
case in Lebanon leading to the Syrian occupation and in Egypt with the
murder of Anwar Sadat, along with the multiple attempts on the lives
of Hussein in Jordan, Mubarak of Egypt and Musharraf in Pakistan. Pakistan
is a particular prize because of its nuclear weapons. (Please note al
Qaeda call for the Islamic-militant overthrow of Musharraf in Pakistan
on March 25, just yesterday.)
The long-range strategy of the Third Jihad counts on
three strategic goals. First, the U.S. withdrawing from the region just
as it did in Southeast Asia, following Vietnam. Second, taking control
of the oil wealth in the Muslim countries, which would be upwards to
75% of known reserves; 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 and paralyze western resistance, leading to
total withdrawal from all Islamic dominated countries
Evidence of the Bush Administration awareness of this
plan is found in the events immediately following the 9/11 attack. The
administration's first move was to shore up Pakistan and Egypt, believing
that these two would be the next targets for al Qaeda, while Americans
focused on the disaster in New York. The administration also knew that
the most important objective was to send a loud and clear message that
the U.S. was in the region to stay, not only to shore up our allies
but to send a message to the Jihadists.
The attack on Afghanistan was necessary to break-up
a secure al Qaeda base of operations and put their leadership on the
run or in prison.
The war in Iraq also met a very strategic necessity
in that no one knew how much collaboration existed between Saddam Hussein
and the master planners of the Third Jihad or Hussein's willingness
to hand off WMDs to terrorist groups including the PLO in Israel. What
was known were serious indications of on-going collaboration as Saddam
funneled money to families of suicide bombers attacking the Israelis
and others in Kuwait.
What the U.S. needed to establish was a significant
base of operations smack dab in the middle of the Islamic world, in
a location which effectively cut it in half. Iraq was the ideal target
for this and a host of other strategic reasons.
Leadership of various anti-American groups both here
and abroad understood the vital nature of the Bush initiative and thus
launched their demonstrations, world-wide, to "Stop The War". Failing
this, they also laid plans to build a political campaign inside the
country, with the War in Iraq as a plebiscite, using a little known
politician as the thrust point--Howard Dean. This helps to explain how
quickly the Radical Left moved into the Dean campaign with both people
and money, creating what the clueless media called the "Dean Phenomenon".
By building on the left-wing base in the Democrat party
and the "Hate Bush" crowd, the campaign has already resulted in a consensus
among the aspirants, minus Joe Lieberman, to withdraw the U.S. from
Iraq and turn the operation over to the U.N. And, if past is prologue,
i.e., Vietnam, once the U.S. leaves it will not go back under any circumstances,
possibly even the destruction of Israel.
Should George W. Bush be defeated in November we could
expect to see the dominoes start to fall in the secular Islamic countries
and The Clash of Civilizations, predicted several years ago by Samuel
Huntington, would then become a life changing event in all of our lives.
What surprised the Jihadists following the 9/11 attack
was how American sentiment mobilized around the president and a profound
sense of patriotism spread across the country. They were not expecting
this reaction, based on what had happened in the past, nor were they
expecting the determined resolve of the President himself. I also believe
this is one of the reasons we have not had any further attacks within
our borders. They are content to wait, just as one of their tactical
mentors; V.I. Lenin admonished..."two steps forward, one step back".
A couple additional events serve as valuable footnotes
to the current circumstances we face: the destruction of the human assets
factor of the CIA during the Carter presidency, presided over by the
late Senator Frank Church. This fact has plagued our intelligence agencies
right up to this very day with consequences which are now obvious. And,
Jimmy Carter himself, the one man who must bear the bulk of the responsibility
for setting the stage of the Third Jihad. Americans should find little
comfort in how the Democrat contenders constantly seek the "advice and
counsel" of this despicable little hypocrite.
Lastly, we should not expect to see any meaningful cooperation
from Western Europe, especially the French. Since failing to protect
their own interests in Algeria (by turning the country over to the first
of the Arab terrorists, Ammad Ben Bella), the country itself is now
occupied by Islamic immigrants totaling twenty percent of the population.
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 our national survival is dependent
on the good graces of Kofi Annan and the United Nations.
There is one final footnote which may be the scariest
of all. Either none of the Democrats currently leading the drive to
their party's nomination are aware of the facts of the Great Caliphate
and Third Jihad or they do know and they don't care so long as their
power lust is satisfied. But, I can guarantee you one thing for sure:
some of their most ardent supporters are aware of this and will do anything
they can to bring it about.
