Resolve 9/11

John R. Houk
© September 7, 2009

September 11, 2001 is the date that Islam became more than just another religion that was growing rapidly in the world. Islam became the religion in which some people took the literal past as the will of Allah for the world in the twenty-first century. Thus the proponents of what is commonly called “radical Islam” to differentiate from “moderate Islam” seemed to become the mouthpiece of Islam to the American public.

Al Qaeda became a household word in America soon after 9/11. The recognized leadership figure of Al Qaeda is Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden’s ideology of Islam is from the mold of Wahhabi (Salafist) Islam the dominant version of Islam in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is one of the wealthiest oil nations in the world. Saudi adherents of Wahhabi have been the recipients of that wealth and have used it to finance the Wahhabi Islamic version world wide including the United States of America.

Wahhabi Islam is very closely related to the same radical Islamic ideology birthed in Egypt known to the West mostly as the Muslim Brotherhood but also is known as Ikhwan.

The murdering Islamic Supremacist Palestinian-Arab organization known as Hamas is essentially an autonomous wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza (Gazastan or Hamastan). As we know Hamas wishes to be the lead Muslim terrorist organization superseding Fatah and the Palestine Authority (PA) representing Arabs that call themselves Palestinians in the creation of a Palestinian State that would dismember Israel and provide the next Jewish Holocaust.

The Muslim Brotherhood is highly connected to many American-Muslim organizations of note who claim to represent some aspect or another of “Moderate Islam” in America. Consequently Islamic terrorists Hamas also extend a reach into America as the Holy Land Foundation convictions (along with unindicted co-conspirators) proved.

Despite this interconnected web of evil which is to this day extending its hand on American soil, the American Left is hyper-concerned that Freedom of Religion should prevent scrutiny of the same Islamic ideology that inspired the 9/11 attacks that killed more Americans in our homeland than the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

President Roosevelt announced to America that December 7, 1941 would be a day that will live in infamy. That day of infamy led to a war strategy that the Nazis of Germany and Imperialist Japanese could only make peace by a total and absolute surrender to the Allies that were at war with this axis of evil.

Here we are today on the cusp of nearly eight years of continuous fighting in Afghanistan and there is no unconditional surrender. For that matter there is not a hint of peace overtures either from the Taliban or al Qaeda toward ending the conflict. Indeed the radical Islam of these groups has taken on the nature of suicide before surrender.

Unfortunately the times they have changed from a strategy of win at all costs to a strategy limited by Western International Political Correctness. I am thinking a general like George Patton would have taken the mountainous Bora Bora cave system between Afghanistan and Pakistan and would have immersed the area in carnage (including the collateral damage of Taliban sympathetic civilians) until there was surrender or nothing left to surrender.

Twenty-first century Political Correctness would look upon such a victory in horror because of the huge toll of human lives lost. And yet it was the strategy of forcing unconditional surrenders in World War II that led to the devastating bombing of Dresden, Germany as well as the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. I am guessing more civilians died in those actions than Nazi or Japanese military personnel. Even so Germany and Japan provided the unconditional surrender to sue for peace.

I am also guessing if the WWII drive to win at all costs was executed today, the chasing of the Taliban and al Qaeda would have ended years ago.

Since the polls concerning the Iraq War theatre brought down Republican dominance in Congress and vilified President G. W. Bush, I am guessing President Barack Hussein Obama is watching the polls of American attitudes toward the Afghanistan War Theatre.

Since President BHO is the Prince of Appeasement and Political Correctness, I wonder what the Obama Administration strategy will be to end America’s military action in the Afghanistan War Theatre. Do you wonder as well?

JRH 9/7/09 (Hat Tip: MAF)
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What Constitutes Victory in Afghanistan

By Kyle W. Nevins and Joseph R. Nevins
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Washington Post

Polls show that public support for the war in Afghanistan is eroding. Noted conservative columnist George F. Will counsels that it is "time to get out of Afghanistan." Will and others question our purpose there and point to a lack of clear strategy for victory or even clear measures of success.

For some, the conflict in Afghanistan has elicited memories of Vietnam -- a war with no clear battlefront and no clear end. But while the threat in Vietnam was hypothetical, the threat in Afghanistan is real: The Taliban did provide haven for terrorists who attacked America on American soil. And that attack on American soil claimed more lives than were lost at Pearl Harbor.

We are not professionals in the business of influencing public opinion. We write as the brother and father of a Marine infantry officer serving on the front lines of Helmand province in Afghanistan. Patrick was only 16 years old on Sept. 11, 2001. Yet he knew then that he would join the effort to protect our nation from another attack. He is now exactly where he wants to be: protecting our country from further violence in a theater he absolutely believes enabled the events of Sept. 11.

To end the war in Afghanistan is, in a sense, to attempt to return us to a state preceding the Sept. 11 attacks. Do we know for sure that military action in Afghanistan has prevented another attack? Of course not. But we do know that the Taliban in Afghanistan did provide the means for the horrendous carnage of that day. The 2001 attacks changed our world. There is no turning back. Like it or not, Americans must be prepared for a long war if we mean to protect our peace and our way of life.

To use an analogy from medical practice, we are fighting a chronic disease -- one with little hope of eradication. Our goal must be to control the threat even if it cannot be eliminated. In many respects, our plight following Sept. 11 closely parallels the experience of Israel of the past 61 years, a continuing threat that is unlikely to go away.

So, how do we measure our success in Afghanistan? We measure success as the continuation of our American way of life, day by day, and as going one more day without an attack at home. It is incumbent upon our politicians, in particular the Obama administration, to articulate this clearly to the public. The president must provide leadership and not simply react to polls.

We know that many of the men and women serving in Afghanistan do so because of Sept. 11 -- a nearly universal personal response not unlike the national response to Pearl Harbor. While their role in this conflict is a source of great anxiety to their families, for whom a sniper's bullet, an improvised explosive device or a grenade could spell disaster at any moment, this anxiety is overwhelmed by the pride in individuals who sacrifice daily for a cause that most Americans take for granted. Each day that goes by quietly on American soil is our measure of their success in Afghanistan.
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Resolve 9/11
John R. Houk
© September 7, 2009
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What Constitutes Victory in Afghanistan
Kyle Nevins is director of floor operations for the House Republican whip. Joseph Nevins is the Barbara Levine professor of breast cancer genomics and director of the Center for Applied Genomics and Technology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C.
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