DAR AL HARB-U.S.A.-FLORIDA: IRAQ IS JUST ONE BATTLE IN THE GLOBAL JIHAD

Iraq just part of the war on jihad

Regarding Waldo Proffitt's "Home for the holidays" column Dec. 24:

It typifies the shallow and muddled thinking of his liberal persuasion. What is it that he doesn't understand about (1) terrorism (2) the ideological indoctrination and subordination of Muslims to Wahhabism, the most militant form of Islam, through the madrassas school system, and (3) Islam, a 21st-century political project drawn from a 7th-century ideology of hatred for all infidels?

Doesn't he understand that we are at war with an ideological, existential threat to our whole cultural system and form of government?

What does he think the Bali bombings, the Madrid bombings, the British tube bombings and the 9/11 aircraft-"missile" destruction of the World Trade Center's towers were all about?

Jihad and the Muslim holy war against all faiths have raged throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia for more than 1,300 years and have now reached the Americas.

For a real education, read "Jihad in the West," by Paul Fregosi.

Read Mark Steyn's "America Alone" to discover why thinking like Proffitt's, which whitewashes the threat of Islamic imperialism, will hasten the demise of the Western world as we know it by the end of this century. Political views such as Proffitt's may just allow Islamic fascism to conquer the West.

There are only two exits from Iraq: victory or defeat. Proffitt had best forget his defeatist exit-strategy fetish and pray to God that we can win this struggle.

Rather than grieve for those who lost their lives in this struggle, Proffitt should salute their conviction, heroism and this country's firm resolve to save Western civilization as we know it.

John S. Budihas
Venice

The original article:

'Home for the Holidays'
Tomorrow is Christmas. Yesterday was the last day of Hanukkah. New Year's Eve is only a week away.

This is the heart of the holiday season -- the happiest time of the year.

But it is a bittersweet time. Yes, there is the warmth and love of family and friends and good memories and the comfort of traditions kept and hopes renewed.

It is also a sad time. Only the most unfeeling could fail to grieve for the 3,000 American families who are struggling through this joyous season, weeping for a loved one killed in Iraq in the service of our country. Or for the families of the nearly 30,000 war wounded.

I grieve for my country: Mired in a dead-end war into which we were led by a deceitful president -- a president no longer trusted by a majority of Americans.

The November election in which Republicans lost control of the House and Senate was a referendum on the Iraq war. Both the election outcome and opinion poll after opinion poll indicate a large majority of Americans regret we invaded Iraq and are anxious for us to get out.

The president seems to be out of step. I guess he is incapable of recognizing that he has made just not one colossal blunder but a long series of world-class mistakes.

Tragic.

Last week in an interview in The Washington Post, the president said this "ideological war" we're in is going to last for a long time and we need to expand our military forces to sustain our efforts and help us achieve peace.

This is the first mention I have seen that we are fighting an ideology.

We started a war to change the regime in Iraq and to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, then, when no weapons of mass destruction surfaced, the goal became to bring democracy to Iraq. When Iraq failed to demonstrate much interest in democracy, the goal became just to restore stability.

None of these seems to involve anything that could rightly be labeled ideology.

Even when we consider our Iraq adventure as part of a global war against terrorism, we must deal with the fact that terrorism is not an ideology. It is a tactic, and our best tactic in response is to totally remove the American presence from Iraq and thereby deprive terrorists of their prime selling point to gather new recruits.

I yield to no one in the desire to offer my deep respect, admiration and gratitude to the men and women of our armed forces who daily put their lives on the line for their country.

But, I believe it is both folly and iniquity to ask them to risk death or terrible wounds in a war we cannot win at anything even close to a cost we are willing to pay, a war that most of us believe we should not have started and which is actually recruiting terrorists at an increasing rate.

It is time to bring Americans home. Not just the fighting brigades, but all Americans, Army, Marines, CIA, diplomats, civilian contractors. Everybody. As soon as possible.

By "possible" I do not mean when we have achieved stability, or controlled the insurgency, or when the Iraqis are ready to step up so we can step down. I mean as soon as our military operations planners can draw up plans for staging a withdrawal in a way which will afford a high degree of protection for the departing Americans.

And, as soon as we have a plan, let's start moving out. My suggestion would be to give this operation the code name, "Home for the Holidays." We, Americans in America and in Iraq, should not have to suffer through another holiday season laced with anguish.

If we can get everybody out by Easter, fine. Or the Fourth of July, fine. But no later than the 2007 holiday season.

I must caution you that getting out of Iraq is not the only thing we need to do quickly. There are at least two others.

One is to commit several thousand more troops to Afghanistan -- enough, along with a beefed-up NATO force, to prevent the return to power of the Taliban, to curb the training of terrorists, and, yea, perhaps even catch bin Laden. I think the American public would support fighting terrorists in Afghanistan. That's where we should have kept our emphasis in the first place.

We also need to get serious about reducing our dependence on oil from the Middle East. We know how to do it and it's just a matter of getting the president and Congress to get behind a national effort which I think already has national support.

Both matters deserve more attention than I give them here. But first let's get under way with "Home for the Holidays."

Pertinent Links:

1) Iraq just part of the war on jihad

2) 'Home for the Holidays'

3) Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st Centuries by Paul Fregosi

Jihad is back, says Paul Fregosi, but this current incarnation has a long history behind it. From the start, Islamic fundamentalism has intended to expand the Muslim religion to encompass the entire world through conversion, or, in many instances, violence. Yet until now it has lacked a general historical narrative: "The jihad has been the most unrecorded and disregarded major event of history," writes Fregosi. Jihad in the West attempts to describe the history of Islamic and European conflict over 1,500 years, including moments such as the climactic battle at Tours (if the Moors had won it in 732, much of Europe might be Muslim today), the sieges of Vienna, and the Barbary Corsairs (the battle U.S. Marines refer to when they sing about "the shores of Tripoli"). Such a sweep necessarily sacrifices detail for breadth, yet it still provides a helpful backdrop to understanding a religious movement that has played a prominent role in late-20th-century terrorism. Many Muslims will quarrel with Fregosi when he compares jihad to a Christian sacrament, and the book would benefit from footnotes. Jihad in the West nevertheless is a good introduction to an often-ignored topic. --John J. Miller

4) America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It

From the Inside Flap
It’s the end of the world as we know it…
Someday soon, you might wake up to the call to prayer from a muezzin. Europeans already are.
And liberals will still tell you that "diversity is our strength"—while Talibanic enforcers cruise Greenwich Village burning books and barber shops, the Supreme Court decides sharia law doesn’t violate the "separation of church and state," and the Hollywood Left decides to give up on gay rights in favor of the much safer charms of polygamy.

If you think this can’t happen, you haven’t been paying attention, as the hilarious, provocative, and brilliant Mark Steyn—the most popular conservative columnist in the English-speaking world—shows to devastating effect in this, his first and eagerly awaited new book on American and global politics.

The future, as Steyn shows, belongs to the fecund and the confident. And the Islamists are both, while the West—wedded to a multiculturalism that undercuts its own confidence, a welfare state that nudges it toward sloth and self-indulgence, and a childlessness that consigns it to oblivion—is looking ever more like the ruins of a civilization.

Europe, laments Steyn, is almost certainly a goner. The future, if the West has one, belongs to America alone—with maybe its cousins in brave Australia. But America can survive, prosper, and defend its freedom only if it continues to believe in itself, in the sturdier virtues of self-reliance (not government), in the centrality of family, and in the conviction that our country really is the world’s last best hope.

Steyn argues that, contra the liberal cultural relativists, America should proclaim the obvious: we do have a better government, religion, and culture than our enemies, and we should spread America’s influence around the world—for our own sake as well as theirs.

Mark Steyn’s America Alone is laugh-out-loud funny—but it will also change the way you look at the world. It is sure to be the most talked-about book of the year.