The Real Reason They Hate Us

by Frank Gaffney - April 9th, 2010 - TownHall.com

For the first time in its history, the United States is trying to wage and win a war without accurately identifying the enemy or its motivations for seeking to destroy us. That oversight defies both common sense and past military experience, and it disarms us in what may be the most decisive theater of this conflict: the battle of ideas.

Such a breakdown may seem incredible to veterans of past military conflicts. Imagine fighting World War II without clarity about Nazism and fascism, or the Cold War without an appreciation of Soviet communism and the threat it posed.

Yet today, the civilian leaders of this country and their senior subordinates - responsible for the U.S. military, the intelligence community, homeland security and federal law enforcement - have systematically failed to fully realize that we once again face a totalitarian ideology bent on our destruction.

The battle of ideas is fought with words. It is in the use of words by our leaders that our imminent defeat on this battlefield of ideas is obvious. George W. Bush was too befuddled to declare this a war against anything but a tactic. He called it the "war on terror". As a result he lost support of the American people and his party was routed in two successive elections, 2006 and 2008. Now Obama calls it the war against "man caused disasters".

Both of these submissive failures to boldly face who and what is attacking us make us seem like a joke to our enemies. Both leaders indicated surrender in the war of ideas. That assures our enemy will keep fighting no matter how many battles we might win. We must change this. We must stop looking like weak failures in the battle of ideas.

To me, part of the problem is that we have stopped being a nation with a majority of its citizens being freedom warriors, proud and independent. At its founding, from the top to the bottom of our society, people were willing to risk their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to demand that all should live free.

I have long admired those who expressed frustration at the unwillingness of our leaders to talk about winning this current war with words that actually had a chance of supporting a chance at winning. There are some out there who have pointed out the stupidity of this and Frank Gaffney is clearly one. He has written an excellent article that summarizes all the failings of our leaders. It explains this Islamic force dedicated to our destruction with words that clarify rather than obfuscate what we need to do.

This is not a new war. During the 18th century, over a million people were enslaved by what we came to call the Barbary Pirates. Because of the insistence by their Islamic Ambassador in London that their domination over us was ordained by their Koran, America attempted to bribe the pirates for over 20 years. Thomas Jefferson finally realized the futility of this strategy and sent the U.S. Marines.

Though we are still at war with the exact same religious force of evil, we have gone back to the strategy of trying to bribe the pirates to leave us alone. Even with all of our military forces in the region, our major effort is sending billions of dollars to "develop" this area... as if by money we could win their hearts and minds. This money is being wasted and is fattening the pockets of our enemies, just as the bribes to the Barbary pirates never ever worked when we tried it 200 years ago.

We do not yet understand either who we are at war with or how to win the war.

This article is truly a must read for Americans who wish to remain free.