Protecting Our Country - October 2007

Did the General betray us? That’s what the left wants us to think of a highly decorated four star war hero. Even the liberal New York Time was in on the action by running that disrespectful MoveOn.Org full page ad on the day General Petraeus testified before Congress.

The left just does not take the global war on terror seriously. Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards considers that war nothing but a bumper sticker statement. The left wants us to pull our troops out of Iraq just when the Sunni leaders are joining our troops and the Shiites in battling the terrorist organization Al Qaeda which considers Iraq their proving ground for future expansion.

For those on the left who believe our problem with Islamic extremists will end if we leave Iraq, they either have forgotten the past or never paid attention in their history classes. And I am not talking about the horrific attack on the World Trade Center six years ago.

Osama bin Laden summed it up in one of his recent videos in which he warned that all westerners should convert to Islam. In fact the battle for religious and geopolitical superiority goes back hundreds of years before the battles of the Crusades.

Fortunately, the vast majority of Christians, Jews, and Muslims have moderated in their hatred for each other in the last few centuries but Islamic extremists have continued to take their battle around the world to such places as Russia, Chechnya, Indonesia, Sudan, Australia, England, France, Spain, Germany, and of course the United States. And Israel has been a constant battle site since its creation in 1948.

Today’s left thinks that peace talks, and a better understanding of, and respect for, extremists will make the world a safer place. Tell that to the British who followed the advice of Neville Chamberlain during World War II. Or tell that to a friend of mine who barely escaped with his life from southern Vietnam as the communist north took over after many rounds of peace talks and our ultimate troop withdrawal.

More concerning is the left’s obsession with limiting or gutting the successful new intelligence efforts which have been implemented in the United States and other countries since 9/11. In the past few months planned attacks have been stopped in Germany, England, and the United States because communications between terrorists were intercepted.

My fear is the next attack by Islamic terrorists on our country may not be a large explosive attack but, rather, will be a coordinated series of gruesome psychological attacks similar to that which occurred at a Russian school several years ago during which terrorists tried to break the spirit of the Russian people by killing and maiming their young. Last year, several suspected terrorists were arrested riding a Tampa school bus. And recently 9 postcards with the words “Jihad boom” were sent to public schools in the Ocala and Gainesville areas.

The bottom line is that the Islamic extremist war on our western civilization did not start on 9/11 and will not end if MoveOn.Org and the rest of the left are successful in pulling our troops out of Iraq. Hopefully the Democratic presidential candidates will step up to the plate and distance themselves from the loony left and declare their intention to finish the battle in Iraq and go wherever else a similar challenge exists around the world.