Let the remembrances begin; in the time since the worst attack in American history, it is proper to remember what happened, to celebrate heroic acts and to mourn the staggering loss of life. There is sadness, yes, but the root of the sadness must be examined, too: America is at war — and, two years later, America is losing.
Following the Sept. 11, 2001, attack by Moslem terrorists, commentator Charles Krauthammer identified the enemy’s philosophy: “This is not crime.
This is war…The enemy has identified itself in public and openly. Our delicate sensibilities have prevented us from pronouncing its name. Its name is radical Islam.” An editorial in the Washington Post ended: “It is an act of war, and must be treated as such.”
It hasn’t been. Instead, President Bush, who insists that we are winning the war, has failed to confront the enemy states that sponsor acts of war against the United States.
The impressive military strikes against Afghanistan and Iraq have been diminished by a lack of purpose and resolve. Undermined by the Bush Administration’s endless tug-of-war between the pragmatism of Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and a shameful display of groveling before the United Nations for permission to fight back, the campaigns are deteriorating into a type of post-war purgatory.
Reports that Afghanistan’s Taliban have regrouped are persistent, the democratic government of Hamid Karzai rules tenuously at best and only in the capital city, Kabul, and the nation’s mountains are likely still host to the arch-terrorist who plotted the attack on America.
In Iraq, Bush has changed the primary mission for America’s occupation from wiping out a state sponsor of terrorism, which our soldiers accomplished months ago, to an exercise in altruism which Bush calls liberation. While Bush orders our military to establish a stable government, our national interest has been lost; America has nothing to gain and thousands of lives to lose in attempting to institute law and order in Iraq.
In Iran, an Islamic dictatorship is locked in power, still sponsoring terrorism, and building its arsenal. Military and intelligence experts are increasingly alarmed at the pace with which the world’s first jihad regime is developing nuclear weapons — including the atomic bomb — that can strike Israel and Europe.
In North Korea, the communist dictatorship still rules, still sponsors terrorism, and routinely threatens America with direct nuclear attack. Bush’s response has been to engage the North Koreans in negotiations.
The White House has made much of the fact that two-thirds of Al Qaeda’s leadership has been caught. Picking off top terrorists one by one will not win this war. As one Taliban fighter scoffed, when asked by the Associated Press to comment on Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s capture: “There are lots of people who can do his work.” Meanwhile, the Dirty Bomber, the Shoe Bomber and so-called 20th hijacker are being treated as criminals, not as enemy soldiers.
Last year, Bush declared: “[T]ime is not on our side. I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.” Bush has done exactly that.
By the lowest standard, Bush has failed to declare, let alone wage and win, war on America’s enemies. Bush promised an end to the states — Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Syria — that sponsor terrorism.
America — to paraphrase the words of one of her greatest naval commanders — has not yet begun to fight back, which is why America, two years after Islamic terrorists murdered thousands of Americans, destroyed our tallest towers, and struck at the heart of our nation’s defense, is losing.
