The Global War against Islamist Terrorism

By Bruce Herschensohn

Americans are a uniquely impatient people.  We find yesterday to be a long time ago.  We buy Sunday newspapers on Saturday, next year's models of cars are out this year, and we rush to the future, receiving Christmas catalogues in September.  We are the inventors and consumers of fast—food.  Our inherent American impatience is a great asset in peacetime.  It can mean defeat in times of war.

Since the advent of the first television war, Vietnam, our impatience has increased to the point that many Americans today will only accept military engagements, if any, that are brief with few U.S. casualties, somewhat like Grenada or the liberation of Kuwait or the military incursions into Panama or Haiti or Bosnia or Kosovo. 

Those U.S. efforts were carried out for our interests but they were not fought for the survival of our own nation; they were largely fought for the survival of others.  We are now engaged in a war for the survival of the United States and the survival of civilization as we know it.

And so in impatience to be done with the battlefield of Iraq in the War against Islamist Terrorism, the current 110^th Congress created a bill for a withdrawal of our armed forces from Iraq, using April 30, 2008, as a deadline.  Coincidentally, or perhaps not so coincidentally, April 30 will be the 33^rd anniversary of the surrender of South Vietnam to North Vietnam; a surrender brought about by the 94^th Congress.  (Our military had left more than two years earlier, but the 94^th Congress stopped the vital aid we promised the South Vietnamese when we left.)  It is as though the 110^TH Congress is saying, "Let's do it again!"

Today, many in the congress advocate "ending the war" rather than winning the war.  "Ending the war" is said either because those members of the congress do not know how to win it, or feel the United States cannot win, or do not want the United States to win.  Continually they ask, "What does victory mean?"  That question was never asked during World War II.

Shortly after 9—11, our leaders from both sides of the aisle gave bad advice to the people of the nation to live life as before: to work as we have always worked; travel as we have always traveled; go on vacation when time permits; purchase what we would have purchased before.  In summary, other than being vigilant, Americans were told not to change our lives from the normal routine known before 9—11. 

Too many willingly adopted that advice and lived with the false perception that the war was no more than a background rather than the foreground of their lives, and the war was little more than an infrequent and unwelcome intrusion on the things they chose to do.

By no means did the war dominate everyone's time, as World War II dominated the time of all Americans in a unified quest for victory.  In the Global War against Islamist Terrorism, that unity only lasted weeks.  On 9—11 of 2001, even skeptics realized we were in a war against those who wanted us killed and our nation killed and even themselves killed in the doing of it, all for imagined rewards to be given in the after—life for their killing.  And we all knew that preemption on our part would now be vital.  But soon the realization faded and so did the unity. 

Complacency was reflected in polls that tabulated that the chief concern of Americans was the economy.  And then health care.  And then the environment.  Further down the list was terrorism.  After all, 9—11 was quickly considered to be history, not the present.  Therefore, unity was history, not the present.

This year, a memo of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee advised that the phrase "the Global War on Terrorism" should not be used.  What, then should it be called? 

Massive attacks have been made by Islamist terrorists in Kandahar and Bali and Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and London and Casablanca and Islamabad and Jericho and Nazareth and Moscow and Djakarta and Mindanao and Amman and Mumbai and Luxor and Istanbul and Madrid and Aden and Sharm el—Sheikh and New Delhi and Dacca and Taba and Beslan and Netanya and Mombasa and Riyadh and Karachi and Aqaba and Beirut and Ankara and Dahab and Algiers and Glasgow and Sanaa and — New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.  What is the hesitancy to call it what it is?

In this war we take comfort in knowing that every Chief of State around the world knows that we have more power than any other nation in the world and that our military has the means to destroy any enemy, and destroy any enemy in short time.  But because of Vietnam in 1975, Lebanon in 1983 and Somalia in 1993, the world has come to believe we will not use the power we have, and therefore we are not the most powerful nation in the world.  And that is key because the victor in any war is not necessarily the one who has the most power — it is the one that is perceived as willing to use the power that will achieve its victory.

Even after some 3,000 civilian lives were lost on 9—11, our troops were ordered to fight a politically correct war on the battlefields, and we fought a politically — correct war at home as well, allowing peace—time rules to apply in war.  Almost with pride, we let it be known the enemy could win if it was patient enough and cruel enough.

All issues other than our victory in the war should be nothing more than luxury reserved for a later time.  For those in the congress who do not understand the definition of the word: Victory means winning.

Bruce Herschensohn is a professor of foreign policy at Pepperdine University and sits on the Board of Directors at the Center for Individual Freedom (www.cfif.org).