The View From 1776

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My friend Emil Pavone sent me the following email, which sums up the situation nicely.

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For those who missed this letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal today:
 
“Perhaps the most eloquent exposition of the strategy George Bush is following was in Winston Churchill’s May 13, 1940, speech, his first as prime minister:
“‘You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.’”

S. Paul Posner

New York

In Munich, on September 30, 1938, Neville Chamberlain, a British Conservative Party member serving as Prime Minister of a coalition government, and French Premier Édouard Daladier, caved in to Hitler’s demand that part of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland, be ceded to Germany.  The Czechs, helpless against their powerful neighbor, could only watch as Europe’s great powers gave part of their nation away.  Chamberlain returned to England, talking about having achieved “peace in our time,” and “peace with honor.” 
 
In March 1939, less than six months later, Hitler’s troops seized the rest of Czechoslovakia, and Chamberlain’s pathetic, pusillanimous effort to maintain peace at any price collapsed.  He finally allowed himself to see that there’s no appeasing a predator.  On August 24th, Britain signed a defense pact with Poland, but that did not deter the German predator.  One week later, on September 1, 1939, Hitler’s troops invaded Poland.  Two days later, on September 3rd, 1939, Britain declared war on Germany. 
 
Chamberlain continued as Prime Minister, but he appointed Winston Churchill, his most prominent critic to his cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty.  Churchill was a very different man, a very great man, and throughout his long life a very brave man.  Chamberlain’s political support dissolved and, on May 10, 1940, he resigned as Prime Minister.  He was succeeded by Winston Churchill, who first addressed the House of Commons on May 13th, making the remarks quoted by the Wall Street Journal’s letter-writer above.  In that same speech he uttered the famous line, “-- I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”
 
It’s interesting to note that, at this early point in World War II, not much was happening — indeed, it was referred to as the “phony war.”  But Churchill knew what was coming, and it did come.
 
It strikes me that we Americans are the world’s Churchill in this War on Terror.  We know what’s coming and we are trying desperately to get others to open their eyes. 
 
The terrorists are religious zealots.  That’s nothing new.  Throughout history there have been religious zealots who believed they would be rewarded in an afterworld for sacrificing their lives in this world.  The word “assassin” provides an exceptionally pertinent example.  It comes to us from an Arabic word that was applied to an order of Muslim fanatics, active in Persia and Syria from about the 11th to the 13th centuries (200 years!), whose chief object was to murder Crusaders.  The Arabic word is rendered in our alphabet as “hashshashin,” and translates literally as “eaters of hashish,” the narcotic derived from hemp.  (Interestingly, I read the other day that random post mortems on suicide bombers in Iraq often show evidence of opium ingestion.) 
 
The word “zealot” comes out of Jewish antiquity, describing a fanatical sect that opposed the Roman domination of Palestine and, like today’s Sunnis, who kill fellow Muslims in Iraq, killed fellow Jews in Palestine.
 
And then you have the Kamikazes, the Japanese fanatics of World War II, who believed their emperor to be a God, and believed they served him by sacrificing their lives in suicide missions.
 
Our country faces a 21st Century threat of Muslim fanaticism.  This doesn’t mean all Muslims are fanatics.  It does mean that in today’s world, just a handful of Muslim fanatics can wreak thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of deaths and almost inconceivable physical damage.  In the face of this threat, consider what’s going on right now: the President is accused of lawbreaking for monitoring calls made from U.S. telephones to known terrorist organizations, and the political posturers seek to vilify him for trying to protect us against another terrorist attack.  They choose to forget 9/11.
 
The President hasn’t forgotten 9/11, and I haven’t forgotten 9/11.
 
I believe we are facing a war that will go on for a number of years before fanaticism is rooted out of the Muslim nations.  Certainly, we’ll have to address Syria and Iran soon, and I believe we will do so whether we have a Republican or Democratic administration in power.  And if another terrorist attack occurs in an American city, we will assuredly deal with them sooner, rather than later, and the pious politicos of the left will finally decide to cast their lot with our country.

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