World War III is an acceptable way to frame the conflict between the civilized world and Islamo-Fascism. We thought it was a law enforcement problem until 9-11. But it’s so much more than that …. and we aren’t winning yet.

Newt Gingrich has taken the public relations lead in pushing the frame that we are in WW III, Dems are concerned about the “WW III frame” as being a way for Republicans to portray them as weak on defense.

My own take is dramatically different. Read on. Both parties viewed Islamo-Fascism as a law enforcement problem until 9-11. Neither party views it that way any more. WW III is a reasonable term for the struggle we are now involved in.

I was in the military when America became drawn into WW III in the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis. Carter handled that crisis poorly, failing to recognize his chance to snuff out WW III in its infancy. Later, Reagan and Ollie North sold arms to Iranian terrorists to win the release of other hostages, and Reagan tolerated the terrorists’ murder of hundreds of our soldiers. These events helped fan the flames of War in my opinion.

Recent History of Terrorism and how we viewed it as a law enforcement problem

The Iran Hostage Crisis made everyone think that Jimmy Carter was too soft on our enemies - we generally thought the USA should have bombed Iran back to the stone age, myself included: Iran Hostage Crisis 1979 - 1981. And because Carter was so soft, we voted him out of office in 1980.

During the campaign of 1980, Ronald Reagan’s people talked vaguely tough in public about what might be in store for Iran if those hostages were still being held at the time of Reagan’s inauguration. We were all overjoyed when the hostages were released on Reagan’s inaguration day. The general public tended to credit Iran’s fear of what Reagan might do to them. Such fear by Iran was misplaced. Reagan proved to be as soft as Carter on terrorism.

Unverified allegations persisted for many years that Reagan’s team arranged for the hostages to remain incarcerated until Reagan’s inauguration, in return for providing arms to the Iranian terrorists or some other reward. See The October Surprise.

Fox commentator Ollie North worked for Reagan and was part of Reagan’s team that traded arms for hostages in the 1980s. See The Iran-Contra Affair. Ollie and Ronnie apparently didn’t think we were at “war” with the terrorists, and they thought they could play a game of supplying the terrorists with weapons for short term political gain at home.

I recall Reagan’s TV speech where he essentially apologized to the USA for trading arms for hostages. Reagan claimed he had not, during the deals, thought the deals were the same as trading arms for hostages, but that he now realized he did in fact trade arms for hostages. As far as I know, Jimmy Carter never traded arms for hostages. Carter tried to rescue the hostages but the rescue missions failed - see Iran Hostage Crisis 1979 - 1981.

In 1983, 241 US service personnel were murdered when Hezbollah (Iran-backed) terrorists blew up the Beirut Marine Barracks. Reagan’s response was to …….. remove the Marines from Lebanon, essentially we did not respond.

Terrorism was viewed as more of a nuisance or law enforcement problem throughout the 1980s and 1990s, by BOTH parties.

Late 1979 until January 1981 —- Jimmy Carter dealt weekly with the first major attacks against the USA. He did nothing useful. Perhaps his administration did not recognize the essence of the threat, since he was the first President to face Islamo-Fascism. Maybe we can excuse Carter for trying more diplomacy than overt warfare, since he did not yet have clear evidence that we were really at war.

From January 1981 until January 1993, Republicans controlled our foreign policy. And Islamo-Fascism percolated. I do not excuse Reagan’s administration for failing to take decisive action against our enemies.

From 1993 until 2001, Dems controlled our foreign policy, and Islamo-Fascism percolated. I do not excuse the Clinton administration either. Clinton faced the First World Trade Center Bombing in 1993. And still, we did not go to overt warfare with Islamo-Fascism.

Quick aside —- Did the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing cause the Republicans to feel we were now “at war” ? Clearly, No.

Just in case you thought that the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing surely must have caused the Republican Party (being “The Party of the Tough Patriots” ©) to demand overt hot warfare, well, No it didn’t. See the 1994 Republican Contract with America. See also the 1996 Republican Party Platform.

The 1996 Republican Party Platform shows conclusively that the Republicans still considered terrorism essentially a law enforcement problem at that time: (See the quote below)

From the 1996 Republican Party Platform:

We wish to express our support and sympathy for all victims of terrorism and their families. Acts of terrorism against Americans and American interests must be stopped and those who commit them must be brought to justice. We recommend a Presidentially appointed “blue ribbon” commission to study more effective methods of prosecuting terrorists.

[emphasis added]

9-11 brought it all home that we were really in a shooting war with Islamo-Fascism. We were winning until Iraq.

From 2001 until 2003, America was winning the war against Islamo-Fascism. The world stood with us when we toppled the Taliban and wiped out an Islamo-Fascist state.

The Afghanistan compaign was a public relations and strategic victory. Our Afghanistan campaign sent the message that we will topple any regime that actively supports the export of Islamo-Fascism.

Yes, we were winning WW III.

But then Bush decided that it would be a good idea to invade Iraq, a country that was not actively supporting the export of Islamo-Fascism. Syria or Iran would have been better, but more challenging, targets. Why Iraq? Qs and As follow, along with a hypothetical.

Our invasion of Iraq steeled the will of our worldwide enemies, and created countless new recruits in the war against us.

World opinion shifted. World opinion was no longer unhesitatingly in our corner.

We emboldened our enemies - the common people of Muslim heritage who are willing to make holy war against us. The common Muslim worldwide had new reasons to go to war against the USA, a new rallying cry.

QUESTION: Is WW III a war against the political government of an identified country?

ANSWER: In part it is. WW III is a war against any government that supports the export of Islamo-Fascism.

QUESTION: Then why did we invade Iraq? Saddam brutally suppressed Islamo-Fascism within Iraq. He was the enemy of our enemy.

ANSWER: We invaded Iraq because we needed a base of operations for the possible invasion of Iran or Syria (assuming no regime change and continuing support of terrorism). Iran is the real Head of the Snake in WW III terms.

WHAT IF we had been honest with the world about our real reasons for going to Iraq (to get setup for Iran or Syria)? Well, the world would have tried to stop us, causing havoc in international relations. Bush must have decided it was better to take the heat for his flimsy WMD rationale than be honest and possibly suffer worldwide condemnation or some such penalty.

Americans of goodwill would have been deeply morally divided about the Iraq War if Bush had been honest about his motives. Quite probably, we would have not invaded.

Bush was so determined to invade Iraq and get his bases for attacking Iran or Syria, that he cut out the American public, the Congress and the world, from having any meaningful input into the war debate [by presenting false evidence of WMDs]. I suppose you could say he acted like a defacto dictator in regard to the Iraq War.

QUESTION: Is WW III a war against a worldwide philosophy embraced by radicalized individual Muslims?

ANSWER: Yes. Portions of the Muslim faithful everywhere have become radicalized in support of their religion.

WW III is a two-pronged war. On the one hand we are fighting state-sponsored Muslim extremism (well, except in Iraq). On the other hand we are fighting the common people worldwide who, for religious reasons, are sympathetic to Muslim extremism.

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
Let’s do a thought experiment designed to illustrate how we might fight against the hate-America attitudes of individual Muslims worldwide

Imagine that USA-based Christian radicals become more prominent in their calls for violence against Muslims. Imagine we see violence in the USA directed at Muslims. Imagine the government does not do enough to stop the radicalism and it spreads internally.

Further imagine that Christians worldwide begin to have violent tendencies toward all things-Muslim, including committing a good number of attacks.

In other words, assume Christian radicals have begun acting somewhat like Muslim radicals.

Remember, we are doing a thought experiment. Let’s assume that the governments of the Christian-dominated nations have decided that they would like to stop the Christian radicalism.

Well, the time to have nipped the Christian radicalism in the bud is long past. The USA should have been shutting down the radical churches years prior. They should have shut off the mics of the radical radio preachers. They should have imprisoned the radical leaders.

But now, the radical movement has accumulated so much of a following, and so much momentum, that political candidates cannot get elected unless they voice radicalism.

Political leaders who act “less than radical” might get assassinated. They surely won’t get elected or re-elected.

So how in the hell is the Christian world going to turn off the free flow of radicalism now, considering that it’s gotten so far out of hand and the leaders themselves have been replaced with radicals?

SUMMARY: I think that’s somewhat like the situation we’ve gotten ourselves into with the Muslim radicals worldwide. I think that’s why Pakistan can’t get a handle on its internal radical elements despite a peace-sympathetic president. That’s why Iran is led by a radical. That’s why Saudi Arabia tolerates radical elements throughout its society.

MORE QUESTIONS: Will it do any good to cut off the head of a leading country sypathetic to radicalism (such as Iran)?

ANSWER: Who knows? As soon as we invade Iran, we might see that the masses in Saudi Arabia become agitated and overthrow the Saudi government and use the massive Saudi military against us.

Let’s look at what might happen in our thought experiment, if we were to “contain” Christian radicalism within our borders. This might be instructive of what could happen if we somehow diffused the influence of Iran.

Back to the thought experiment: If worldwide Christianity were to become radicalized, would the movement be curtailed just because there was a coup in the USA and the government were taken over by moderate elements? [This is what happened in Pakistan by the way, and yet the Muslim extremists still have not been contained].

ANSWER: Who knows for sure? Certainly radical Christians worldwide would continue to fight on for a long time, at least until the living generation died off. Maybe another nation would step up and finance the continuation of the radical Christian philosophy.

If a coup occurred in the USA and anti-radicalism forces took over the government, imposed marital law, and tried to kill or silence all the Christian radical leaders, then Christian radicals could possibly be silenced within their main country (the USA). But what effect would that have on worldwide Christian radicalism?

Would the rank and file radical Christian, worldwide, stop his radicalism if the USA leaders were imprisoned or executed and his movement banned? Hmmm. Probably not. We could cut off the flow of money and support from the USA to other groups in other nations, but we could not stop the individual radical Christians from continuing their private campaigns of holy war.

QUESTION: Could worldwide radical Christianity be placated by a worldwide negotiated peace?

And what would the price be for any negotiated peace?

Would worldwide Muslim radicalism have to cease to exist, as a condition for the end of Christian radicalism? [a task as difficult as stopping worldwide Christian radicalism in our thought experiment]

Who would do the negotiating on behalf of worldwide terrorism? What worldwide radical leader would be credible to the individual radicals back in their home nations?

The thought experiment doesn’t help us much here, except that it implies a great deal of difficulty in trying to achieve a worldwide negotiated peace.

Perhaps the only way to contain worldwide radicalism, when the soldiers are individual believers, is to somehow have EACH nation fight a war internally to change the hearts and minds of its own people.

Before a government will be willing to fight a war, internally, to change its own peoples’ hearts and minds, the leaders of the government must be opposed to radicalism.

We need regime change in Iran and Syria, toward a government that rejects radicalism and will work to change the hearts and minds of its people.

We did not need regime change in Iraq; Saddam was opposed to Islamo-Fascism and brutally suppressed it, and was the enemy of Iran. In Iraq, we deposed a potential ally and strengthened our enemies in the process. But we gained a staging ground to better deal with Iran and Syria.

CONCLUSION: Both major USA political parties contributed fully to the creation of conditions supportive of the growth of Islamo-Fascism. Maybe if we’d have invaded Iran in 1979 or 1980, we could have nipped it in the bud, but that’s long past now. So let’s summarize where we stand.

WW III is a two-pronged complex war, with no clear answers as to the best approach.

Bush possibly set us back years in the war by invading Iraq and further radicalizing Muslims worldwide. BUT on the bright side, if Iraq becomes a necessary staging ground for an invasion of Iran, and if by toppling Iran we cut the head off the hydra and it withers and dies, then Iraq will have been worth it.

Reasonable people can disagree about whether we should invade Iran. The calculation involves making predictions about what will happen to the worldwide radical Muslim peasant movement if we cut off the hydra’s head.

[UPDATE] Bin Laden’s #2 calls for all Muslims to rise up in a worldwide religious war and replacement of all governments with Islam.

At least we no longer view Islamo-Fascism as a law enforcement problem!