A Long Slog
By
Leonard Zwelling
http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-defeat-radical-jihadism-1458862004
ISIS is not interested in shared governance.
ISIS wants a Caliphate and wants to call all the rest of us
who do not adhere to their version of radical Islam heretics and martyrs for a
bad cause. This is not a maybe. This is a for sure.
Brussels
is just their latest expression of contempt for civility and order let alone
respect for human life. So quickly, everyone get over yourselves. They want to
kill us. No, let me rephrase. They want to kill you!
As Peggy Noonan notes in another of her long line of
clear-eyed, clearly analyzed opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal, Ronald Reagan said it best when asked about
his strategy toward the Soviet Union. “We win, they lose.” That’s how it has to
be with ISIS and all manner of Islamic fundamentalism that espouses violence as
a way to get what it wants.
First, as Noonan points out, there are a lot of them. Even
if just 10% of 10% of 10% of the world’s Muslims want to kill us, that leaves
1.6 million that want you dead. That’s a lot of people and that may well be an
underestimation.
Unlike the Soviet Union, we cannot get ISIS to spend itself
into defeat. They care not whether they suffer or make others suffer to get
what they want. They are likely to escalate their attacks on us and do it both
in the Middle East and in our own homelands. There can be no question that they
are willing to use weapons of mass destruction to terrorize us and if they do,
they will succeed in doing just that, cause terror. All the posing in the world
by Mr. Cruz or Mr. Trump cannot substitute for a long slog of resolved
determination to excise this cancer from humanity. And we may as well take it
to them. They want it; let’s give it to them before they do us any more harm as
they did in San Bernardino.
We cannot compromise. We cannot negotiate. There is no
middle ground as there is no common ground. There is only WE WIN, THEY LOSE.
The current President of the United States cannot call this
threat what it is. So how can he possibly defeat it or protect us at all?
Mr. Trump thinks he can seal the borders from incursions against
us. Go ahead. Build a wall. They will fly over it or tunnel under it when not
blasting through it.
These are religious zealots who believe in a cause for which
they are willing to die. If we want to beat them, we too will have to make huge
sacrifices. This is the War of the Worlds with the aliens coming from 1000
years ago instead of from Mars.
I don’t know when the leaders of our government on both
sides of the aisle are going to come to grips with these simple to comprehend
facts. For ISIS, this is a holy war. They want a full-scale engagement with the
Western world that they see as the apocalypse itself. I suggest we get on with
it before ISIS grows any further. There is no in between.
We must win. They must lose.
