Five years after 9/11 and precious few recognize the simple fact that a worldwide war is in progress. Some snigger at the idea.
The jihadis attack civilization around the world on a daily basis. The bulk of it goes unreported by the mass media. Islam, the common thread running through it all, is rarely mentioned. There is only one dot to connect but for some reason they won’t do it.
Ever since Hizballah and HAMAS goaded Israel into war there has been a noticable change. Sure the same people who laugh about world wars are already back to blaming it all on Bush and the neocons. What’s different is that the mass media has finally found more pundits willing to speak frankly about Islamofacism and the jihadis.
Amid the knee-jerk calls for ceasefire and negotiation something has finally begun to dawn on a few more of the world’s civilized people. Oh, now I see. You can’t please the Islamists. They seem to live for only one purpose, to war on civilization. We cannot negotiate with such socipaths. The only reasonable option to protect ourselves is to disarm, disable, or destroy them before they can launch their craven and demented attacks.
Welcome to the world war.
And it is a world war, notwithstanding the inability of some US Supreme Court justices to recognize that jihadi organizations are engaged in an international conflict:
In deciding as it did, the Court also ignored its own venerable precedent — of over a half-century’s standing — that the Geneva Conventions, even when they do create binding obligations on governments, do not create judicially enforceable rights for individuals. Disputes over their application are, rather, to be worked out diplomatically, among the political representatives of sovereigns. Moreover, the Geneva Conventions were irrelevant to Hamdan’s case. He is a terrorist combatant who fails to meet the conventions’ definition of a prisoner of war; consequently, he is not entitled to the conventions’ POW protections. In order to get around this inconvenient fact, the Court had to invoke (and distort) “Common Article 3” of the conventions, which applies only to civil wars taking place within the territory of a single country, as opposed to international conflicts. The Court argued, absurdly, that because al Qaeda is not a nation, it cannot be in an international conflict: so the global War on Terror is not “international,” despite having been fought in the United States, Somalia, Yemen, Kenya, Tanzania, Afghanistan, and Iraq. As for Article 3’s requirement that the conflicts to which it applies be confined to a single country, the Court’s majority found an easy way to get around it: by ignoring it.
The jihadis are not so blind:
In one of the most admirably straightforward of Islamist declarations, Hussein Massawi, the Hezbollah leader behind the slaughter of U.S. and French forces 20 years ago, put it this way:
“We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.”
This from a fascinating article by Mark Steyn who goes on to describe the deep irony that faces Europe, Egypt, Jordan, and the Saudis, who have for decades deliberately prolonged the misery of their Palestinian proxies and now find these proxies firmly under the sway of Persian Shia.
Ooops.
Syria and Iran not only support Hizballah and HAMAS, they support insurgents in Iraq trying to overthrow its civilized government. How much longer will this phony proxy kabuki go on before the rest of civilization recognizes that we are all already at war? And how long until the mass media reports it?
UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt connects the dot, though he doesn’t name it. “Can we agree that all terrorists have some degree of mental illness?” OK. Can we agree that “terrorist” is starting to sound like an absurd euphemism?
Terrorist becomes a euphemism when it is grossly misapplied as a sweeping conviction of an entire populous.
Are you looking for it both ways on Hamdan? We cant apply the Geneva Convention because Al Queada is not a signing party to the convention, nor does it recognize the convention and we cant bring him to trial as a common criminal because he is at war with the US govt? Hamdan simply asks the US govt to prove his status – if he cannot be tried under military tribunals conforming to the convention, than he has a right to be tried under the US legal system.
Its pick yer poison time. You cant detain individuals indefinitely (without criticism from within and outside the country). If you choose to not conform to existing legal processes (ie, military tribunal, court system) you face lawsuits. Stop whining, the guy is still behind bars and wont get a release any time soon.
The US govt does not drag their feet on the basis of Hamdan. They should have an open and shut criminal case against him (driver for bin Laden, bin Laden is a wanted criminal). The US is avoiding passing this process on the remaining detainees.
No one sniggers at the idea of this being a “world wide” war. People snigger at the suggestion this war is a world war in the same footing as WW I & II. This world wide war is more similar to the cold war and the war on drugs – wars that have no foreseeable end (i would argue the cold war has not ended) and will not be won on the battlefield. Fighting ideaology with sabers doesnt work.
Hezbollah and Hamas “goaded” Israel into war? I will only yield far enough to state “chicken and egg-isms”.
There is no doubt we are at war. We have been at war and continue to do so – even with supposed allies. These conflicts – military engagements – are the gross repercussions of this continued global conflict.
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti – Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?” David Ben-Gurion or better yet: “We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”
Terrorists mentally ill? Were American Indians mentally ill? Silesians? Irish? Scots? French? Can it be argued that religous fanatacism is merely mental illness? Or is terrorism (and mental illness) the indicriminant destruction of civilians and non-military objectives for the purpose of displacement and putting fear in the populous?
Yes, the “terrorists” want our destruction, we superior in moral and ethical viewpoint merely want their submission.
In Hamdan there is no need to pick any poison. He can sit in a cell and rot until the war is over. Civilization won’t get relief until it’s over, so why should any of them?
Just like the death penalty…
Youre assuming they are ALL guilty. If we choose to ignore them (ala Bush) what justice do we provide the innocent?
To suggest some innocents must suffer to protect the majority is a slippery slope. Especially in this country.
Even if the Gitmo scum were ordinary prisoners of a normal war that’s the way we’d be able to treat them. POWs are not entitled to a trial.
Since they were not fighting for a sovereign nation, wore no uniform, regularly assault their guards, and do not recognize the Geneva Conventions surely they are not entitled to anything more than an ordinary prisoner of war would be.