The Republicans are extremely vulnerable in November. They are saddled with an unpopular war which is not going particularly well, high gas prices, and a softening housing market. The combination has many people feeling that the country is heading in the wrong direction. For the Democrats to capitalize, they could have outflanked the Republicans on the right. By demanding a more aggressive response to Islamic terror, they would have recaptured many 9/11 Republicans (Neocons) and appealed to those on the right who have grown increasingly disaffected with what so often seems to be an overly diffident approach to the war on terror. Of course, the Democrats chose to fight the Republicans frosm the left, which makes any efforts now to attack from the right suspect. Whenever a Democrat suggest the Republicans have been soft on terror, by not putting enough money into port security for example, their attacks tend to ring hollow since they have spent so much time attacking the administration over NSA, SWIFT (terrorist financing), the Patriot Act, etc.
The attacks from the left depended on the premise being accepted that the threat of terrorism has been overblown by the Bush administration in order to frighten people into supporting their attacks on our civil liberties. Unfortunately for the Democrats, the Islamic fascists have not played along; the recently disrupted plot to blow up multiple American airplanes and cause a greater death toll than 9/11 has brought the threat of terror right back into the public eye at a particularly poor time for the Democratic election chances.
This leaves only the war as a target of opportunity for the Democrats and their strategy there is quite risky, for them and for the country.
The only way that Iraq works for the Democrats is, again, for them to either attack from the right, demanding more troops and more aggressive action in Iraq, or from the left, essentially demanding troop withdrawal as soon as possible. Since they have ceded the war effort to the Republicans, attacking from the right seems more than a little disingenuous and the public is unlikely to buy their late conversion. That leaves their best option an attack from the left, ie withdrawal, and there is the heart of the problem.
The only way the Democrats' argument works is if they can convince the American people that the outcome in Iraq is unrelated to the overall war on terror. Since they have spent the last couple of years telling anyone who would listen that our venture into Iraq had only created more terrorists, then pulling out would be the equivalent of "losing"; it would hand a victory to terrorists. Nonetheless, when people are desperate, they are willing to say and do most anything and the Democrats, with their polling and media helpers, have been pressing the argument that Iraq has nothing to do with the War on Terror. They have apparently made some headway if the recent polls are to be believed (though I have doubts.)
Once again, however, the Islamic fascists have been uncooperative with the Democrats. The Islamists continually insist that the Ummah is inseparable; if you attack one Muslim you are attacking all of them. Germany has no troops in Iraq and opposed it from the start, yet they have just dodged a train bomb. France has consistently taken the side of Islam against the West, and this has done little to endear them to the Islamists.
Today, we have further evidence that the Islamists see themselves as all being allies against the same enemy, the world of infidels. Fox News reporter Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig were kidnapped 9 days ago in Gaza. Today, a new Palestinian group presented a video showing the men were alive and making demands:
Fox kidnappers set 72-hour deadline
A previously unheard-of Palestinian group released video footage on Wednesday showing two kidnapped Fox News journalists, and demanded that Muslim prisoners in US jails be released within 72 hours in exchange for the men, the Palestinian news agency Ramattan reported.
...
"We are going to exchange the Muslim female and male prisoners in American jails in return for the prisoners that we have. We are going to give you 72 hours beginning midnight tonight to take your decision," Ramattan quoted the kidnappers' statement as saying.
The Muslim world acts, and the Western media amplifies and enables their fantasies fueled actions, as if an insult or attack against any Muslim anywhere is grounds for their aggression against any innocents who they consider in any way aligned with their "oppressors"; they have a noticeably elastic definition of "oppressors" as well. This approach has unintended consequences.
By using their tactic of terror to enforce the idea that the Ummah is unified in their opposition to all of us infidels, they inadvertently unify the infidels' impression that all of the terrorists who are so vigorously attacking the West are part of the same mindset. I sincerely doubt that most Americans make fine distinctions between al Qaeda, Arab Shia, Arab Sunni, Persian Shia, Hezbollah, Hamas, or any other sects' terror; they are now all Muslim terrorists to most people.
The problem for the Democrats then becomes obvious: if all Islamic terrorists are fighting against the West, how can you possibly separate Iraq from the Global War on Terror? Once we have been convinced they are all in league with each other, Democrats attempts to maintain such distinctions have moved from "nuance" to parody.
Update: From two different directions comes further evidence of the success of our enemy in unifying all Islamists as part of the same mind-set. Amir Taheri writes that Iran and Hezbollah have partially succeeded in their goal:
To turn Palestine from a political issue into a messianic cause. This means that Palestine is no longer about such issues as statehood, boundaries, security and diplomatic recognition. The redefined Palestinian cause is about "wiping the Jewish stain of shame" off the map as a prelude to driving the United States and its allies out of the Middle East.
Dr. Rusty Shackleford discusses the Centanni/Wiig video at some length and adds these remarks:
In related news, I saw a beheading propaganda video the other day that may shed a little light on why it is becoming so hard to distinguish between al Qaeda and other groups. This video bore the logo of The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but a flag in the background looked like it was that of al Qaeda.
The audio distorted the voices of the two armed boys in it. I say boys, because, by their looks, they seemed to be very young men. After reading a statement, the two boys show a head on a table. The decapitated head appears to be the same one shown in this Palestinian Islamic Jihad video.
The point to all this is that al Qaeda is only one organization that belongs to a larger radical jihadi movement. It has inspired a new generation of terrorists through their careful manipulation of propaganda--especially on the internet--to follow their tactics. So, whether or not the Fox News reporters were kidnapped on the orders of higher ups in al Qaeda, or by teenagers in a gang inspired by al Qaeda, it really makes little difference.
As I have suggested elsewhere, it is up to the Muslim world to combat the idea that they all belong to an Ummah that has precedence over all other human relationships and concerns. If they continue to allow the Islamists to stake out the default position of Islam and speak in their name, eventually they will find most in the West increasingly unable and unwilling to differentiate between Islamic fascism and Islam.
Recent Comments