Way of thinking, radical Islam the real enemies
By Stan Gudmundson | Rushford, Minn.

It seems that newspaper editors sometimes write alarming editorials just to provoke responses from its readers. I would hope that was the case in Daily News Editor Darrell Ehrlick’s Sunday editorial, “They are against us, but maybe they are right.”

On the other hand, there is a possibility that Ehrlick actually believes what he wrote. Be that as it may, we are not fighting terrorism. We are fighting a jihad. Terrorism is merely a tactic.
What is most unbelievable is that Ehrlick, in essence, concludes that there is some sort of moral equivalence between us and the jihadists. That contention reflects an almost complete lack of understanding of who the jihadists are and what their goals are.

It reveals that he and people like him have extended little or no effort to come to grips with the brutal reality of who our enemy is. Finally, it indicates an appalling failure to understand the nature of evil.

He says that he “cannot believe those who despise us hate freedom, equality and justice.” What he believes is irrelevant. Believing is simply an act of faith and, in this case, is based on groundless speculation. What is relevant is history and also what they tell us.

The Taliban regime in Afghanistan, for example, with their bleak and freedomless law of sharia, revealed to the world the radicals’ template for the world’s future. To find out what they are telling us, visit a few Islamic Web sites or examine a Wahabbi textbook.

One text instructs Muslims to “hate them for their religion ... hate for Allah’s sake ... oppose them in every way ... maintain a wall of resentment against them. Democracy is responsible for all of the horrible wars of the twentieth century ... justice, freedom, brotherhood, and equality cause all the world’s problems.”

Jihadist’s leadership repeatedly says things just like this.

Ehrlick made a couple of additional stunning comments. In one he compares the war of the jihadists with the founding of America.

Al-Qaida’s Zawahiri said that “We have the right to kill four million Americans — two million of them children — and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands.”

I don’t recall either the American colonials or the British employing strategies of this type. And the left is upset about a remark by Rush Limbaugh? Shameful!

In another comment, Ehrlick seems to also find moral equivalence between Christianity and radical Islam. If you haven’t noticed, Christians haven’t been killing each other for a very long time. There’s no equivalence here, absolutely none. To suggest it is preposterous as well as outrageous.

On the other hand, there are way too many dead Muslims who have been killed by radical Muslims simply because their version of the religion isn’t popular with one particular brand or another.

He also said that “the rest of the world seems to give a sarcastic laugh” to the U.S. war efforts. I am not sure if he intends to infer that the rest of the world is against us but, if he did, that would be wrong.

Certainly much of “old Europe” is, but that is not true of those countries who understand totalitarianism. Like those of the former Warsaw Pact, for example, or Albania or Georgia. Meanwhile, others are glad we are doing the heavy lifting while they try to sit this out.

“We have seen the enemy. And, yes, indeed, it us,” said Ehrlick. No, the enemy is not us. The enemy is radical Islam along with the editor and his fellow travelers who countenance, and are even working for, our defeat.

Meanwhile our military hasn’t lost a single battle or skirmish. In addition, more and more Iraqis, particularly the Sunnis, are turning against the al-Qaida thugs.

The jihadists understand that they cannot defeat us militarily. They also know that the editor and people like him, as in Vietnam, are the key to their victory.

Writer Mark Steyn says of Vietnam and this war, that “Vietnam is not a tragedy but a betrayal ... To (cut and run) all over again in the full knowledge of what followed” would be nothing short of criminal. Steyn also reminds us that “the enduring legacy of Vietnam was the emboldening of other enemies. The forces loosed in the Middle East bedevil to this day ... what we lost in Vietnam was not just a war but American credibility ... purpose and will.”

We continue to reap the harvest of that cowardly retreat.

Do you think these lessons were lost on our enemies? Shortly after Vietnam fell, the Syrians invaded Lebanon. As Steyn says, the Syrian dictator Assad “told Kissinger, ‘you’ve betrayed Vietnam. Someday you’re going to sell out Taiwan. And we’re going to be around when you get tired of Israel.’”

We cannot blithely stumble on into the future without some sort of understanding of what’s out there. A bit of advice; read something. But if it’s too hard for you to read more than one book, read Mark Steyn’s “America Alone” or Brigitte Gabriel’s “Because They Hate.”

Marines say that they are “no worse enemy, or no better friend.” The antiwar rabble would turn that on its head and have America, as Professor Bernard Lewis says, be “harmless as an enemy and treacherous as friend.”

Gudmundson is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and writes from his home in Rushford, Minn.

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