Sunday, December 28, 2003
Bernard Lewis writes about the War on Terror in today's Opinion Journal.
One thing jumped out at me in the beginning. Lewis describes the two types of terrorist we face in Iraq - one, the terrorist fighting for and often supported by a local government for regional goals, and the other, the more internationalist jihadi. The former may be expected to be appeased should we withdraw from the region, while the latter would be emboldened.
Lewis:
But there are others who would see the eviction of the Americans from Afghanistan and Iraq not as the end but as the beginning--as a victory not in a war but in a battle, one step in a longer and wider war that must be pursued until the final and global victory...
This is a useful distinction, obvious, but seemingly too often overlooked by those debating the nature of the enemy we face, as our domestic political forces argue past each other.
The rest of the piece is the usual Lewis mantra of hope for the compatability of Islam and a Free Society and amounts to another reminder in the vein of "what we're fighting for..." Worth reading as Lewis always is.
If freedom fails and terror triumphs, the peoples of Islam will be the first and greatest victims. They will not be alone, and many others will suffer with them.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Bernard Lewis: Democracy and the Enemies of Freedom.
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I doubt I'll catch up on the absence of blogging over the weekend commenting on some of the things I read, but I wanted to point out three bloggers that caught my attention. Caroline Glick is put In Context. Caroline... Read More
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