Hindsight

I am sure many Republicans, given the benefit of hindsight, would nix invading Iraq. I certainly would.

I do believe that the last five years has been a learning experience for Americans, forced to take their minds off the sports schedule and latest electronic gadget or new car in order to try and focus on this confusing group of world citizens called Moslems.

As they listen to news from London and Paris and Spain about what the Moslem immigrants are up to, as they listen to what Moslems all over the world have to say about the United States and the west, as they examine the way politics works in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, "Palestine," Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, etc. it is slowly dawning on our somewhat slow witted masses that Moslems are not necessarily "just like us." Nor is Islam just like Christianity or Judaism. Moslems do not believe in "turning the other cheek."

THings we take for granted such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equal rights for women are not taken for granted among these peoples. They are felt to contradict the very teachings of God in the holy Sharia, the Islamic judical code. The preference to decide issues by election and not violence is not necessarily a shared value either. Murder and assaination is accepted as an effective and expected strategy, even if they give lip service otherwise.

In short, to fill the gap left by the collapse of World Communism, we are now faced with a new worldwide Evil Empire that aggressively confronts the West, namely Jihadist Islam. An important weapon of Islam is to disarm criticism by relying up the western respect for freedom of religion and by a widespread ignorance about the teachings of Islam concerning politics.

Ultimately, what is the problem of Iraq? It is that Iraqi citizens want to live in an Islamic state, governed by Sharia law, not a western style democracy, so Bush's dream of establishing democracy has hit a brick wall of cultural Islamic values. The current "civil war" is really a battle about whether the Sharia will be administered by the Sunnis or the Shiites, and that dispute will be resolved by violence. Neither group can be expected to be a friend to the United States, no matter who wins.

Does the liberal West have the will to stand up to this new threat? Or will it simply dissolve into a warm puddle of platitudes and surrender without a fight?

It is because the Islamic radicals feel that the latter is true that they are so contemptuous of the West. Only time will tell if they are right,