by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
D<\/span>o we still need to fight a war on terror?<\/p>\n The answer seems to be no for an increasing number in the West who are weary over Afghanistan and Iraq or complacent from the absence of a major attack on the scale of 9\/11.<\/p>\n The British Foreign Office has scrapped the phrase “war on terror” as inexact, inflammatory and counterproductive. U.S. Central Command has just dropped the term “long war” to describe the fight against radical Islam.<\/p>\n An influential book making the rounds – “Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them” – argues that the threat from al-Qaida is vastly exaggerated.<\/p>\n Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, goes further, assuring us that we are terrorized mostly by the false idea of a war on terror – not the jihadists themselves.<\/p>\n Even onetime neo-conservative Francis Fukuyama, who in 1998 called for the preemptive removal of Saddam Hussein, believes “war” is the “wrong metaphor” for our struggle against the terrorists.<\/p>\n Others point out that motley Islamic terrorists lack the resources of the Nazi Wehrmacht or the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n T<\/span>his thinking may seem understandable given the ineffectiveness of al-Qaeda to kill many Americans after 9\/11. Or it may also reflect hopes that if we only leave Iraq, radical Islam will wither away. But it is dead wrong for a number of reasons.<\/p>\n First, Islamic terrorists plotting attacks are arrested periodically in both Europe and the United States. Just last week a leaked British report detailed al-Qaeda’s plans for future “large-scale” operations. We shouldn’t be blamed for being alarmist when our alarmism has resulted in our safety at home for the past five years.<\/p>\n Second, have we forgotten that Nazi Germany was never able to kill 3,000 Americans on our homeland? Did Japan ever destroy 16 acres in Manhattan or hit the nerve center of the U.S. military? Even the Soviet Union couldn’t inflict billions of dollars in damage to the U.S. economy in a single day.<\/p>\n Third, in some ways stateless terrorists can be more dangerous than past conventional threats. Autocrats in some Middle East countries allow indirect financial and psychological support for al-Qaeda terrorists without leaving footprints of their intent. They must assume that a single terrorist strike could kill thousands of Americans without our ability to strike back at their capitals. This inability to tie a state to its support for terrorism is our greatest obstacle in this war \u2014 and our enemies’ greatest advantage.<\/p>\n Fourth, jihadists have already scored successes in all sorts of ways beyond altering the very nature of air travel. Cartoonists now lampoon everyone and everything \u2014 except Muslims. The pope must weigh his words carefully. Otherwise, priests and nuns are attacked abroad. A single false Newsweek story about one flushed Koran led to riot and death.<\/p>\n The net result is that terrified millions in Western societies silently accept that for the first time in centuries they cannot talk or write honestly about what they think of Islam and the Koran.<\/p>\n Fifth, everything from our 401(k) plans to municipal water plants depend on sophisticated computers and communications. And you don’t need a missile to take them down. Two oceans no longer protect the United States \u2014 not when the Internet knows no boundaries, our borders are relatively wide open, and dozens of ships dock and hundreds of flights arrive daily.<\/p>\n A germ, some spent nuclear fuel or a vial of nerve gas\u00a0could cause as much mayhem and calamity as an armored division in Hitler’s army. The Soviets were considered rational enemies who accepted the bleak laws of nuclear deterrence. But the jihadists claim that they welcome death\u00a0if their martyrdom results in thousands of dead Americans.<\/p>\n Finally, radical Islamists largely arise from the oil-rich Middle East. Since 9\/11, the price of oil has skyrocketed, transferring trillions of dollars from successful Western, Indian and Chinese economies to unsuccessful Arab and Iranian autocracies.<\/p>\n Terrorists know that blowing up a Saudi oil field or getting control of Iraqi petroleum reserves \u2014 and they attempt both all the time \u2014 will alter the world economy. Even their mere threats give us psychological fits and their sponsors more cash.<\/p>\n This is a strange war. Our successes in avoiding attack convince some that the real danger has passed.\u00a0And when we kill jihadists abroad, we are told it is peripheral to the war or only incites more terrorism.<\/p>\n But despite the current efforts at denial, the war against Islamic terrorism remains real and deadly. We can’t wish it away until Middle Eastern dictatorships reform \u2014 or we end their oil stranglehold over the world economy.<\/p>\n \u00a92007 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Do we still need to fight a war on terror? The answer seems to be no for an increasing number in the West who are weary over Afghanistan and Iraq or complacent from the absence of a major attack on the scale of 9\/11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[759],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-WE","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1910,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/who-is-the-enemy\/","url_meta":{"origin":3636,"position":0},"title":"Who Is the Enemy?","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner I\u00a0don't think anyone knows quite what this administration's anti-terrorism policy is. Last August, Obama's counterterrorism chief, John Brennan, lambasted the Bush administration, citing \"the inflammatory rhetoric, hyperbole and intellectual narrowness that has often characterized the debate over the president's national security policies\" and criticizing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "January 2010"","block_context":{"text":"January 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/january-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10632,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-need-for-missile-defense\/","url_meta":{"origin":3636,"position":1},"title":"The Need For Missile Defense","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 29, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Defining Ideas America\u2019s great advantage when it entered world affairs after the Civil War was that its distance from Europe and Asia ensured that it was virtually immune from large sea-borne invasions. The Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans proved far better barriers than even the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Civil War"","block_context":{"text":"Civil War","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/civil-war\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5911,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-obama-borg\/","url_meta":{"origin":3636,"position":2},"title":"The Obama Borg","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 30, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"How \"man-caused disasters\" replaced Islamist terrorism in the Obama lexicon. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online In\u00a0Star Trek\u00a0lore, the Borg\u00a0was a collective of servile drone operatives that sought to assimilate other species into\u00a0its \u201chive mind.\u201d Something akin to that creepy groupthink arose when the Obama administration took power and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Terrorism"","block_context":{"text":"Terrorism","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/war-on-terror\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2837,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/our-new-sort-of-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":3636,"position":3},"title":"Our New Sort of War","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services President Obama proclaims no more of George Bush's \"war on terror,\" even as he silently keeps most of it in place. The result is as confusing as it soon will be dangerous. In these first 100 days of his presidency, Barack Obama has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "April 2009"","block_context":{"text":"April 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/april-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1824,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/some-thoughts-on-the-war-on-terror\/","url_meta":{"origin":3636,"position":4},"title":"Some Thoughts on the War on Terror","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's The Corner The New, Upside-Down War on Terror Is there any logic in the confusion of the Obama administration's actions and statements on fighting the war on terror? On the one hand, we had a two-year campaign (2007\u201308)\u00a0of damning the Bush protocols, from renditions and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "February 2010"","block_context":{"text":"February 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/february-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":670,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-scandal-of-our-age\/","url_meta":{"origin":3636,"position":5},"title":"The Scandal of Our Age","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Like Nothing Before In the Watergate scandal, no one died, at least that we know of. Richard Nixon tried systematically to subvert institutions. 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