Facing the enemy!
By: Eli Atmi- Australia
04/03/2004

We are at war. It is against an enemy that will never negotiate a peace! The question is whether our generation will have THE STAMINA TO FIGHT IT TO THE FINISH.

True, these are the sorts of things that are being said by US President George W. Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Not surprisingly many people take the attitude that if Bush and Howard are for a policy, they are against it. Nevertheless, this issue is so important and fundamental that distaste for Bush and Howard's policies is no excuse for appeasing Islamic-Fascism; it should not blind anyone to the reality of what's€™s truly taking place on a global scale.

We are at war--a war declared on the free world without it realizing it. Indeed, since the terrorist groups--Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, Hamas and Jihad--and the states that support them--Syria, Iran, etc.--despise us and everything civilized we stand for in the free world it is hard to pinpoint when this war began. Certainly it was no later than 1982.

Yes, in Beirut that year a democratically elected president, Bachir Gemayel, was assassinated by a terrorist state, none other than Syria, while the whole world was watching. Incredibly, no sanctions and no embargo against Assad's Syrian regime ensued!

The following year in 1983, the US Embassy was bombed, killing 63 people. Then came the bombing of the US Marines barracks, destroying 242 Americans in addition to the French Legionnaire just a few kilometers away. Ronald Reagan's€™s reaction? To scuttle out of Lebanon, leaving his Lebanese allies at the mercy of the most terrorist state in modern history, its neighbor, Syria.

And no mercy has Syria and its terrorist allies shown. Since Reagan's abandonment of Lebanon and its then democratic government there has been a chain reaction of repeated attacks and a roll call of death. Just some examples of resultant attacks that have touched the USA:

Bombing of World Trade Center, New York, 1993
Bombing of US military headquarters in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 Americans,
Bombing of US Embassies in Tanzania, 1998.
Bomb attack on the USS Cole, killing 17 sailors, 2000.

To these and many other attacks there was no substantial US response; just a few Tomahawk missiles against empty targets that didn't result in any deaths--not even in the death of a strayed animal.

And so we have September 11 and let's not forget Bali. The key point is that there have been no random attacks. The war of terror is a logical expression of extremist groups that seeks the radical transformation of the Islamic world as a preface to re-establishing the caliphate, a multinational Islamic empire that will stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

This extremist ideology is intolerant on a grand scale of all that does not conform to its version of Islam. It tolerates no other religion or behaviors, it condemns all women to ignorance, ever present fear, oppression and subjugation to the male will.

Regardless of what you think of the attack on Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein, the fact is the prime battle ground of this war at the moment is Iraq. We have in the past 70 years been faced with similar threats; Nazism, fascism along with other dictatorships. No, don't wince. This is not just a facile comparison. Of course Nazi Germany was a much more massive and immediate military threat than these terrorists; of course the cold war carried in itself a threat of global nuclear destruction that even a dirty bomb from terrorists does not begin to encompass.

The key thing about both Nazi Germany and Stalin's regime was that there was going to be a winner and loser in a global battle of philosophies and power. There was not going to be a negotiated settlement. Nor will there be in this war. In such conflicts, to back down means not compromise but defeat. US President Reagan backed down two decades ago, and now the free world struggles to avoid defeat...

Four-star US Army General John Abizaed, the Lebanese-American from California who assumed top command of the US military effort in Iraq and Afghanistan in January 2003, said on July 16, 2003 that "War is a struggle of wills." He is right. However, this war is not just about the will of military and political leaders; rather at the end what will be crucial is going to be the will of the people who are US allies in a long struggle in which civilians are the targets. Today's terrorists don't have the guts to stand up against an advancing military machine; instead, these hyenas prey on innocent people on their way to work (blowing up buses in Israel), shopping to feed their families (Iraq) or while relaxing on holiday (Bali).

At the close of 1995 as celebrations marked the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, there was much talk of the "great generation" that had successfully fought the 1930's Depression, World War II and the Cold War.

Those who began the present war against us believe they will win because they are utterly convinced our generation has none of those great-generation qualities, but is instead degenerate, weak and cowardly, interested only in pleasure and luxury.
They believe this generation will surrender. We shall see if we have the stamina to face the enemy and fight the war on terror and oppression to the finish.

***Edited by CLHRF Honorary Board Member Jacki Skeels of the USA who was teaching and writing publicity in East Beirut, Lebanon in 1982-83.