2008 Woodie Awards
Five years after 9/11; what have we learned?
Rodney Wren, Sr.
Issue date: 9/22/06 Section: Opinion
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From the recent Israel/Hezbollah conflict in southern Lebanon to the insurgents in Iraq's Sunni Triangle to the repeated efforts by Islamic fascists across the globe trying to trump September 11th, what lessons about terrorism should we in the West relearn?
First, death is the mantra of terrorists. In urban landscapes they hide among apartment buildings, use human shields, and welcome all fatalities-friendly or hostile, combatant or civilian. Death of any kind, they think, makes the liberal West recoil; but allows them to pose as oppressed victims.
Their hatred intimidates rather than repels third parties; whether "moderate" Arabs, Europeans who back off from peacekeeping in Lebanon, or the Western public at large. Enemies of freedom call Jews "pigs" and "apes," and employ racist caricatures of the United States Secretary of State just because she is an American of African descent. Meanwhile, we worry about incurring charges of "Islamophobia" when we should be stressing our liberal values and unabashedly contrasting Western civilization with the 7th-century barbarism of the jihadists.
Second, windfall petroleum profits (now around $500 billion annually) financially fuel radical Islam. Iranian cash allowed Hezbollah to acquire the weaponry needed to achieve parity in ambushes with the Israeli Defense Forces. Islamists may eventually be better equipped with weapons they buy than we are with munitions we make.
Third, as Israel's experience in Lebanon demonstrated, air power alone can never defeat terrorists. Precision bombing is a tempting option for Westerners since it ensures few if any of our own casualties; but jihadists, through the use of human shields and biased photographers, are able to portray guided weapons as being as indiscriminate as carpet bombing.
Fourth, the use of old shoot-and-scoot missiles-Katyushas, Qassams, and worse to come-is altering the strategic calculus as they now number in the many thousands. The fear of Hezbollah's near limitless mobile launchers enabled terrorists to put whole Israeli cities in bomb shelters and almost shut down the country's economy.
First, death is the mantra of terrorists. In urban landscapes they hide among apartment buildings, use human shields, and welcome all fatalities-friendly or hostile, combatant or civilian. Death of any kind, they think, makes the liberal West recoil; but allows them to pose as oppressed victims.
Their hatred intimidates rather than repels third parties; whether "moderate" Arabs, Europeans who back off from peacekeeping in Lebanon, or the Western public at large. Enemies of freedom call Jews "pigs" and "apes," and employ racist caricatures of the United States Secretary of State just because she is an American of African descent. Meanwhile, we worry about incurring charges of "Islamophobia" when we should be stressing our liberal values and unabashedly contrasting Western civilization with the 7th-century barbarism of the jihadists.
Second, windfall petroleum profits (now around $500 billion annually) financially fuel radical Islam. Iranian cash allowed Hezbollah to acquire the weaponry needed to achieve parity in ambushes with the Israeli Defense Forces. Islamists may eventually be better equipped with weapons they buy than we are with munitions we make.
Third, as Israel's experience in Lebanon demonstrated, air power alone can never defeat terrorists. Precision bombing is a tempting option for Westerners since it ensures few if any of our own casualties; but jihadists, through the use of human shields and biased photographers, are able to portray guided weapons as being as indiscriminate as carpet bombing.
Fourth, the use of old shoot-and-scoot missiles-Katyushas, Qassams, and worse to come-is altering the strategic calculus as they now number in the many thousands. The fear of Hezbollah's near limitless mobile launchers enabled terrorists to put whole Israeli cities in bomb shelters and almost shut down the country's economy.
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