What are we fighting for?

July 6, 2004

I have said that we are fighting a war, WWIV. A large number of people n this country and the world do not seem to understand this. We are not fighting for oil. We are not fighting to give the downtrodden of the world a television or a car. It is not even being fought to remove a vicious dictator from power. The battle is a battle of beliefs.

On one side, the belief of the western world prevails. We in the West believe, at least to some extent, on individual freedom, capitalism, gender equality, private property and freedom to believe what we choose. On the other side, the belief system is based entirely on the Koran and how it is interperted by the various religious leaders.

I have recently read an artivle that caused me to start to understand how difficult it will be to win this war. "After all, the test of a belief is not whether you are willing to die for it, not even whether you are willing to kill for it, but whether you are willing to risk killing the wrong people for it. The terrorists demonstrate the intensity of their belief by targeting directly the innocent instead of just putting them at risk, as we have been seeing in Israel for decades." (The Moral Choice--What America Needs to Defend Democracy July 4, 2004 By Bruce Thornton).

In the West, we believe that if someone breaks the law, that person should be punished. We see the world through our "civilized" glasses. Bystanders, relatives of the perpetrator, friends, fellow church members or anyone else have no responsiblity for the actions unless an actual conspiracy exists. People are respinsible for their own actions.

In the Jihadist view, If you are a member of the group of western hedonists, you are guilty and need to be dealt with. That punishment is usually severe--even to death. If you are an American, you are guilty of being an infidel. Just because a person did not personally do anything to them does not protect you when you are sitting int he World Trade Center or you happen to be in the bus in Israel when the bomb goes off. They have said that they plan to kill as many Americans as they can. We better start to believe them.

The world has seen indescriminate killin in the past, but it has almost always been seen as an abaration. One of the most scary things in this case is that it is not even comdemmed is many cases. It is seen as something we deserve by virtue of our beliefs.

If the people of this country and the rest of Western Civilization do not wake up and understand the basis for the war on terror, they might not be able to wake up at all.