This phony war

What a funny kind of war this is! We are told we’re engaged in a ‘war on terror’; indeed, the whole of the West is supposed to be engaged in this war. But we’re all engaged in a war which has never been properly defined. That’s why it’s a vague war, with vague objectives. Has a war ever been so fought in history, fought with such ill-defined objectives?

Let’s take the first rule of engagement in any war: defining the enemy precisely. We haven't done this, so can we really expect to win this war?

The West is truly in denial! In denial over who our enemy is, in denial over our enemy’s true nature, in denial over our enemy’s objectives, in denial over our enemy’s history of aggression and expansion, in denial over our enemy’s ultimate goal: to Islamize the world.

Oh dear! I have already committed a grave error! I forgot. We are not supposed to say that Islam is the enemy, are we? Osama bin Laden has distorted the true loving nature of Islam, hasn’t he? Or so the official line goes. Bush and Blair, among others, tell us that Islam is a ‘religion of love’, Islam is a ‘religion of peace’. After all, Bush and Blair should know better than Osama bin Laden what Islam is all about, shouldn’t they? They are infidels, and infidels know Islam better!

The fact is that Islam is not, and never has been a religion of love or peace. If there's any love in Islam, then it's only for other believers. There's certainly no love for the infidel. Our leaders should therefore stop spreading misinformation about Islam’s true nature. There is enough ignorance out there about the true nature of Islam; indeed, people are woefully ignorant on this most important of subjects. It helps not one jot to confuse them even more.

If our leaders, perhaps for reasons of diplomacy, find themselves unable to utter the truth, then they should say nothing at all. If political correctness is the problem, then they should ignore it.

In fact, it is hard to conceive how they expect to win this war. The top brass are making money hand over fist from the Middle East, so nobody wishes to upset the sensibilities of the Middle Eastern potentates. Let’s be realistic here for a moment. It isn’t so much because our leaders are so terribly polite that they don't wish to upset sensibilities. It’s really more because too many people at the top are making a killing from oil and gas and armaments. Contracts and deals are signed for billions and billions of dollars all the time. Who wants to give up these lucrative deals to save the West? If Islam starts getting too strong here, they, after all, won’t be around to face the music. They’ll be out of it all, basking in the sun somewhere and living the life of Riley.

It will be people like you and me who will have to face the consequences, for it will be people like you and me who will have to alter our lives significantly to fit in with the strictures of Islam. The super rich have always been able to buy their privacy, and shield themselves from the unpleasantness of life.

Surely this is the true reason why nobody is prepared to define this war properly. This is the true reason why we are seeing the West lose the moral high ground. We cannot take the moral high ground, after all, when we are prostituting ourselves to the world of Islam like this.

Do you really think that Muslims cannot see what’s going on? Do you really think that OBL cannot see this, too? Believe me, he can. Moreover, he sees this as part of the weakness of the West. He sees this as the West's Achilles heel. He also knows that Westerners cannot or will not do without anything. He knows that Westerners want all their comforts. This, he feels, puts the Islamic world in a strong position – in a strong position to dictate the terms, in a strong position to push for the growth of Islam here. He knows that no Western politician is going to have the courage to put a stop to this process. He realizes full well that Westerners want the oil and the gas and the aerospace contracts, and then some: they want the inward investment that oil-rich Arabs can provide. That’s one reason why we see companies being bought out, and mosques, schools, and propagation centres being built. Building these, after all is said and done, provide good business for the construction companies.

Imagine if the same tack had been taken by Churchill during World War II! Do you really think we’d have won the war against Nazism?

Churchill knew what it meant to wage war, and he knew what it took to win one. He knew that the enemy had to be clearly defined, and he also knew that war had to be total or it shouldn’t be waged at all. None of this half-hearted nonsense for him! He knew that waging war involved sacrifice, sacrifice on the part of all, and sacrifice until victory was achieved.

What are Westerners sacrificing in the name of ultimate victory in this war? Absolutely nothing! Life goes on just as normal for all, except, perhaps, for the inconveniences of queues and searches at airports.

Take the recent phone-tapping ‘scandal’ in the States! Nobody wants his phone to be tapped, of course; but this sort of thing went on all the time during the Second World War. Many rights had to be temporarily suspended or relinquished in the name of ultimate victory over the foe. The media was controlled, too. The BBC, for example, was not allowed to tell the public all. Information was censored. People today, however, are unwilling to make any of these sacrifices. This is why it is questionable whether this strategy can ever lead to ultimate victory.

Sad though it is to have to say it, but we have gone badly wrong in this war. And this is why this war has something phony, something surreal about it. People seem unconvinced of the need for the war, because the nature of the enemy hasn’t been explained to them, and they haven’t been shown what life will be like for us all if we do not succeed. Moreover, sacrifices haven’t been demanded of the people. But then how could all this have been done when our leaders are acting as apologists for our enemy?

The way we are waging this war, it will go on forever and a day. We shall have to be eternally vigilant, vigilant of the forces out there wishing to destroy our free way of life. And what about the cost of this eternal vigilance?

I would suggest that we get back to the drawing board and start re-defining this war. We need to identify the enemy, start understanding the enemy’s motives, and thwarting the enemy’s every move to destroy us and bring Islam to the West.

The world has been here before, you know. This scenario is nothing new. The way it manifests itself might be new, because the world we live in is now high-tech and geographically far less limited. But Islam remains the same as it ever was: proselytizing, expansive, and determined to dominate, determined to rule the world. It will never change. So we had better start learning lessons from history. He who ignores the lessons of history is destined to repeat the same mistakes. He also makes himself very vulnerable.

The fact of the matter is this: the West is Islam’s prey. It always has been, and always will be. That’s why we need to start waging a real ‘war’ against our enemy: a 'war' against the growth of Islam in the West. For with the unrelenting growth of Islam here, the nature of the West will change dramatically in the years to come. No phony war will not put a stop to this! War, to be effective, has to be real, or it shouldn’t be waged at all.

©Mark Alexander