Overseas Contingency What?!!

When word reached Osama bin Laden and the rest of his Muslim terrorist pals that the government of the United States was now calling the "War on Terror" the "Overseas Contingency Operation" they must have laughed their socks off assuming they weren't waiting for them to be delivered by the Taliban laundry service located four caves to the left and three miles up the Khyber Pass where any self-respecting terrorist worthy of his Katyusha rocket goes to have his caftan sponged and pressed. It's a tradition, don't you know?

Many of us here were doubled up with laughter too but we were not bent over quite as far as Obama was last week as he supinely bowed down in front of a duplicitous, madrass funding, white robed despot of a Saudi oil king, in an obsequious and disgusting display of deference at the G2 meeting in London while earlier in the week his bulky wife found it inappropriate to curtsy to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth.

Our laughter at the change in nomenclature ceased when we realised that this was a strong indication that since Obama is now unable to tell himself the truth and call the War on Terror what it is, he has now effectively abandoned any intention of winning it in spite of his rhetoric to the contrary. Mentally he has already surrendered while at the same time he makes the customary teleprompter speeches and goes through the motions of protecting us from harm. Two of Obama's cabinet appointments demonstrate that he no longer takes the War on Terror seriously.

Janet Napolitano, who as governor of Arizona talked tough but did nothing when it came to border control and the apalling violence on her state's border, last month told the German magazine "Der Spiegel" that as Secretary of State for Homeland Security she eschews the word "terrorism" in favor of the term "man caused-disaster". It is, she has decided, not as bellicose, more accomodating, and less likely to incite terrorism sorry, I mean man-caused disasters. Napolitano's very existence is an example of a man-caused disaster. She imperils us all.

Then there is pitiful Leon Panetta, Obama's Director of the CIA. Have him grow a mustache, give him a trilby and a trenchcoat and we have, in an instant, our very own version of Inspector Clouseau. Panetta, more than anyone else in the Clinton administration, was responsible for the disastrous appointment of John Deutch as Director of the CIA in 1995. Panetta has almost zero credentials in the area of intelligence and is as far removed from a professional spy-master as it is possible to be, but we are told he is a competent manager. Thus all of his Ts will be crossed and all of his Is will be dotted but he will lead a risk averse CIA that will produce little in the way of actionable intelligence as he demoralizes the brave men and women of our intelligence community. He is woefully inadequate. Any conversation with Janet Napolitano about our domestic security or with Leon Panetta about the gathering and analysis of intelligence is bound to subtract from the entire sum of human knowledge on those subjects. We are not being well served. Every moment they hold office we are in greater danger. Our enemies must be ecstatic.

If Obama's feeble terminology and his appointments of worthless and flabby appeasers to lead two of our most important security agencies have not alerted our enemies to his weakness and lack of real resolve to defeat them, then his recent statement in Turkey that "we are not nor ever will be at war with Islam" must have had them falling over themselves with glee. The 9/11 Commission Report clearly stated that although the islamic terrorists had been at war with us for decades we had not been at war with them. Since 9/11 it has slowly dawned on us that before George W. Bush became president, before the 9/11 attacks, before the war in Afghanistan, before the war in Iraq, during Democratic and Republican administrations alike, there were over 14 attacks on U.S. military bases, military personnel, embassies, airlines, and civilians. All of them, without exception, were carried out by fundamentalist islamic terrorists. All of them were part of a co-ordinated unrelenting islamic jihad against America and the West. It is a catastrophic mistake to think of them as isolated incidents unrelated to each other. There may be moderate muslims although we seldom hear from them, but there is no such thing as moderate Islam. That is why we never see the mullahs and other muslim leaders attempting to put their own house in order. The sooner we tell ourselves the truth about that single fact the better off we will be.

It is our national tragedy that sitting in the Oval Office we now have an arab/muslim inclined politician who is incapable of recognising those who wish to annihilate us even when they keep announcing their intention to do so. Who does Mr. Obama think has been attacking us for all these years, the Red Cross? Why does he think that going to an islamic country and announcing that America is not a christian country or a jewish country but a nation of citizens is somehow going to mollify their animosity towards us? This is pandering of the worst kind and an insult to our national heritage. He was not elected president to travel the world apologising for us and lie about the essential characteristics of our republic in what will turn out to be a futile attempt to coddle and appease those whose undiminished goal is the destruction of the United States and her allies. Clearly he has exchanged Teddy Roosevelt's big stick for Neville Chamberlain's umbrella. This should not come as a surprise to us. If Obama and the Democrats can't stand up to Fox News and are terrified of Rush Limbaugh how can we expect them to stand up to terrorists? Well, frankly we can't. They are practioners of "soft power". This stems from the firm belief that all of the world's problems are the fault of the United States and that she must make amends. Hence their ardent pursuit of diplomacy, the dispensation of aid, the redressing of alleged grievances, thus legitimizing them and causing more terror, and talking, lots and lots of talking.

Every law enforcement agency in this country confidently assumes that it is engaged in a "war on crime". If Barack Obama has his way this will soon be called a "national domestic operation" lest the criminals get upset.

Let us have an end to this nonsense. Let us call the "War on Terror" exactly that. Let us recognise our enemies, their goals, and the means at their disposal to achieve those goals. Let us frustrate their ambitions. Let us dispense with any ideas about a proportional response. Let us organise for victory. Let us eliminate the threat. Nowhere in the war manuals of Sun Tzu or von Clauswitz will you read the suggestion that you should love your enemies. What you will read is the categorical imperative that you kill and crush and defeat your enemies and keep doing so until they have had enough of it.

We should be alarmed but not surprised as Barack Obama continues his life-long habit of confusing activity with achievement. Thus do small men cast big shadows.