1979 — When Iranian fundamentalists overthrew the Shah and took our embassy staff as prisoners.
1983 — When our embassy and the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, were bombed, resulting in numerous casualties.
1988 — When they placed a bomb on the Pan Am flight to New York, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all the passengers and crew.
1993 — The first World Trade Center bombing.
1996 — When the Khobar Towers Military complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, was bombed.
1998 — When our U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, was bombed, as was our U.S. Embassy in Dares Salaam, Tanzania.
2000 — The bombing of the USS Cole in a harbor in Yemen
2001 — Lastly, the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
During the period from 1981 to 2001, there were 7,581 terrorist attacks worldwide. In each case, the attacks were against the U.S. and carried out by fundamentalist Muslims. Currently the Muslim population is 25 percent of the world’s total population.
Most Americans know little about the Muslim world or its religion. There are those who claim that the Muslim Religion is peaceful. Perhaps so, but few Muslim leaders have spoken out against the past or current attacks by those fundamentalist Islamic terrorists, not only against us but even against their own religious brethren.
How many don’t speak out because they quietly agree and support their war against us or because they are afraid of being attacked themselves is unknown. While the terrorists focus the world’s attention on their war with us, they will kill whoever gets in their way, not only infidels, but anyone who does not support them.
Why are they attacking us? Why, because, we are the only nation that can prevent them from succeeding. I have a problem with those who wants us to withdraw or claim the war was in error because no weapons of mass destruction were found to date.
The question those who oppose this war should be asking is, “Can we lose this war?” And if we did lose it, “What does it truly mean?”
Definitely we can lose this war! But if we do, it will be because it was lost in America, not in Iraq. Because too many of us fail to comprehend what losing would mean. It would not be like another Vietnam, wherein we would bring our troops home and go about our business as usual. No!
We would no longer be trusted to keep our word about defending and upholding freedom throughout the world, nor could we expect any future support from other nations who would, in return, be in fear of reprisals. Would the attacks cease?
No, rather they would increase in scope and deadliness. They want us, as their stated goal, dead or converted to Islam. If they succeed in having us withdraw from Iraq, they then will subjugate the other Muslim nations in the Middle East, starting with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. They then would have a stranglehold on a large supply of the world’s known oil resources and world trade.
Next they will pick off other non-Muslim nations one at a time. Because we will be viewed as impotent, it will become easier and easier for them to do so. Spain is already a hostage to their threats as a result of the bombing of their rail system.
Next would probably be France, which already has a 20 percent Muslim population that is increasing annually. The other non-Muslim nations would soon have to fall in line to their demands.
If we lose this war, everything that makes us a major nation, our production, our income, exports and our current way of life as we know it, would vanish. Israel’s future would be doomed! Who then would be willing to trade or deal with us?
If we can’t stop them now, how could anyone else in the future? Our enemies know what this war is all about and are completely committed to winning it at any cost. Unfortunately we as a nation are not united or do all fully understand what it is about and therefore are not fully committed to winning. As such we can lose it.
All Americans should remember that the Muslim terrorists’ stated goal is to kill all infidels, meaning all non-Muslims, not only in the United States but throughout the world. We are the last rampart of freedom.
Manila G. Shaver, a retired major general in the U.S. Army, lives in Seven Lakes. You can contact him at mgshaver@pinehurst.net.
