Civilization War

War Begins

  September 11, 2001.   America has been attacked with an onslaught that rejects our very existence as a free nation.
And not just us,
but the entire West was attacked by the terrorists who seized four commercial
planes and succeeded in attacking two symbols of American power.   Not just symbolically,
but in the nationalities of the victims, the whole world was attacked.

    Although America has been fighting for some time in a low-level conflict
against terrorism, the damage that was inflicted upon us prior to September 11th
had not roused us to more than momentary anger.   In the shadows we pursued our
enemies but with stringent limits on what we would do that minimized the impact
of our actions.   We had important defensive successes, but gaining the initiative was
impossible given our self-imposed restraint.   Our military reacted on occasion but these
isolated strikes did little but symbolize that we would not simply take the punishment.  
The retaliatory strikes were never the start of a real war to defeat the enemy.

That has all changed with the shock of a devastating terrorist strike that
in psychological effect was the equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction.  
We even call the site of the World Trade Center "ground zero."   Civilization's
War has begun in earnest.   The war will be challenging to wage because the foe is complicated.  
America has many means, however, to fight the war; and we must be aware of the utility of all aspects of our power.



The Enemy

   
The war America is embarking on will be fought on several fronts.
Part will be quietly carried out and some aspects will be open.  
All avenues must complement the others.   This will be necessary because the
enemy is bifurcated.   One part, the main enemy, is the amorphous network of
terrorists bound together by their hatred for the United States.  
It is incomprehensible to them that a just God would grant such material,...