World War III

Deroy Murdock at NRO has an excellent column that captures in a brief space the essence of the nature of the struggle we are in against the Islamist menace. Murdock amasses the evidence for viewing this conflict as a world war (although he himself doesn't use the term) and closes with this:

As Andrew Higgins chillingly related in the November 22 Wall Street Journal, two days after Van Gogh's death, Islamists aimed their knives at Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, a critic of open immigration. They posted his picture on line beside this message: "The punishment is beheading, and the reward for doing it is paradise."

Moderation against such fanaticism is inconceivable. Fundamentalist Islam must be transcended from within while militant Islam must be vanquished from without. Victory cannot come too soon.

Until then, Geert Wilders [A Dutch politician whose life has been threatened by Islamists] grasps the stakes. "Bush was totally correct," he phoned Higgins while dashing between safe houses on the advice of police. "This is war, a world-wide war."

We are indeed engaged in World War III and the sooner our European and Democratic brethren rouse themselves from their liberal slumbers the sooner we may turn the corner in the battle.

Maybe They Don't Know Any Better

Eruptions of the pathological hatred endemic to North America's left-wing continue to suppurate on our body politic. Several of the signs touted recently by Canadian protestors in Ottawa sicken the stomach. Go here and click on the photos to enlarge.

By the way, is the sign that shows Bush in the cross-hairs being carried by a Muslim? Just asking.

Mosul

Strategy Page gives us this take on the fighting in Mosul:

November 29, 2004: Military and police operations south of Baghdad and up north in Mosul continue. The government is convinced that many Sunni Arab religious leaders have joined with anti-government forces and allowed their mosques to be used as bases for gunmen and terrorists, and is raiding mosques suspected of supporting violence. In Fallujah, 60 of 100 mosques in the city were found to be used for supporting anti-government forces. Since many mosques are large, walled, complexes, they lend themselves to being military bases. Technically, this sort of use is forbidden under Islam, but in times of unrest in Iraq, mosques frequently become centers of military activity. So the government has dropped any pretense of mosques being off-limits. As a result, mosques are now regularly being raided. In southern Baghdad, a mosque was found to house a suicide car bomb workshop, which had seven cars rigged and ready to go. That's a weeks worth of car bomb attacks in Baghdad.

In Mosul, the battle is between the Iraqi security forces and the Sunni Arab terrorists. In the last ten days, about fifty Iraqi soldiers and policemen have been killed, often executed, by Sunni Arab terrorists. Unlike Fallujah, the Sunni Arab gunmen are not doing a "stand and fight," but rather a "hit and run." But they need places to sleep and store their weapons. American and Iraqi intelligence efforts are closing down on these. More and more Kurds, and other non-Arab minorities, are being recruited into the police and army in Mosul. While this angers the Sunni Arabs up there, the non-Arab troops are more persistent, and speak Arabic. As more gunmen are arrested, interrogations provide more information on the anti-government groups. There was also a lot of information, on Mosul rebel groups, obtained from gunmen and documents captured in Fallujah.

Meanwhile the defeatist MSM concentrates on the downside as though that were the only side there was to report. Even when they do report a success they invariably follow it with a "but...". No one wants to be so optimistic as to be blinded to reality, but neither do most people want the media to behave as if the dark side is all there is, especially when there is so much good occurring in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Pessimism is the mindset of losers and failures and it is particularly common in the American media. Negativism is a corrosive acid that eats away at a group or a nation demoralizing them and sapping their confidence. No athletic coach, no businessman, no general, no president, and no nation ever accomplished anything great by constantly reminding themselves of the reasons why something couldn't be done. Lots of people, however, have failed because they were fixated on the obstacles, because they couldn't, or wouldn't, envison success.