If It's a Tenth Crusade, We'll Lose

Alexander Cockburn coined the term "Tenth Crusade," in describing the jihadis' current attack on the West. The Ninth Crusade was way back in 1271. The way the Bush administration frames the current battle with jihadis as "Islamic Fascism," that is, by trying to take on the entire Muslim world, they recklessly endanger the lives of everyone living in the West.

This is the message tough-talking Democrats need to take to the voters. The Bush Administration's incompetence is creating more jihadis daily than our intelligence operatives can ever hunt down. In fact, thanks to Bush bungling we've seen a mushrooming of homegrown jihadis everywhere, self-recruited zealots, while recruitment levels for our own military have sunk so low that we have to keep upping the maximum age of enlistment.

Democrats need to convince the voters of a radically new approach to confronting this very real problem. We just need to look at Great Britain to see another way. For decades the way they dealt with "the Troubles," the brutal IRA attacks, was through brutal, anti-Irish repression. The result was the creation of more young IRA recruits for every one the British captured. Finally, when Britain began to negotiate with Sinn Fein, they began to drain the swamp of radicalized youths and terrorism curbed and finally ended.

Now before you start screaming I am not proposing sitting down with homicidal maniacs and rewarding them for the blood they so casually spread.

What I am proposing, however, is exactly what an ex-NSA official said on an excellent documentary on Al Qaeda. I have been trying to track down his name but haven't yet. However, what he said was there are those that want to portray this as a clash of civilizations; that the jihadis can't stand our freedom, our mini skirts, our Marilyn Mansons. That's why they are so intent on blowing us all up. That view is simplistic, wrong, and doomed to failure he said.

We will never ever conquer terrorism until we address the legitimate grievances of the vast majority of non-violent Muslims. An intelligent plan to make us safer cannot only consist of aggressive law enforcement. Democrats need to espouse a longer-term strategy for creating conditions that would rob the current jihadi nutjobs of new recruits. First on the list:

The Palestinians

We need to engage fully and fairly in the Middle East peace process for the sake of Israel's future security and for our own. Nothing we do in anywhere else will ever matter as much.

Iraq

We need to restore Iraqi sovereignty by strategically redeploying as soon as possible. As long as we're in there our soldiers over there and our civilians here are at added risk. And if any jerk ever says "cut and run" just punch him in the nose.

Afghanistan

We need to be seen throwing money around everywhere, prying the country from grip of the drug lords and the Taliban.

Aid.

Lots of it. All over the developing world we need to spread money. Every time a Yemeni drinks from a cup full of clean drinking water that cup needs to read, "A gift from the U.S.A." Our aid to northern Pakistan after their devastating earthquake created tremendous good will for us and cost a lot less than Rummy's smart bombs.

When will we learn that bombs are rarely smart.