Learning Lessons

Jonathan Gurwitz enumerates four lessons that can be gleaned from the recently foiled plot by six men to attack Fort Dix. People in this country , especially the politicians, would do well to think about these four lessons when considering what needs to be done.

From the foiled terrorist plot at Fort Dix, we can learn at least four important lessons.

First: Stop blaming America. Four of the six accused conspirators are ethnic Albanians from the Kosovo region of the former Yugoslavia. A decade ago, Kosovo was the scene of a bloody struggle between Serbian nationalists and Albanian Muslims.

The Clinton administration made determined diplomatic efforts to end the violence in Kosovo, as elsewhere in the Balkans. When diplomacy collapsed in 1999, Bill Clinton compelled America's European allies to take military action in support of the Albanians.

NATO — which effectively meant the United States — launched a 78-day bombing campaign of Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia. Gen. Wesley Clark commanded the operation.

By mid-June, the American-led effort halted the ethnic cleansing of Albanian Muslims. KFOR, a NATO security force for Kosovo, arrived. Some 1,700 Americans still serve in Kosovo, constituting about 10 percent of KFOR's troop strength.

That a group of Albanian Muslims would conspire to slaughter American soldiers on U.S. soil is evidence that goodwill efforts and public diplomacy will never win the hearts and minds of Islamic extremists.

Irrespective of what the United States does in the world, their belief system requires them to destroy the forces of liberalism and modernity, of which the United States is the foremost exponent.

Why do they hate us? Because they subscribe to a hateful ideology, not because of American actions.

Read the other three lessons as well. Gurwitz, obviously, also touches on the illegal immigration aspect. As I continue to point out, getting control of the borders must be the first order of business. The first presidential candidate who gets that will reap a substantial number of votes. That three of the six plotters were illegally in this country should be a wake-up call. Immigration is a national security issue, first and foremost.

The most important of the lessons is that America has real enemies out there. The enemies are not influenced or driven by our actions at all. They are motivated by their own agendas. To assume that we are the cause of all that is evil - or good for that matter - in the world is cultural hubris. Other people in other countries have their own motivations and their own independent choices and beliefs that have nothing to do with what we, as a nation, say or do. As Gurwitz says, they hate us because they subscribe to a hateful ideology.

Other Links to this Post

1. Blue Crab Boulevard » Moral Choices, Knotty Problems — Sunday, 27 May , 2007 @ 7:57 am