Junto Boys

BLANKLEY

Still nothing from the left on what they would have done differently or what they would do next, other than bring the boys back home. I no longer expect a strategy, as they have found they can gain power without one. That is troublesome to say the least, as Tony Blankley points out.

Last week the respected University of Maryland Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) released its most recent survey of Muslim attitudes on America, terrorism and related topics (www.pipa.org). It surveyed attitudes in four representative Muslim countries: Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia and Morocco.

On the question of America's influence in the world, from a low of 60 percent in Indonesia to a high of 89 percent in Egypt, respondents answered that most or nearly all of what happens in the world is controlled by the U.S.

Between 61 percent and 67 percent of the polled Muslims also thought that America's goal was to spread Christianity in the Middle East. Given that Islam teaches that Muslim converts to other religions must be executed, this purported American objective is probably not well received.

Between 9 percent and 23 percent believe [our main interest in Iraq] is to protect ourselves from terrorism. Between 53 percent and 86 percent believe it is to weaken, divide and dominate the Islamic religion and people. [By extrapolation], about 1.4 billion Muslims (or about a billion souls) see America as hostile or an enemy to Islam.

27 percent of Moroccans, 21 percent of Egyptians, 13 percent of Pakistanis and 11 percent of Indonesians approve of terrorist attacks on civilians -- and not just American civilians. [By extrapolation,] roughly 250 million Muslims may approve, under some circumstances, of terrorist attacks on civilians generally. One might reasonably guess a somewhat larger number would favor it if limited to American victims.

Let us, at least, now be resolved to not permit any candidate for president -- Republican or Democrat -- to get away with merely criticizing past decisions and policies or offering simplistic slogans on the war on terror (or whatever other term people prefer for the global jihad threat to the West). Let's insist that they each discuss in depth their understanding of the threat and their considered and detailed strategy for protecting us in the future.

Our future is quite losable if we persist in ignoring the regrettable realities pregnant within it.

Muslim terrorists are not crazy (their worldview, although wrong, is rational and coherent) and will not go away.

They are not crazy. The US does strongly influence world events. America would like to weaken and divide the Islamic world. America does finance and staff most of the Christian missionary activity taking place in the world.

Muslims do want to kill us. Not all of them do, just some 250 million of them, but that should be enough to get the job done if we decide to get out of their way and give moral equivalence to their lethal freedom of expression.

We must deal with the reality of Muslim aggression in a realistic manner, and not just in words but also in deed. If what we have done and are doing is so wrong, what would you, as Commander in Chief, DO differently? Be specific. And then let's decide whose action plan is best.