"… if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle."  Sun Tzu

George Rebane

It’s now hard to figure out whether Sanders and O’Malley are Hillary’s stooges or, more generously, her shills.  Last night’s Democratic debate firmly tossed their supposed contest for the nomination into that corner.  Denting Hillary’s image was definitely out of bounds, her opponents would only gently remind viewers that Hillary voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but did not touch her other scandals and faux pas – e.g. Russian reset, Benghazi, spraying classified emails across the world.  Anything that would cause people to doubt her ability to be commander-in-chief appeared to be off limits.

And as a Lucky Strike Extra, viewers were exposed to Sanders’ knowledge of the country’s economic history when he claimed that Eisenhower was a bigger socialist than he, since the top income tax tier was then at 90%.  Sanders is apparently unaware that the 90% rate was window dressing to mollify the masses, literally no one paid that rate because of the lavish exceptions, deductions, and write-offs (aka ‘loopholes) then available to the high earning cognoscenti.  But today that citation still makes good copy for the gullible gruberized.

Regarding Islamic terror and Friday’s attacks in Paris, the Democrats are having to turn themselves into lexicographic pretzels as they twist and turn when they describe and discuss their non-denominational ‘war on terror’.  The big idea to promote according to the Obama Doctrine is that ISIS and its sought after caliphate is not a reflection of Islam.  On the other hand Iran (the country that took us to the cleaners on the nuclear deal while it continues to vow our destruction and the defeat of western civilization) is not isolated from Islam, nor are the Palestinians, nor are the prominent Wahabi elements in the governments of the Arabian Peninsula, nor is the populous movement in Pakistan, nor …, but you get the idea.  All of them have the identical warm thoughts about the west, and the Great Satans – United States and Israel.  And Iran, now financially reconstituted, is the acknowledged leader of state sponsored Islamic terror around the world.

Led by the US, the west continues its la-la land lauding of Islam as the ‘religion of peace’ in the same breath pointing out that all the millions of Muslims in western countries have not strapped on explosive vests to detonate themselves in the midst of gathered infidels.  Never mind that Islamic terrorists are radicalized and constantly emerge from such 'peaceful communities' to join ISIS and/or launch their attacks in western lands.  As long as they don’t assemble en masse to blow themselves and us to bits, in the progressive mind they will forever remain the unassailable practitioners of peace and reason.  We may not even discuss, let alone join their faith to the horrific events that now punctuate our lives on every continent.

However, policies based on that tenet of denial don’t limit our insane perception of what is really happening in the world.  In the lame attempt to vilify these apparently areligious terrorists, our leaders label them and their attacks as ‘cowards’ and ‘cowardly’.  As I have been attempting to convince readers for some years now, nothing could be further from the truth.  And trying to convince our people that these men and women, be they from ISIS or Al Qaeda or Hamas or …, are cowards totally misrepresents our enemy, and misrepresents them to our own ruin.

These Islamic jihadists are anything but cowards.  They have demonstrated themselves to be the most dedicated, zealous, and self-sacrificing warriors of their deeply held faith, willing again and again to give their all for their co-faithful and Allah.  To mount an effective defense against an enemy, the first thing one must do is to correctly understand their character, worldview, and motives.  We do none of that, and continue to view them as some kind of immoral thugs and violent criminals in our midst.  Instead, we should acknowledge who and what they really are, and prepare to fight them as a global collective comprised of some of the bravest and courageous individuals the world has ever seen.  Were any of our warriors to perform such acts against a detested enemy that threatens our very way of life with such willingness and frequency, we would be handing out Medals of Honor by the bushel.

At this point I am confident that the progressive reader is again totally befuddled – Rebane calls them ‘ragheads’ in one breath, and then idolizes them as brave and selfless warriors; the man is either stupid beyond help or a cynical hypocrite.  What these light thinkers continually fail to understand is that respecting your enemy from his own perspective, and vilifying them as a sentient plague bent on destroying you and yours are orthogonal concepts, both necessary to mount an effective defense then offense against them.  Our mission against such global forces should be nothing short of what reciprocally is theirs – total annihilation of such a belief system and its inconvertible true believers.  (See also 'Of Ragheads and Racism')

Sadly, to date our civilization has been unable to muster the needed vision and courage to counter this brand of Islam.  And wallowing in that deficit, we will watch them continue to launch merciless attacks against us as we continue to change the civil structure and functioning of our society into a cowering fortress that still will not recognize the enemy that is already within our gates.