Missions from God

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DISCLOSURE: This post will be considered by some to be inflammatory, however it represents my opinion on the presented subject, and should be viewed as such.

The Scotsman | The Times of India

     Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain recently stated in a televised interview that he believed that, ultimately, his choice to include Britain in the liberation of Iraq would ultimately be judged for its legitimacy by God. His statement was a frank admission that he realizes that he is not likely to find a consensus among the British or in the world during his own lifetime.

     His admission, however, has generated another storm in a teacup because many liberal leftists want to turn his statement into some sort of claim that his decision was ordained by God. While I do not believe that was his intent, the fact that liberal leftists want to make the thought an issue bears examination.

     This examination should start with a simple fact. Tony Blair, like his ally George Bush, as far as anyone can discern externally, is a believing man. On 9-11, these two believing men saw the free world, established on the blood sweat and tears of Christians over two millennia, attacked in a way that it had not been since the Ottoman invasion of the Byzantine Empire and southeastern Europe.

     As free and free thinking men, they realized that everything they stood for- their ideals, their beliefs, and yes, their faith- was under attack by an enemy who was attacking them for religions reasons. Remember, the 9-11 attackers, the terrorists of al-Qaeda, even the foreign fighters and insurgents in Iraq are not fighting us because they disagree with us politically. They are fighting with us because we are not Muslim.

     Because these courageous and farsighted men realized this reality on 9-11, the dedicated themselves to a long and difficult course that necessarily led them through the mountains of Afghanistan to the plains and deserts of Iraq, and will inevitably lead the farsighted leaders that must follow them to other destinations that will be hard and not always popular.

     That they did this because of belief, resolution, and faith should be no surprise to anyone. The fact that these men appeal to the almighty creator of the universe, whether one believes in that creator or not, should be a comfort to all people because it reflects that these men have a center most leaders lack. They have a reason for what they do. They believe in something- our freedom and way of life- and they are willing to fight to preserve it.

     While the liberal leftists and, apparently, much of the rest of the Western world seem ready to roll over and let the radical Islamists have their way with our way of life, these men chose, because of their faith, to stand against that attack. Does this mean that either man believes that God commanded their actions or ordained this war? Hardly.

     Our enemy, however, believes that very thing. In fact, our enemy mocks us because we are so fearful of the consideration that we invoke our God as we try to protect ourselves from their ravages. Every time a terrorist kills a Westerner crying “Allah-a Akbar” they stab a knife into our faith an reveal its rotten underbelly of apostasy.

     Because they believe in their radicalism and terror more than our apathetic belief in our own liberty, these same terrorists, using a handful of their number, have paralyzed the armies of the two most powerful nations on the planet in Iraq. Because we do not have the will to solve the problem- because we will not admit to ourselves what the problem is- we are cursed with fighting a war bound and blindfolded while our enemies fight with no restraints at all.

     And while we fight with these restraints of disbelief, they grow stronger. Their governments fund terrorism, pursue weapons of mass destruction, and plot the establishment of a Muslim world that will rob us of the very liberty we only loosely hold to. This is not an exaggeration of the truth, it is the truth itself exposed for what it is.

     So while politicos and pundits debate endlessly about whether our leaders should invoke their belief in God, our enemies subsist on their own belief as they plot and carry out attacks against us. Our own apostasy will ultimately defeat us in this War on Terror as readily as our enemy’s strength of belief.

DLH