The war on terrorism should more accurately be called the war on religious terrorism. Our inherent American sensitivity toward religious beliefs apparently prevents our leaders frankly stating this fact loud and clear. Our soldiers are in Afghanistan and Iraq only because Islamic extremists emerged in this large region of the planet and have demonstrated that no society on the planet is safe from their anger.
The unique and defining danger in this conflict is the emergence of a branch of Islam that believes in human sacrifice. I know of no other term that applies to the concept that a divine being grants favors to individuals who kill other humans. Tyrants and criminals who kill for personal gain can be controlled by their fear and greed, but religious killers who sacrifice human life for immortal glory must be captured or eliminated.
The harder task is to disprove the power of a blood thirsty God. The opponents of this war have objections to every aspect of the conflict, but they do not have an answer about how to rid the world of the powerful notion of achieving immortality by killing others. The only answer is the one the Bush Administration has been forced to pursue, and that is to prove to the entire world that human sacrifice does not work in the world of the living.
What I see in the Abu Ghraib photographs is the absence of blood, bruises, burns, broken bones and bullet holes. What I read about in Guantanamo are trapped men given every single opportunity to summon Allah to save them from their captivity. Every day these men exist with flesh intact and free to pursue their devotion as proscribed by their religion is another day the Islamic world observes that an all powerful being does not answer calls for the vindication of wicked killers.
