How to win

Plain and simple, here is how to prevail in the global war on terror.

Now to win the global war on terror will take many years and many things must happen and they won’t happen overnight. Right now the war on terror will never be won. That is because of three little letters, O-I-L. As long as we need oil, the war will never be won. If your enemy possesses something in which you need to survive, they can hold you at bay in return for that something. For example, Iran controls a small seaway called the Strait of Hormuz. That passage way is where all Middle East oil passes to get to the open market. Now Iran has now been proven to have tampered in the Iraq and they have literally killed our soldiers there. Why aren’t we at least taking out their I.E.D. factories? Oil. If we were to make any aggressive move towards Iran they would immediately blockade the Strait of Hormuz so that no oil from the Middle East could be shipped. By the way 85% of the world’s oil comes from the Middle East so a shut down would be a massive catastrophe. This is a trademark example of why the U.S. will never pursue Iran on its nuclear program or its human rights violations.

And the same goes for Saudi Arabia. They are our so called ally in the region even though the Saudis teach their children in Madrasas, or Islamic Schools, in which young children are taught by radical Sheiks and Imams to hate the west and everything that it stands for. Again, why don’t we demand that this be outlawed, oil. If we make the Saudi government angry they might not let us have their oil.

Oil is one bargaining chip on the terrorist’s side, the other is their media. The Arab media in the Middle East is filled with anti-American propaganda that insights violence towards the west. But the radical’s goal is not to convert adults to their cause, it is the children. I have personally seen hundreds of examples on a website called MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Initiative. They have provided over 1300 clips from all over the Middle Eastern television. There are cartoon shows not unlike the ones we as younger children watched on Saturdays, but instead of Batman fighting crooks and robbers, it is a Muslim terrorist fighting the U.S. in Iraq. This language is not just inferred, but it is bluntly stated where the main character is going and what he intends to do, blow himself up so he can kill Americans. The broadcasts are in Arabic but MEMRI translates them to English so that Americans can hear what the terrorists and their children can hear.

Now these are just merely examples of the challenges we face. So here are some solutions. The oil crisis in the west is something that will take awhile to cure, but the main thing we can do now is find new energy sources. That doesn’t mean throw a few million bucks at it, it means make it a top priority of this nation. This country has taken steps since 9-11 to solve the oil problem but not enough. The longer we need oil, the longer the terrorist states have a bargaining chip over us.

If the oil problem was easy to institute then the propaganda is the polar opposite. It is very hard to influence a state run media that doesn’t want to change. Yet it is imperative that we get this under control because the longer that goes on the more time the radicals have to breed a new generation of terrorists.

Overall the challenge we face is not easy. But this country has a mission. As President Bush announced on September 20, 2001, “Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom, the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of every time, now depends on us…and we will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.”


The Teen Conservative