The Nature of the Enemy (CM)
FDD blog
General Peter Pace made the following remarks yesterday at the National Defense University:
I say to those now who say, If we just stop fighting in Iraq, if we just stop fighting in Afghanistan, if we just stopped worrying about and chasing the terrorists that this would go away, I say, You need to get out and read what our enemies have said. …
Now our enemies have said publicly, on film, on the Internet, their goal is to destroy our way of life. No equivocation on their part. They're not saying, If you stay home, we will not come after you.
They are saying their goal is to rid the Middle East of all foreigners; then overthrow all governments that are not friendly to them, which means every single one of those governments; then to use that base as a way to spread their terrorism and their oppression across the globe, to include a map that shows 100 years from now that the entire globe would be under their domination.
But to talk about how we are going to proceed, we need to understand the nature of the enemy. And clearly, the nature of this enemy is different than any we have faced in the past.
A question that I get frequently is: Wouldn't we all just be better off if we just left them alone? The answer that I give is: That would be nice if it would work. But that's not the world we live in.
On September 11th, 2001, we were leaving them alone. That was the day we realized in the United States that we were at war. Our enemies had declared war on us years before, but the attacks in New York, in the skies over Pennsylvania and here in Washington, D.C., brought home very clearly to us that we were at war.
So I say to those now who say, If we just stop fighting in Iraq, if we just stop fighting in Afghanistan, if we just stopped worrying about and chasing the terrorists that this would go away, I say, You need to get out and read what our enemies have said. …
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