Things are starting to unravel for us quickly in the Middle East. The news is not good.

Today’s New York Times and Washington Post are showing uncharacteristic clarity and focused attention on the startlingly quick devolvement of our national aims in the Middle East and sub-continent of India-Bengladesh-Pakistan. Our hope of containing what we consider to be "terrorism" is coming apart at the seams. And that is because we do not understand the enemy we are fighting.

Here is an article about how the Pakistan based Muslim radical group that caused the bombings in India ten months ago is growing stronger every day.  We see this as terrorism.  Muslim religionists caught up in Wahabist theology see this as a Holy War.  No one can win a holy war.  It must burn itself out.

I have family and friends in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland (Ullster).  I know what I am talking about here.  Holy wars last for hundreds and hundreds of years and are insane at their very core.  The only way they stop is for the secularists within the warring society to take hold of government and for moderates within religious circles to assert control over scriptural interpretation. Otherwise terror reigns for century upon century. 

And that seems to be the point that the West cannot live with, cannot grasp, cannot contain.  There is no defense against a godly man who will kill a non-believer or a believer-in-error for the greater glory of his G*d.  None.  As I have said many times before, this is not terrorism in their eyes as much as it is the Muslim Wars of the Reformation and it can only be decided by Muslims themselves.

If Muslim moderates either cannot or will not assume control of Muslim theology the planet is doomed to constant religious strife centered in Wahabist and similarly radically fundamentalist groups who have an ultra-conservative view of the Quran and what it calls for in their lives.  And basically they see the Quran as calling for death to the Infidel.

And this is only the beginning. We have not seen anything yet. 

Oil and natural gas have given the poorest parts of the Muslim world a seat at the table with the Big Boys.  They have used this newfound power on the world stage to push an increasingly ultra-conservative strain of Islam onto the world since the first day oil and gas started flowing out of Middle Eastern and western Asian pipelines.  We see this as terrorism.   

They see this as necessary to subjegate the Infidels, no matter who they may be.  And usually, the "Infidel" is a Western secularist country with no Muslim ties or a Muslim or semi-Muslin nation trying to emulate secularist government.

To state this simply, they are trying to reinstate the Golden Age of Islam when it ruled much of Asia, Africa and the Middle East and was marching steadily into Europe.  If it had not been for Charles Martel and his Catholic Frankish army at Poitiers in present day France, every English speaker reading this right now would be a Muslim. Period.

They know this.  It upsets them.

The news is filled with this religious fury and these stone age people have worldwide influence because of oil that they would never have otherwise.  Lets look at the news and really look at their outsized influence.

Iran has supposedly been caught building arms grade plutonium enhancing plants and the article is here.  The problem is that because of the American rush to judgement on the Iraq WMD debacle (the weapons that were never there), American Leftists are demanding more proof as well as the rest of the world.  We don’t want another repeat of that intelligence failure.  We don’t believe our own spies.  That is never good.

Next up is a story about how Chinese big money is complicting our diplomatic efforts in Iran. That story is here. As if we did not have enough trouble, Chinese Big Money is causing more for us.  Great.

Here is a story about our troop withdrawal from Iraq. It seems we are pulling out of Iraq as fast as we can.  Although I would like to see this as a moral victory for the American people I am afraid that the real story is a little more basic.  The Iraqis do not want us, do not see a need for us, see us as an occupier and we need those troops for other areas of the Middle East in which we want to stick in our nose. I am not in a celebratory mood over this development.  Things are too dark.

Here is a story about the fact that Obama has not given General McChrystal, our man on the ground in Afghanistan, direct access to the White House until now.  He has forced him to comply with the Chain of Command until this week.  Wow!  There are shades of Harry Truman here.

Here is an editorial by Thomas Friedman about how the extreme polarization of American politics is locking us into eternal gridlock.  We cannot solve our common problems if we do not see them as common problems.  It is a powerful piece and I recommend it.

In a story in today’s Washington Post here is an article on our effectiveness in placing spies inside Al-Qaeda.  Hmmm.  I wonder…..

Here we have a story of violence in churches here in the U.S., the type of family dispute that ends up with a family member killing other family members in churches all over the country. This is the problem with relying too much on a preconcieved idea of a deity’s power to control your destiny.  Sometimes he leaves your destiny to your own good judgment.  Is this the beginning of our own spate of fundamentalist religious war?  It starts inside of families, it always does.

That is enough news for today for veterans’ consumption.

A well informed veteran is dangerous to his adversaries and a comfort to his friends.

Stay informed.

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)