Those very, very, very loose cannons, known as Muslim jihadists, have been shooting off around the world — massacring Christians in Pakistan, Africans in Nairobi, and all kinds of Syrians, and in the process, reminding serious Westerners (we still have a few) of the need for clear leadership amid clear and present dangers.
So far, we can be sure only of one thing: We have no line on what’s happening. Accordingly, we don’t know what to do.
One might suppose we had figured out some of the essential matters 10 years ago, starting with the attack on the twin towers, followed by the U.S. counter-attacks in Afghanistan and Iraq. We were on the right track. We knew that a crazed — I used the adjective deliberately, in its dictionary sense, without theological overtones — faction in the Muslim world wants us dead or submissive on account of our disgusting commitment to human freedom, made worse by our outrageous instinct to defend and pursue that freedom abroad.
It has come to this: If you believe in freedom or in Jesus Christ or in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, you’re a target for elimination at the hand of the crazies. (Aren’t people who blow themselves up, and others with them, just a little, you know, tetched in the head?) The world is at war in a way unfamiliar to most of its 7 billion people, but we are at war, nonetheless, and are in need of strong leadership, as I was saying.
We seemed for a while to be waiting out the crazies, hoping they might find more fruitful pursuits, especially if we assured them of our good intentions and democratic instincts. They fling our patience back in our faces. These are villainous people, which is what they think of us, but so what? They are wrong. A concerted worldwide effort against them is of the essence.
An effort led by whom?
