The terrorists have won. That is something we can say pretty soon if certain vocal segments of our populace get their wishes.

This is not rhetorical bombast. This is reality. The purpose of terrorism is not to win a tactical or strategic victory. Rather, it is to force your enemy, in the course of preventing further terrorism, to do things which are perceived to be as bad as if not worse than the actual terrorism itself.

By doing so, the terrorist is able to discredit his enemy’s political position and, if not justify his own, at least lessen the opposition to the point where his own political goal becomes achievable.

We are close to that happening. Some Democratic politicians, leftist activists, and most Western Europeans are in complete agreement with the terrorists — even if unwittingly so — in their desire to see the following happen: the U.S. and coalition forces pull out of Iraq immediately, the U.S. remove itself from the Middle East in general, the U.S. drastically reduce its field operations in the pursuit of terrorists (Patriot Act, phone call eavesdropping, Guantanamo, etc.), the U.S. scale back if not abandon its support of Israel, and the U.S. subject itself 100 percent to the will of the U.N.

I have no doubt that people who support such actions in the U.S. do so not out of sympathy with terrorists. Their hatred and distrust of the president has myriad causes, some of which are more psychological than political.

But the end result is that Islamic terrorists look at the discord and think they have been successful. They see that their brutal and cowardly violence in Iraq has not provoked outrage nor encouraged resoluteness. Rather, it has turned many people against the president.

Their constant and continued efforts to wage terrorist war throughout the world have caused our government to enact laws and engage in tactics that have been quite successful in containing the terrorists (e.g., no attacks in the U.S. since 9/11).

But the result in this country and beyond is not gratitude or relief, but growing contempt and never-ending criticism of the administration, accusing it of engaging in these tactics not for the defeat of terrorism, but rather as a means of increasing executive power and extending the American imperium (which is exactly what the terrorists say).

The old dictum truly applies here: “My enemy’s enemy is my friend.” By becoming strange bedfellows with the terrorists, Democratic politicians and their supporters are in a truly ironic position. They are tacitly if not overtly agreeing with, and thereby supporting, the efforts of people who hold views which are completely antithetical to their own.

Currently, liberals crow about a supposed impending “theocracy” in this country due to George Bush’s sincere religious conviction. They fret about the fate of same-sex marriage, abortion, pornography, and many other pursuits considered indispensable for the liberal lifestyle.

Yet, in their shared hatred for George Bush and Republicans in general, liberals are bedfellows with Islamic extremists who actually are theocrats.

These people not only do not tolerate same-sex marriage, they execute homosexuals, pornographers, and those would obtain or provide abortions. And little needs to be said about their deplorable treatment of women.

So, in their zeal to oppose our administration’s efforts to fight terrorism, and their proclivity to focus on and exaggerate their own government’s real or imagined misdeeds, they give aide and comfort to an ideology that would essentially result in their own destruction.

Though the terrorists haven’t won yet, they have gained momentum in their efforts. They have willing and able allies in the mainstream press, the Congress, and everywhere there’s a person who would rather see Bush humiliated than the terrorists lose.

Trey Hoffman
Peachtree City, Ga.