The special military intelligence unit code named Able Danger is big news lately, and rightly so. It is a tragic, text book example of what needs to be fixed for the world's only free superpower to adequately protect its citizens and assets. It brings to mind Zacarias Moussaoui's intelligence-packed, yet off-limits laptop sitting in an FBI evidence room weeks before his mujahideen (Islamic holy warriors) collaborators killed us by the thousands. Intelligence sharing capabilities in America have obviously been hobbled by overzealous, if well-meaning, civil libertarians, partisan politicking, and inter-agency rivalries. The system was, and on some levels still is, broken. At this point, though, I feel it's essential for all Americans to focus more on how to fix it than how it was broken.

The Clinton administration made some egregious blunders in protecting Americans from the burgeoning modern jihad threat, and should be held to account. The Bush administration has also committed missteps, although I handicap the President with being blindsided early on in his first term and having to learn under fire—literally. Barring the appalling inaction on securing our nation's borders, I am satisfied overall with this president's performance in fighting Islamic terror. I especially appreciate his aggressive approach of jumping into the lion's den of jihad with a mind to laying down a punishing attrition. This is the same pay-to-play methodology that Israel has been forced into utilizing to save the blood of its citizens.

Last November, besides voting for Mr. Bush, I voted for two other Republicans, two Democrats, and an Independent. I did my best to honestly assess who would most suitably fulfill the duties of the office they were running for. I'm not too big on clubs, although I'll happily call myself an American and a friend of all men who love freedom and justice. This is what I call ethical reason, and it just means that I should always endeavor to apply rational judgment toward doing the right thing (the right thing being fixed moral absolutes, in this case, freedom and justice), irrespective of parties, image, or affiliations.

I want what's best for America and the world, and I feel quite certain that right now that happens to be an all-out military and ideological offensive against jihad. I'm happy that some of our allies are onboard with Mr. Bush, although I feel that it will require greater unity among free societies to decisively win this 1400 year-old battle. Jihad is vile and barbaric, and only promises the hatred and oppression of unreformed and unenlightened medieval shari'ah law. Democracy is fair and progressive, and offers the freedom, tolerance, and justice of representative law. This is self-evident to anyone who appraises the two in a straightforward, unprejudiced manner.

Many Americans don't really know what jihad is, let alone that we are currently involved in a full-blown war against it—a war that we did not start. We're not fighting a war on a nebulous "terror," or a war against Iraq or Arabs. We are fighting the holy war of Islam, enshrined in the Qur'an and other Islamic holy literature as a binding duty on Muslims to spread their religion's dominion. Some Americans don't care about anything to do with this crucial matter unless it can be used to further their (right or left) political agenda. Instead of picking up the Qur'an and looking into the hadith (collections of sunnah—the traditions and precedents of Muhammad) to understand that the mujahideen are not at all concerned about whether the infidel they kill is a conservative or liberal, these Americans bicker and politicize our security. This is shortsighted and irresponsible.

A fair amount of us simply do not understand the gravity of the situation that we are currently embroiled in. Some are apathetic to what transpires beyond their backyard, some unthinkingly trust that the government has got everything under control now, and some have bought into the comforting Islam is the religion of peace dissimulation of jihad front groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim American Society (MAS), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), et al. Some have even found recourse in the cowardice of moral equivalence. All of these attitudes are lazy, wrongheaded, and fatal.

The right wants to impugn the Clinton administration and the 9/11 Commission with the recently revealed Able Danger reports. That's fine. This is a democracy, and we thrive off of challenging policy and the consequences of policy. I just hope we can get through it with minimal interference in the job at hand (preventing and fighting Islamic terror). The left wants to slam the Bush administration with the mother of a soldier killed in action in Iraq. Again, fine. I think she's allowing herself to be exploited by some contemptible people, but we have free speech here, and every right to question policy, domestic or foreign. Disagreement, argument, and dissent are the grist of democracy's mill. Ultimately I wish Ms. Sheehan resolution and peace, and I'm sorry that she lost her boy.

We can't afford, however, to get caught up in spiteful, partisan nonsense right now. It's immature, stupid, and accommodating to our enemies. We're all Americans and we all have a stake in neutralizing the menace of Islamic terror. We all want to protect our kids. Hasn't anyone been paying attention all this time that Israel's children have been dying in the streets in Allah's name? We can look forward to the same thing here if we don't get our act together and show some unity on the issues of homeland security and a vigorous military effort abroad. This is not a right/left matter. It's about our safety and our way of life.

We can, and should, disagree over legitimate points of difference. We can disagree over how we went to war in Iraq, or how we've handled the war, but we can't disagree about the importance of winning. We must be unified in understanding the importance of victory during these opening salvoes in what will surely be a monumental war. If you don't understand why we must win in Iraq, you are perhaps misled, in thrall to unsound ideology, or merely ignorant. But if you lend support, in word or deed, to the mujahideen death cultists who are ready to do whatever it takes to destroy us, then you are simply a bad American.

The acrimonious division that sometimes sets in among us in the political spheres is what emboldens the mujahideen to come after us, and they are definitely all on the same page. The social atmosphere of enfeebled, noncommittal irresolution that this division fosters (along with God's promise of victory in the Qur'an) is what makes them believe they can win.

In addition to the selfish ideologues who distract us from the import of winning the war in Iraq, our quagmire-obsessed media is complicit in the growing sense of unsettlement among Americans. In the Iraq reportage, they've taken the practice of dwelling on the negative to the complete exclusion of the positive to hitherto undreamed of heights. IEDs, car bombs, assassinations of government officials, murder/suicide bombings, jihadi kidnappings and beheadings—bad news indeed. But what about the new schools and hospitals? Or the chance to vote? The cessation of mass grave filling, torture, and poverty at the hands of a sociopathic despot? The tens of thousands of dedicated Iraqi soldiers who continue to make great strides in protecting their people and nation? What about the countless of mujahideen who are sent packing to Allah day after day, thousands of miles from Manhattan and L.A.? As one Captain Sherman Powell told a pessimistic Matt Lauer at Camp Liberty in Baghdad, when the Today show came to town this week: "Well, sir, I tell you if I got my news from the newspapers also I'd be pretty depressed as well." Our fighting men and women are doing an amazing job in a punishing, unforgiving situation. They should be given the credit and honor they are due, Army Specialist Casey Sheehan included. And the Iraqi people deserve at least a chance to break out of the Islamic dystopia and Arab totalitarianism that the Middle East has long been beset with.

I feel confident that America will prevail in this latest of challenges to face our great nation. As a democratic people, we are loath to go to war, and resentful about staying there. That's natural. Any people not under the compulsion of a totalitarian government and/or a Middle Ages death cult religion will resist throwing their sons and daughters into the fiery crucible of war. Sadly, however, this crucible is what forges and tempers the steel of liberty. Still, I know we'll win this one. We've done it before when we were forced to remember that the price of freedom can be astronomically high, but not as high as losing it.

As a result of the spectacular success of freedom and capitalism, we've grown complacent. We saw in Vietnam how an embittered, yet determined, leftist movement drove a relentless media campaign of cynical catastrophism and ground down the public's resolve to win. The war on jihad is no Vietnam. These people are going to come over here to kill us whether or not we pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, because their religion tells them it is their God-given entitlement to do so. It is myopic in the extreme for us to hope to win the hearts and the minds of the heartless and the mindless. The jihad cult mindset of discounting the rights and humanity of the infidel is something that we have yet to grasp or even acknowledge. To fight the mujahideen provides their senseless ethos with justification for their holy missions of mass murder, yes, but to appease them gives them inspiration to expand the jihad farther and to reach higher for excellence in killing and subjugating. Jihad once conquered half of the civilized world, including a not negligible portion of the West.

This battle is for civilization and it transcends hatred of George Bush or the petty, hostile invective of popular talk radio hosts. It's about America and Americans and our right to live free and free from the threat of a barbaric, unreformed religion of hatred and murder. Muslims who are able to somehow eschew the violent and repressive elements of Islam (and I'm not optimistic about this happening en masse) should be welcomed, supported, and encouraged to be a part of our free and pluralistic society. Those who can't should be confronted. And they should be confronted by all of us, regardless of which area of the political spectrum we occupy. Americans, not the right or the left, will win this war.

Copyright ©2005 Patrick D. O'Brien: may not be copied, published, or otherwise used (except for quotes) without express permission of author. Originally posted at Clarity & Resolve.