John Kerry just doesn't get it

He wants to go back to where we were before 9/11, when terrorism was just a nuisance. I don't think so.

Read James Lileks on the concept terrorism as a nuisance. Key quote:

A nuisance? I don’t want the definition of success of terrorism to be “it isn’t on the rise.” I want the definition of success to be “free democratic states in the Middle East and the cessation of support of those governments and fascist states we haven’t gotten around to kicking in the ass yet.” I want the definition of success to mean a free Lebanon and free Iran and a Saudi Arabia that realizes there’s no point in funding the fundies. An Egypt that stops pouring out the Jew-hatred as a form of political novacaine to keep the citizens from turning their ire on their own government. I want the definition of success to mean that Europe takes a stand against the Islamicist radicals in their midst before the Wahabbi poison is the only acceptable strain on the continent. Mosquito bites are a nuisance. Cable outages are a nuisance. Someone shooting up a school in Montana or California or Maine on behalf of the brave martyrs of Fallujah isn't a nuisance. It's war.

And here's Lileks on Kerry's goal of "going back to where we were".

But when we were there we were blind. When we were there we losing. When we were there we died. We have to get back to the place we were. We have to get back to 9/10? We have to get back to the place we were. So we can go through it all again? We have to get back to the place we were. And forget all we’ve learned and done? We have to get back to the place we were. No. I don’t want to go back there. Planes into towers. That changed the terms. I am remarkably disinterested in returning to a place where such things are unimaginable. Where our nighmares are their dreams.

To really understand our enemy, you have to read Daniel Pipes. Then you'll truly see just how wrong Kerry is, and how he just doesn't get it. Here's a key quote:

The hardest thing for Westerners to understand is not that a war with militant Islam is underway but that the nature of the enemy's ultimate goal. That goal is to apply the Islamic law (the Shari‘a) globally. In U.S. terms, it intends to replace the Constitution with the Qur'an.

This aspiration is so remote and far-fetched to many non-Muslims, it elicits more guffaws than apprehension. Of course, that used to be the same reaction in Europe, and now it's become widely accepted that, in Bernard Lewis' words, "Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century."

I believe the threat is real. I don't believe we should ever think of it as just a "nuisance".

You know what I think John Kerry's real problem is? He just doesn't believe our country is worth defending. Yes, yes, I know he went to Vietnam, but that was then, and as soon as he came back he argued that we were wrong to fight that war, wrong to defend the South Vietnamese against the communists, wrong to say that our way might possibly be a better way. Ever since he got back he's voted against weapons systems, defense funding, and intelligence funding; he voted against the first Gulf War, and is now against this war ("wrong war, wrong place, wrong time"). He voted against the $87 billion for our soldiers. He's showing no signs that he would actively fight the war on terror by taking it to the terrorists, wherever they are.

I believe that he now thinks of himself as an internationalist, who would never be so parochial as to think that the United States is any better than any other country, or that our values are worth promoting, much less defending.

And that's why I'm praying that he never becomes our President.