http://www.bannerofliberty.com/BOL-2008MQC/5-12-2008.1.html

  • Europe today has clearly lost its traditional leadership in world affairs. This was pointed out in a recent speech to CEOs by Herbert Meyer,who served in the Reagan administration as special assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and vice chair of the CIA's National Intelligence Council. The war in Iraq is the first of four transforming events currently taking place in the world and a critical war for us to win. He describes that war as the third major attack by Islam on Western Civilization:

    "Islam first attacked Western civilization in the 7th century, and later in the 16th and 17th centuries. By 1683, the Moslems (Turks from the Ottoman Empire) were literally at the gates of Vienna. It was in Vienna that the climatic battle between Islam and Western civilization took place.
    Interestingly, the date of that battle was September 11. Since then, Islam has not found a way to reconcile with the modern world.

    "Today, terrorism is the third attack on Western civilization by radical Islam. To deal with terrorism, the U.S. is doing two things.
    First, units of our armed forces are in 30 countries around the world hunting down terrorist groups and dealing with them. This gets very little publicity.
    Second we are taking military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. These are covered relentlessly by the media. People can argue about whether the war in Iraq is right or wrong.
    However, the underlying strategy behind the war is to use our military to remove the radicals from power and give the moderates a chance.
    Our hope is that, over time, the moderates will find a way to bring Islam forward into the 21st century.
    That's what our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is all about. "

    This understanding of the nature of the events of the 21st century, and the stakes we Americans have in those events is almost totally ignored by the media and both Democratic presidential candidates. Neither of them seem to have any understanding or interest in the historical aspects of what is occurring today. We really can no longer afford the time to make the kind of mistakes we made in the 1930s when Americans chose isolationism and allowed Hitler to seize most of Europe, which was unable to defend itself.

    The situation is worse today. Europe is aging, not even producing enough children to maintain their cultures. With aging populations and few young people, dying nations have almost abandoned maintaining armies, which is why it is the American army and navy that are in the forefront of current events.

    The 2008 election in which we will choose the next president, senate and House of Representatives may very well be America's last opportunity to get it right.