Many Americans do not understand the importance of the Iraq War. Peace activists think that we should never fight wars. What a wonderful thought, but wholly unrealistic. Others think that the fight should be concentrated in Afghanistan. This is more thoughtful…but wrong.

The war needs to be fought is a strategically vital region. Afghanistan is a wasteland. If the terrorist lost a foothold there, it would not matter. They would pick up an move to some other forgotten place.

An important aspect of the broader war on terrorism is to change the way Muslims view terrorism as a means of fighting. We can’t kill all the Muslims and we likely can’t beat them into submission. What we can change is their view of terrorism and we can do that by having them experience the pain of a ruthless terrorist campaign.

This is not just theory. There is evidence to support this strategy.

A survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project reported that between 2002 and 2007 Muslim support for attacks on civilians fell by 50 percent in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Lebanon and Pakistan. Only one percent of Afghans expressed “strong support” for the Taliban and local jihadist groups, according to a 2006 ABC News/BBC survey.  (LINK)

Our soldiers are standing in harms way amongst the civilians. Each attack by Al Queda in Iraq is a blow against the Muslim civilians. We may never be seen as liberators, but with each civilian death caused by terrorism, Al Quada makes 20 new Muslim enemies. This strategy will not only hurt Al Queda’s standing in the Muslim world…it also brings the pain and evil of terrorism to civilian Muslims.

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