Red Dawn Revised

I live in a bucolic little town. People still wave to each other as they pass on the street. It's difficult to go through town without seeing someone you know. Unlike a lot of small towns, it isn't in the middle of nowhere. Still, I'm not expecting to see Russian paratroopers dropping into town as in the 80's movie, Red Dawn. There aren't going to be any local resistance movements either. Anyway, "Cardinals!" doesn't sound nearly as tough as "Wolverines!" (The name of the resistance fighters from the movie.)

The fact is, the wars we all imagined would be fought are now a thing of the past...

They're relics of the cold war. Back when the US Hockey team won the Olympic Gold Medal over the Russians, we never would've believed that less than a decade later, the country itself would cease to exist. Neither could we have imagined the threat that would arise in it's place.

After 9/11 and the rise of radical Islam, we now face an enemy that is at the same time elusive and media savvy. Not only that, but we are a country divided by politics and ill-equipped to meet an asymmetric threat from an enemy that knows how to test our will.

Many deny that we are even engaged in a Global War on Terrorism. They are still mired in a past world of static armies concerned about capturing territory and establishing governments. Whether we are willing to admit it, our enemies proclaim that they are in a war with us.

They've made this a war and they've made it global. From Africa to Indonesia, the Phillipines, Chechnya, and of course the Middle East. Besides 9/11, they've tried to bring this war to our own country. So far, they've been foiled, but it's only a matter of time before something happens down the street, across the state or on the coast. When they do strike again on our own soil, that will be the last we'll hear of Abu Ghraib or The Geneva Convention. Not that we should permit atrocities, even against an enemy as vicious as this one, but at least we'll have unity of resolve.

At that time, many of those who now deny the clear and present danger will come to realize that we are engaged in a struggle pitting Western civilization against a civilization springing from the dark ages. Their ideals are primitive but their tactics are 21st century. They know how to use the internet to their advantage to terrorize others. They observe and adapt their tactics with a speed and flexibility that is admirable.

I seem to remember in the 80's when some libyan terrorists came to this country to commit some act of terror. They ended up getting lost on the freeway system and were driving the wrong direction. They were picked up quickly. We should be so lucky to have that type of enemy today. Perhaps, we'll never suffer from another attack on our own shores. We can only hope and pray that it is so. Unfortunately, that's difficult to imagine.

9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq are only the opening act of this struggle. Let's hope that by the time our children become adults, they'll look back on this time as we look back on the Red Menace.