The anti-Americans: Who are they? Who are their dupes?

By Wes Vernon

Maybe it's because I grew up during World War II, when we had a clear understanding that we were "the good guys" and our enemies were "the bad guys," and that was it. End of story.

Okay, so maybe it's naοve to expect that kind of national unity in this so-called "sophisticated" age. But I also remember my outrage in the early years of the Cold War — right after victory against the Nazis and Imperial Japan — when much of the patriotic fervor was muted when it came to dealing with the Communists.

Stalin and Mao committed atrocities every bit as abhorrent as those committed by Hitler, but somehow the Communists had their apologists all over the place here in this country. The Communists' world-conquering schemes were every bit as ambitious as those of the Nazis. They were just more clever at it. For starters, they didn't declare open warfare on about 94% of the world's population with "master race" theories. But their end game was every bit as evil.

The double standard — now extended to the current "War on Terror" — is dangerous. Its causes relate to factors too numerous and involved to explore here. Regular readers of this column may recall we have discussed some efforts by anti-Americans to destroy our will to fight back and survive. A full exploration would require volumes.

It is with that in mind that three recent news dispatches set the table for the task that confronts us as we try to re-ignite the idea that we are "the good guys." This time we are up against an enemy that is everywhere and nowhere, an enemy that means to destroy us, all of us — Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives — merely because we are Americans, and because America is a leading light of Western Civilization that the terrorists mean to destroy.

Item 1

The Wall Street Journal, in an in-depth report, cites Cold War Communists around the world who curse Mikhail Gorbachev as a "traitor" for jettisoning Marxism, and mourn "the apparent triumph of U.S. military, ideological might."

Where are these embittered Communist cheerleaders now? According to the WSJ, many of them have joined forces with the murderous jihadists in the Muslim world.

It matters not that the Islamofascist state of Iran ruthlessly persecuted communists. "We all have the same goals," says Dr. Ibrahim Sayid, a Cold War member of the Lebanese Communist Party who has now embraced Hezbollah and works in a Hezbollah clinic. Some analysts have pinpointed Hezbollah as a greater threat to the Western World than Al-Qaeda is.

A journalist who covered the Seventies/Eighties Soviet attack on Afghanistan once told this writer that it was apparent to him this was not a case of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." An anti-Soviet Afghanistan fighter told him, "As soon as we finish with the Russians, we're coming after you [the U.S.]"

Karl Marx once defined religion as "the opiate of the masses," but that has not prevented anti-American Marxists from forming an alliance with Islamofascist jihadists who possess a bloodthirsty agenda — supposedly in the name of religion.

Here is a key part of the lengthy WSJ report: "The phenomenon [of a Marxist/jihadist alliance] extends beyond the Middle East. Latin America too. Causes that a few years ago seemed moribund or at least passι — socialism, Third World solidarity, strident anti-Americanism — have been injected with a fervor" by radical Islam.

Last month, secular activists from around the world gathered in Beirut and vowed to "fight American hegemony." Robed and turbaned Islamist clerics mixed with participants wearing t-shirts or badges with pictures of Che Guevara, clenched fists and other symbols of Sixties-style radical Marxism.

And there's more: Some of Hezbollah's biggest fans are in Europe. In an anti-war protest march in London last summer, posters read, "We are all Hezbollah now."

Tony Blair is constantly under fire within his own Labour Party in Britain from those who accuse him of "demonizing" Islamist groups just because he told radical clerics to knock off the terrorist threats or get out. Spain's socialist Prime Minister Jose Zapatero has expressed sympathy for Hamas and Hezbollah and has good relations with Fidel Castro's Cuba and Bolivia's pro-Castro leader Evo Morales.

Item 2

Though — by and large — mainstream left-wing parties in Europe do not openly embrace radical Islamists, some of those in their base of support do.

All the more troubling therefore that a dispatch from Reuters news agency reports that European socialists have promised a "strategic alliance" with the United States now that the Democrats have won control of Congress.

This smacks of at least some level of interference with internal U.S. politics. But aside from that, Reuters says "Socialist leaders attending a meeting of the European Socialist Party in Oporto, Portugal, pledged that with the Democrats on the rise, strong ties could be renewed with the United States after years of cool relations with President Bush," largely over America's aggressive role in pursuit of terrorist enemies in general and the Iraq war in particular.

Just to put a fine point on the rhetoric, U.S. Democrat National Chairman Howard Dean attended the gathering.

Former Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen told Dean, "We are not anti-American. We want the real America, your America."

So now you know: If you're not in tune with the socialist views of the screamer from Vermont and his pals in Europe, you're just not the "real America." Got that? After all, Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates told Dean that U.S. Democrats "should know that they can count on European Socialists" for support.

The ancient philosopher Socrates was known in his later years as "the wisest man" in all of Greece. The same can't be said for his modern-day Portuguese namesake. For a foreign leader to take sides publicly in American politics is not exactly an act of brilliance. It can cause a backlash and in this case provide a gift to the Republicans.

Item 3

The Washington Times quotes a Pentagon strategist in the War on Islamofascism (or "the War on Terror" as many have imprecisely called it) as warning that the "American people need to prepare for a long-duration war against radical Muslims who are set to fight for 50 to 100 years to create an Islamist state in the [U.S.]."

In an interview with the WT's crack military and security reporter Bill Gertz, Air Force Brig. Gen. Mark O Schissler likened the struggle to the 45-year Cold War.

At the core of the problem is "ideology," according to the general, who says he is concerned that Washington politics is weakening America's will to fight in its own best interests and the interests of Western Civilization.

General Schissler, the deputy director for the war on terrorism within the strategic plans office of the Pentagon's Joint Staff, puts it this way: "I don't care about the politics. I care about people understanding the facts of what's our enemy thinking about, what's our strategy to defeat them, and for [Americans] to understand that it will take a long fight, mostly because our enemy is committed to the long fight. They're absolutely committed to the 50-100 year plan." Does America have the will to sustain the battle to preserve Western Civilization and the blessings it has offered?

Connecting the dots

So what we have here is a series of situations that — when strung together — present us with the equivalent of trying to go up against a giant mowing machine.

If we had the psychological cohesion that prevailed in World War II, absolutely we could beat back this threat.

This is an enemy with allies left over from the remnants of the Cold War — aided by persistent voices of surrender right here on our own soil. Both the Marxist and Islamofascist blends of the real "Axis of Evil" have their apologists throughout the Western world. They intimidate or flirt with the mainline socialist parties of Europe. Hard-core factions of those leftist European parties — with varying degrees of success — bring soft-on-Islamofascism pressure on their governments.

In Europe — where Marxist psychological warfare is more advanced than in the U.S. — the socialist governments openly vow solidarity with a party here that is taking over the Congress of the United States. Much of Europe has the mindset of "We're too comfortable in our welfare state to be bothered by warnings of danger." Thus the socialists of Europe make common cause with American leftist extremists who are becoming mainstream in a party whose leaders undermine a wartime president at every turn. How much of that can be attributed to home-grown anti-Americanism and how much to scoring political points is irrelevant. The result is the same, as "political correctness" and charges of "religious profiling" are hamstringing efforts to deal with enemies in our midst.

And all of this is happening as we are urged to hunker down for a 50-100 year war, while a commission dominated by Monday morning quarterbacks urges us to talk to the vilest unappeasable terrorists in the world. Does anyone doubt America is being fattened up for the kill?

Winston Churchill's words in another time are apt for the present: "This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless, by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time."

© Wes Vernon