Forever and Ever

No nation, group, or sane individual would ever want to suffer constant warfare, but thanks to the weakness of Jimmy Carter who allowed the specter of Khomeinism to be released, that fate is what the US has been consigned to endure. The genie of jihad had been more or less dormant on the international scene with some manifestations of secular pan-Arabism as was manifested in Nasser, some Marxist leaning extremism in Yemen, and the theatrical but dangerous rise of Qaddafi in Libya, but until Carter promoted the downfall of the Shah, tolerated the return of Ayatollah Khomeini from Paris to Tehran, and countenanced the seizure of the US embassy there and the detention of fifty-two US hostages for 444 days, the threat of Islamic extremism could have been contained. Now and for the foreseeable future, the West will face violent, expansionist political Islam because the US showed herself to be a toothless tigress when a better leader would have demonstrated just how hard we could bite. Now we have eternal terror threat, modified lifestyles, and relinquished freedoms because Carter had no metal. Just think what one committed felon did, murdering four armed police in Washington state and amplify that thousands of times over with American Muslims returning from the Hajj who may take a side trip to Pakistan to learn and train hard in the ways of war. But a wiser man than I long ago said "eternal vigilance is the price of freedom".