Inspiration

Update below the fold

Many will have already watched The Battle at Kruger. I find it inspirational.

Moral: Even for the young and defenseless among us, it is possible to be targeted by a pride of lions who would take from us everything that we have, to then be targeted by a crocodile, to be pushed down and clawed and bitten all over our body, to survive, and to be rescued by those who like us only want to graze freely on the plains.

Replace the lions with the socialist wing of the Democrat Party and the crocodiles with sinister Muslim Brotherhood associates, and you realize that the great country of America can survive it all, emerge fighting, and thrive.

UPDATE: Over at the Belmont Club, Wretchard talks about Yeh Hum Naheen, or “This is not Us,” topping the pop-charts in Pakistan. It is a catchy protest song against terrorists who claim that all Muslims are, like them, terrorists. Kids are singing it. It has been widely downloaded. Even the Pakistani national soccer team has adopted the song.

Clicking through eventually leads to this Fox News article.

Waseem Mahmood and his two sons, Khurrum and Khaiyyam, have made this statement via a song and music video. It is called “Yeh Hum Naheen,” Urdu for “This is Not Us.”

[…]

Waseem Mahmood is a TV and media producer who used his contacts in the business to pull the project together. But it was really his sons who pushed to make this happen.

They told their father they were tired of being targeted by extremist Muslims in Britain who thought they were too secular. And they were sick of seeing terrorists cloak their activity in religion.

The reaction has been huge. The song shot to No. 1 in Pakistan. And thanks to the Web, it’s gone global. There have been 65,000 downloads thus far.

The video has now been released in the U.K. with subtitles. The U.K., like Pakistan, is no stranger to terrorism. Officials in the two countries think the song is great.

Others aren’t as thrilled. According to video creator Waseem, extremists here have criticized the song, saying it should target governments they claim are responsible for the terror … not the terrorists.

But that’s the very twisted logic the song is trying to knock down.

We played the video to some young people in one British neighborhood and the reaction was uniformly positive. It seems that the Mahmoods have really struck a note, tapping into feelings held by a lot of Muslims.

Wretchard follows up:

It is often argued that fighting terrorism, after September 11, fueled terrorism. I think that historians will eventually discover that the reverse was true. If America had not responded in a measured, but effective way, the voices of normal people would have stayed stilled by fear.

The Muslims who are normal, who do not want to kill or subjugate everyone else, are frightened. They are frightened of Jihadists. And they are frightened of indiscriminate violent reactions from non-Muslims to the Jihadist assault on the world. Wretchard is correct. In any counter-insurgency, which is what is going on here like it or not, the insurgent has made space in which to operate by terrorizing the people. This has turned the people into his reluctant allies. It is not important that they agree with him, only that they feared what he would do if they didn’t give him freedom to operate.

The counter-insurgent faced with an insurgency hiding among a people under the grip of terror has a choice of two roads.

1. The Broad Highway: Raise the terror stakes. Terrorize the people more than the insurgent can so that the people give up the insurgent out of fear and self-preservation.
2. The Narrow Path: Protect the people from the insurgent and give them examples of how to stand against the terror that the insurgent brings. Once the people stand against terror that is aimed directly at them, they have become empowered. Then they are ready to stand against other types of terror activity, even against terror inflicted on the counter-insurgent.

Either path seems to work well enough. The first path is traditional, “realist.” It is also evil, as is pretty clear, and leads to moral degeneracy in the counter-insurgent and the people. The second path is the Bush doctrine, causes greater casualties in the counter-insurgent force, but also strengthens the people and the counter-insurgent in moral fortitude and resolve.