Wabash Valley Youth Football Times

Well, it's ten years since the attacks; our generation's Pearl Harbor. We've made a lot of progress cleaning the rats out of their holes, still lots more to do. It hasn't been all rifles and tanks which has made the progress either. We have seen this year some of the fruits of the fostering of democracy, began by President Bush, and continued in a less explicit fashion by President Obama. The concern has been that freedom in North Africa and the Middle East would bring Islamic republics, hostile to the West. However, in Tunisia, the source of the Arab spring, this has not happened. Thus far in Libya, the rebels appear not to be Al Qaeda or Communist, but patriots expunging a scourge upon humanity. They said the revolutionaries in Egypt would be dominated by the Moslem Brotherhood, but they have instead been a widely diverse group striving for freedom.

Iraq and Afghanistan have both been troubled, but Iraq has neither descended into civil war, nor become a hostile Islamic state. Although Afghanistan is riddled with corruption, it is a much freer place than ten years ago, and radicalism is descendant in the country.

Islam is not the enemy, no more than Judaism or Christianity. We will win this conflict, country by country, by helping the Moslem countries find ways to be both Islamic and free, and in this way Al Qaeda will find very few people interested in their falsehoods and wickedness. These changes must be fostered by us with both guns, and with encouragement for individual nations to give their people liberty.

We havc enjoyed a wonderful weekend of youth football, which is the point, rather than focusing on our national wounds and recovery from same. I believe that our path will enable our players, ten years from now, to live life rather than fighting necessary battles overseas. Our obligation to them is to make sure that we keep safe, bit more importantly, do so in such a way that will preserve the individual liberties and pursuit of happiness for these guys and girls on the twentieth anniversary.