Hanson distills it down to its pure form

Once again, Victor Davis Hanson says it succinctly yet completely.

We Are Finishing the War

It's chock-full-o good bits. Here are a few:

Al Qaeda's message to Europe — which they hate even more than the United States, because it is not only wealthy but soft and weak as well — is that of every mythical monster who promises his trembling prey that with proper flattery he can be gobbled down last.

The appeasement of terrorists, most recently by Spain, will not make them any safer in the long term. The case is quite the opposite. Though it may buy them a reprieve, in the end they will be targeted again and again until they submit completely.

What is our enemies' ultimate agenda? Judge them by what they say and then do: Any who champion women are targeted. Those who are Jews should die. Expressing tolerance for other religions is a capital crime. Secular law and government are a betrayal. Apostasy from Islam justifies murder. Hypocrisy does not matter — whether that means using a hated Western computer or flocking to a despised Western capital.

Why is it that so many don't just take the terrorists at their word? When Hamas says that they will not rest until Isreal ceases to exist and the Jews are dead, why don't we believe them?

While Ted Kennedy and John Kerry pontificate about losing the war on terror, al Qaeda is nearly finished. What we have been seeing lately are its tentacles flapping about in search of prey, after the head has been smashed — still for a time lethal, but without lasting strength. We should remember that perhaps the bloodiest month for Americans in the European theater of World War II was not during 1943 and 1944 amid the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, Italy, or Normandy, but rather in January 1945, a mere five months before the close of the war, when GIs fought back the last bitter German offensive.

We are at war, period. Treating it as a law enforcement issue, as Kerry and the Democrats would if they were in control, will have the same results as it had in the past. September 11 was a result, in part, of the failure to realize that our enemies had truly declared war on us. While we sought out, arrested, and tried those who had carried out previous attacks, the enemy that they served was continuing to plot. The outcome of those plans could not have been more clear.

But perhaps the worst development for the fundamentalists has been a radical change of attitude in the United States. No longer do we say to autocrats "pump oil, and keep out communists — and do what you want with your own people."

Only now that this change has occurred are we seeing real progress. The pre 9/11 status quo was simply slow death.

Before closing, Hanson addresses some of the things that need to be changed here at home:

Finally, for the duration, to sustain both our military power and foreign largess, we also must look to ourselves inasmuch as we are running vast trade deficits, along with unsustainable budget shortfalls, and are stuck in an entitlement craze where government payouts bring not gratitude but shrill demands for even more subsidies. Our borders are porous and yet we are paralyzed and afraid to enforce our own laws — even as 12 million illegal aliens inside the United States cannot be identified or even be referred to as illegal.

Our educational system is increasingly therapeutic and turning out too many poorly educated youth who have not inherited the tradition of American expertise and competence and cannot in the immediate future ensure our privileged position as the world's most affluent consumer society. The Chinese, Europeans, South Koreans, and Japanese are all lending us money for consumption. But they do so only in the trust that our legal system, stability, and competence will continue to justify such debts, which can only be paid back on the expectation that America can sustain its global civilizing role and lead the world in technological innovation and capital formation.