The War on Terror is Over

Well, that’s it then. The war on terror is over and the terrorists have won. America is now officially in the hands of the terrified.

Of course, the terrified are afraid of the wrong enemy. It is not Islam. The enemy is fear itself, and that is exactly what the terrorists hoped to accomplish—hence the name.

But so many of us are tired enough and downtrodden enough not to care about these details. We see homeless veterans and can’t understand why we would help refugees. We see our neighbours unemployed and wonder why illegal aliens are doing landscaping work. We see on the television news wars being fought because of extreme Islamists, and we think all Muslims are evil.

So, we put two and two together and make five. We think the refugees and the illegal aliens and the Muslims are the problem. They are not.

Refugees are ordinary people trying to escape war. Illegal aliens are just ordinary people trying to escape hunger. Muslims are just believers who worship the same God as do Christians and Jews; it is the God of Abraham and Isaac. They just do it in a different building.

Now that the refugee-alien-Muslim boogeyman has been embedded in our psyches, we fear them all. We don’t care which war you are running away from, whether you are legal or illegal, or which God you worship; you can’t come in to America any more. We are too afraid to even listen to your story.

We don’t care that the vetting process is extremely long and arduous, or that it may take over two years to go through it all. We are going to stop you at the border anyway, and send you back where you came from.  We don’t even care that you may be killed if you go back. We are so afraid we have decided to ignore that possibility. We don’t care if we split up families, because those few broken hearts are a small price to pay for national security.

We are going to batten down the hatches, build walls, tear up our international trade agreements, and shut ourselves off from the scary world that may include a terrorist.

But, wait.  What if the terrorists are already here? What if a terrorist is actually holding political office right now?

No, that doesn’t bear thinking about. The enemy is out there and it is refugee-alien-Muslim. We know because, well, we just know. And we are going to go on feeling afraid because it is fear that keeps us safe.  Right?