WAR ON TERROR VIA CHESSBOARD

Are we safer with George W. Bush as President? Is victory in the Iraqi War essential to the War on Terror? Is Saddam Hussein connected to Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi? Should we pull out of Iraq and focus exclusively on bin Laden himself? Let's look at these questions from a different viewpoint.

Think of the War on Terror as a game of chess. There are ultimately two players: good and evil. But there are many pieces on the board. First of all, our opponent in the War on Terror is not the individual pieces on the board, but rather the player himself, the spiritual Father of Evil. Christians call him Satan; the terrorists call him Allah. We must keep in mind that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but rather with the spiritual forces that lead the pawns.

With that in mind, we must recognize that the enemy's pawns and pieces on the board must be dealt with. While our true enemy is the one controlling the pieces, the pieces are the physical obstacles we have to face.

The leaders of the Coalition in this particular game of chess, if you will, have been getting a lot of flak from dissenters as to the strategy behind their game. In order to understand why I believe their objections are unfounded, let's identify the pieces on the board.

First of all, let's assume that Osama bin Laden is the black king, the main target in our game. Many spectators want us to attack the king directly and win the game, but they're ignoring the other pieces on the board. They may even consider the black queen, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but they are completely disregarding the rooks, bishops, knights, and pawns, which are the other terrorist nations and groups supporting the black king and queen.

In this War on Terror, Saddam Hussein is one of the pieces, perhaps a black knight or bishop. It may not be as significant a target, in the eyes of some spectators, as the king or queen; but it would be a fatal mistake to underestimate it.

Let's assume, for the sake of this analogy, that the United States is the white king and Great Britain is the white queen. The other members of the Coalition are the other white pieces. Like it or not, our leaders are controlling the movement of the white pieces on the board. We, as spectators, are not even pawns on the board. We can second-guess the players and groan at their choices of movement, but the decisions are theirs to make. Hopefully, they are better-equipped to play the game and that's why we put them in charge. So we stand by and watch, sometimes whispering our advice, while the game is played out.

The game began when the black king (bin Laden) sent some of his pawns in an attack upon the white king (the U.S. on 9/11). He strategically chose to sacrifice those pawns in an attempt to take out the king. Our team (the Coalition), rather than attacking the well-protected black king, chose first to take out Saddam Hussein, one of the mid-ranking pieces of the enemy player. In response, the black king and queen sent their pawns (the various terrorist organizations and groups) to attack the white pieces on the board. This week, one of those black pawns (perhaps even the black queen herself) attacked the white queen (Great Britain).

And the chess game continues. And the spectators continue to groan and second-guess the players. They say, the black king and queen are still out there. We may have captured some pawns and one or two mid-ranking pieces, but that's not good enough for us. On the other hand, the other side has been attacking our pieces. They attacked the king (the World Trade Center on 9/11/01), the queen (London on 7/7/05), and several other of our pieces throughout the past several years (such as Madrid on 3/11/04). But they have not captured our higher-ranking pieces, either. Yes, they've captured some of our pawns and mercilessly executed them, but we've captured some of their pawns as well.

Were we wrong to focus on Hussein, rather than bin Laden? I don't think so. We're still going after the king and queen, but we've got to clear the way of some of the knights, bishops, rooks and pawns first. If we had checked the king with one of these pieces lurking on an adjacent square, it could have potentially cost us the game. It's a game of strategy perhaps best left to the professional strategists.

It's too early in the game to call a retreat. We're discouraged to see our pawns brutalized and beheaded while the captured black pawns complain about the taste of the caviar at Club Gitmo. And, to top it off, the spectators who are supposedly rooting for the white team are shouting their dissent at our leaders, disrupting the player's concentration and essentially becoming pawns themselves of the black team. Regardless of the ridiculous rantings of liberals such as Ted Kennedy (D-Mass), Iraq is not a "quagmire" and all is not lost, but we must keep our resolve and stand strong lest we let the dissenters turn this into the VietNam of our generation.

Bottom line: the War on Terror is a real-life chess game with world-wide consequences. Which side are we on? We, as spectators, may not always agree with the moves our player makes, but we must remember what our goal is. Our goal is for our player to achieve victory, and providing moral support to the enemy will certainly not help us reach that goal. The American people re-elected President George W. Bush because we believed he was best-equipped to lead the game. The people of Great Britain re-elected Prime Minister Tony Blair for the same reason. Now it's time for the spectators to support them lest our grumbling cost us the game, our freedom, and perhaps our lives.

<><}}}0>