We are at war.

We are at war.

We are at war.

Sometimes I need to repeat that lest I forget. I have to admit that one of the things I like about the Iraq War is that it tends to focus the war attention on a place where there is something resembling an actual (er, "traditional"), war. Whether you're for it or against it (or whether you think we're losing it or winning it), at least there is a war there, it is palpable, and we're in it. The problem we all tend to forget, though, is that Iraq is only a front in a much greater and much more serious war.

This greater war is much more difficult to define. Hell, for many people it can't even be admitted to exist, much less be defined. It's called the Global War on Terror (GWOT). The enemy is called various things -- whether Islamists, Islamic fascists, Islamo fascists, Islamic terrorists, or, as Islamic "apostate" Walid Shoebat so simply and bluntly put it in a PJM interview Glenn Reynolds linked yesterday, Islamic fundamentalism. I suggest listening to the interview, as Shoebat makes a compelling, if disturbing, case.

This is not an easy thing for people to contemplate. I agreed with most of what Walid Shoebat said, but the problem for me is that I don't relish the idea of being at war with all of Islam, and I don't think most people do. Islamic fundamentalism is not all of Islam, but according to Shoebat, it's quickly getting there. Pakistan and Egypt could at any time go the way of Iran and Saudi Arabia.

And I believe that if we pull out of Iraq, Iraq will too.

Anyway, Walid Shoebat's remarks kept waking me up last night, and at one point I had an idea for a debate.

Why not have Shoebat debate Dinesh D'Souza? If you Google the names together, you'll see they're clearly on a collision course.

The former believes that the enemy is fundamentalist Islam, while the latter believes "conservatives" should find common cause with "traditional Islam." (Amazingly, in this debate with Jamie Glazov, D'Souza ended up doing his best to uphold the "traditional Islam" of none other than Sayeed Qutb!)

Quite remarkably, D'Souza's The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11 and Showbat's Why I left Jihad: The Root of Terrorism and the Return of Radical Islam have both been "tagged" at Amazon for "hatred."

Tagging books might be fun (and certainly it's preferable to burning them), but I don't think it sheds much light on the opinions they contain. Better to read and answer them.

All the more reason for a debate. I for one would like to know exactly where the line is drawn (if any such line exists) between traditional Islam and fundamentalist Islam, and a debate between these two, while it might not settle anything, would IMO be most helpful in this analysis.

Too many people have their head in the sand over the nature of the enemy and the definition of this war.

Are we at war with Islamic fundamentalism?

Is there a dime's worth of difference between that and radical Islam?

Might it be in our best national interests to officially pretend that there is?

I agree with Shoebat a lot more than I agree with D'Souza (who IMO has become an apologist for the enemy), but I have more questions than answers, and I'd love seeing a debate.