The video shown below is of retired Colonel Allen West speaking at the Freedom Defense Initiative on February 19, 2010 about the "War on Terror." He makes many great points. Among them the idea that saying that we are at war against terror is like saying that during WWII we were at war against the Blitzkrieg or the Kamikaze. These are just tactics. We go to war against ideologies...Nazism, Communism, Imperialism...and Islam. He speaks about Islams history from its founding until today as one of intolerance and violence and says that we are just in the latest chapter of a very long book. He is careful, though to point out that we are not at was against Muslims. Just as all Germans were not Nazis, all Muslims are not terrorists or radical Islamists.
One of the great quotes from this speech is:
"When tolerance becomes a one way street, it is cultural suicide. When I am able to fly to Saudi Arabia with my bible in hand, with my cross around my neck, to go to Mecca, to go to a church, then guess what...we're good to go. But until that point, we have to understand the objectives and goals that Islam has set forward."
