Will U.S. bombing raids and search and destroy missions in Afghanistan destroy Bin Laden's network in that country or merely drive al Qaeda operatives into other countries on the list of state sponsors of terrorism?

The process of pursuing terrorists through Muslim countries is part of what Bush administration officials and military planners have in mind when they speak of a long war against terrorism. U.S. officials are being honest: Capturing and killing terrorists in states that sponsor the activity will be a drawn-out process.

We risk that this process will radicalize Muslim populations and result in revolutions in Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia itself, which, in effect, would leave the U.S. at war with the entire Middle East.

If the U.S. is prepared to use weapons of mass destruction, Muslims could not win the war. But it would be a "clash of civilizations." Whereas we think of theirs as weak and ours as strong, all the advantage would not lie with the scientific and technologically superior U.S.

Radicalized Muslims are fanatical in their belief in their cause. This gives Muslims a determination and staying power that a doubtful and guilt-ridden U.S. cannot match.

Read Alan Charles Kors and Harvey Silverglate's book, The Shadow University, or Howard Schwartz's The Revolt of the Primitive. "Multiculturalism" and other left-wing "isms" have produced a failure of acculturation and the destruction of the structure of beliefs that have held American society together.

The damage done is long-term and corrosive. TV advertisements and political rhetoric chirp and coddle us to believe that the events of September 11 have "brought the country together." This is wishful thinking.

The U.S. is too politically correct to take even elementary steps to protect against future catastrophes. FAA airport "security" measures indiscriminately delay and search passengers, squandering resources examining the personal effects of blond, blue-eyed mothers traveling with young children.

Simultaneous with these pointless intrusions, the State Department allowed 14 Syrian men to enter the U.S. to attend flight schools. In two days in October, seven arrived on one flight and seven on another.

The same State Department lists Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism.

A State Department spokesperson told WorldNetDaily that the Bush administration has no plans to stop issuing visas to flight-school applicants from Middle Eastern countries that are state sponsors of terrorism.

Bombs are falling on Afghanistan, but in the U.S. it is U.S. citizens who are being frightened and inconvenienced by the war on terrorism.

In a recent column, Martin Gross reports that Muslim terrorists are entering the U.S. faster than the FBI can detain them. Last year the State Department granted 60,508 visas to Saudi Arabians (15 of the 19 suicide terrorists were here on Saudi visas), 14,344 visas to Syrians (state sponsor of terrorism), 48,883 visas to Egyptians (home of the al Gamat terror organization), 2,993 visas to Iraqis (state sponsor of terrorism) and so on.

The suicide missions of September 11 have produced no change in the State Department's visa program.

Muslims might not be the only source of terrorists in our future. The U.S. invites contempt because its universities demonize the white race and Western civilization. The U.S. government gives credibility to the propaganda by its steadfast support for racial quotas for "preferred minorities."

In other words, the U.S. government believes that white racism, past and present, justify ignoring the Constitution's requirement of equal standing in law. The U.S. government has created a system of group rights that disadvantage white males.

It is easy to imagine a Mexican movement to reclaim the Southwest employing terror to drive American whites out of lands stolen from Mexico, or eco-terrorists indiscriminately attacking the U.S. population with biological weapons. In a clash of civilizations, a self-loathing country committed to a Tower Of Babel has a disadvantage.

Paul Craig Roberts is the author (with Lawrence M. Stratton) of The New Color Line : How Quotas and Privilege Destroy Democracy

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