"The Fight We're in Didn't Start Sept. 11th "

Let's face it: our American mainstream media has been reporting the war against terrorism as if this is a brand new thing that had never before shown up in our history. We heard all Arabs hate the United States because of our foreign policy and our misguided culture. And yet, even a surface study of the history of the Middle-East quickly tells one that there is more to it than that ... much more.

The other day the new edition of the magazine American Heritage arrived, and the lead story is called THE LONGEST WAR. The article starts out by saying: "The fight we're in didn't begin on September 11; it started thousands of years ago. It's the struggle between East and West, and history can both encourage and help us - if we read it properly." The author, Victor Davis Hanson, says a lot of the historic comparisons being made are "fraught with error" and he goes on to say "They tell us more of our own popular perceptions of culture than of the real lessons of history, and they misinform us about every element of the situation, from its underlying politics to the nature of the terrorism involved ... .'
History, Hanson says, shows "neither bin Laden nor terrorism is new, and so the solutions to their threats are not only known but time honored." He goes on to say "Pakistan's sudden reversal in sentiment and Libya's gestures of help are indications not of inherent goodwill or moral conversion but rather of fear of the appearance of American warships on the horizon.

The magazine American Heritage also gives us a review of America's first war against terrorism, the one that gave the U. S. Marines the line "to the shores of Tripoli." History shows us we've been here before, and we know how to win if we'll do it.

This is Gordon Sawyer, from a window on historic Green Street