Jon Kyl: “the remarks President Bush delivered yesterday about the war against the radical Islamist terrorists was a historic…”

“the remarks President Bush delivered yesterday about the war against the radical Islamist terrorists was a historic speech, the clearest statement to date of the nature of the struggle we face. Probably there were two factors that entered the President's decision to give the remarks today: First, the fact that we will soon, next Monday, have the fifth anniversary of the heinous attack of September 11 on the United States of America; second, because of the increasing calls by partisans to abandon part of the conflict--namely, the Iraq front--in this war. It was important for the President to define who the enemy is and to make it clear that the enemy is not terrorism. People in the media have called this the war on terrorism. We could have just as easily called the war in the Pacific and World War II the war on kamikaze terrorism, as kamikaze is a suicide tactic by evil people. The war, then, was against Nazism, Fascism, the imperial Japanese, and later communism. It was not against a tactic. The same thing is true today. It was important for the President to define the nature of the enemy we face in order to be able to adequately confront that enemy. The President made a comparison with a couple of the enemies in World War II. He talked about Adolph Hitler and the fact he was not taken seriously at first. At first, Adolph Hitler was a crazy paper hanger. Then he was greatly underestimated.…”