A Victory in the War on Terror

Amid all the jeers and laughter yesterday surrounding the "capture" of a children's action figure, a funny thing happened:

We won the War on Terror.

No, the shooting didn't stop, and more real hostages will likely be taken and face for real the dire possibility of death by beheading. No, the war won yesterday was more symbolic than practical; terrorists, perhaps for the first time, ceased to terrorize us and became a joke.

On 9/11 and in the days that followed, terror really did have the upper hand in the United States. For the first time I can recall in my generation, America was unsure and afraid. Once the immediate danger passed, we were filled with what Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto once described as "a terrible resolve." The Taliban and elements of al Qaeda in Afghanistan were the first to feel our wrath, and from there the physical battle has continued, as it shall until Islamic terrorism is no longer a sustainable threat.

But all this time, even as we were winning the war, and hearts, and minds, the threat of terrorism still hung heavy in our national conscious.

But thanks to the stellar fact-checking of the mainstream media and the apparent desperation of terrorists reduced to threatening toys, the cloud of terrorism threatening us has been lifted, if but for a time.

We laughed at them.

And in that, we can find a special victory.

Update: Thanks to Instapundit for picking up this thread.

Update 2: Tom Elia over at The New Editor makes an excellent point:

... I would stipulate that we won a battle in the War on Terror yesterday with the unmasking of the fraudulent photos depicting a GI Joe as an al Qaeda "hostage" -- it was a mighty big battle, no less -- but just one battle. There will be many more to fight -- a point that Confederate Yankee does make, but I think it should be emphasized that the war that we are winning is a long way from being over.