Unite or Die

The way the left focuses on politics more than national security is really getting on my nerves. On September 11 the local paper ran 4 letters to the editor. Not one of them called for solemn remembrance or even vigilance against future attack. Of the three letters remotely related to the anniversary of 9/11, all three were rants about the ABC Path to 9/11 broadcast and all three were from a liberal perspective.

You can read the letters: here, here, and here.

I have submitted the following reply:

Dear Editor,

I am saddened that on the fifth anniversary of September 11, three letters to the editor focused on something purely political; attacking an ABC drama because they don't like the way it portrays the events that led up to that day. These people are so concerned with trying to pin blame on political opponents that they and even some elected officials threatened the broadcast license of ABC.

How is this helping us win this war? Clinton is not without blame, neither is President Bush or for that matter, several administrations going back decades. Clinton's responses following the bombings of the World Trade Center our embassies in Africa and of the USS Cole were inadequate. But, so were the responses to the murder of Leon Klinghoffer and Robert Stethem, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut and the Iranian hostage crisis. All of these were treated as law-enforcement issues. But, where was the call from the American people for more action? Terrorism was never a major issue in any campaign until after 9/11. We were complacent and content to focus on political scandals, entertainment, shark attacks and Chandra Levy.

I've heard so many people say they miss that feeling of security we had before 9/11. Well, I've got news for them, we weren't secure. A deer grazing in a meadow may feel very secure in spite of the fact that a hunter has him in his sights. We were like that deer.

Even if Clinton had ordered the killing of Bin Laden, other attacks would have come. Bin Laden is not the only terrorist, not by far. It is time we realize that this enemy has many followers and deep ideological roots. As for those who claim that we brought attacks on ourselves because of our policies, explain why Islamists also are on the warpath in India, Indonesia, Thailand, Sudan, the Philippines, Russia, Algeria and many other places.

We also need to realize that they mean what they say. But in case you are still unaware of their agenda, here is a little gem from Hasan al-Banna (1906 - 1949): "we will not stop at this point, but will pursue this evil force to its own lands, invade its Western heartland, and struggle to overcome it until all the world shouts by the name of the Prophet and the teachings of Islam spread throughout the world...and all religion will be exclusively for Allah." Ibn Taymiyya (1263 - 1328), who is the ideological father of many present day Islamist movements wrote: "Since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God's entirely and God's word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought."

We can smear and blame each other all we want, but it doesn't stop the fact that the enemy is still out their planning ways to kill us. Look at the number of attacks that have been foiled in just the past few months. They plot against us not because we are Democrat or Republican, not because of Israel, not even because of Iraq. They want to kill us because we are infidels and they believe that it is their duty to their faith to make war against the infidels (including all moderate Muslims) until their brand of Islam reigns supreme.

Will it take more 9/11s for us to get the point that our fight is with them and not with each other? I pray it doesn't, but I fear it will.

This Arab Gets It

The New York Post carries a column today entitled One Arab's Apology. (HT: Jihad Watch).

The author, Emilio Karim Dabul, bravely takes his own culture to task for creating the jihadists who attacked us on 9/11. We have been told that so-called "moderates" existed and that the "extremists" were a minority, but we have been waiting to hear the moderates speak out against terrorism. Dabul gives a very clear reason why he did not speak out on 9/11:

WELL, here it is, five years late, but here just the same: an apology from an Arab-American for 9/11. No, I didn't help organize the killers or contribute in any way to their terrible cause. However, I was one of millions of Arab-Americans who did the unspeakable on 9/11: nothing.

The only time I raised my voice in protest against these men who killed thousands of innocents in the name of Allah was behind closed doors, among the safety of friends and family. I did at one point write a very vitriolic essay condemning their actions, but fear of becoming another Salman Rushdie kept me from ever trying to publish it.

Well, I'm sick of saying the truth only in private - that Arabs around the world, including Arab-Americans like myself, need to start holding our own culture accountable for the insane, violent actions that our extremists have perpetrated on the world at large.

Here's hoping that more will speak up against the crimes perpetrated in their name by the Islamic Fascists.

It's Not Just About 9/11

For the media, for most of us, 9/11 was the start of the War On Terror. In one way that makes perfect sense. It was a pivotal moment, but in reality it was not the start. The terrorists have been at war with the United States long before they killed people on those planes, then used the aircraft to crash into the WTC and the Pentagon. September 11, 2001 was the day we finally recognized that we were already in a war (most of us anyway).

But, imagine, if you can that tragic day had ended as it began, as a crystal clear, beautiful day. No 3,000 dead, no horrible scene of the inferno, no jumpers choosing between falling and burning, no crumbling of the towers. Would we be safer today if, somehow we had foiled the plot, or even if we had taken out Osama bin Laden prior to the attack?

My answer to that is a resounding no. Media types like to heighten the drama by reflecting on "how we've changed" since that day. We have lost our innocence, our feeling of security. But what they miss is the fact that just because we felt secure on September 10, the fact is that we weren't. A deep grazing in a meadow is not safe if he is at that moment in the crosshairs of a hunter's rifle. Our collective lack of awareness that the terrorists were plotting attacks against our homeland did not mean we were safe from danger.

The fact is that our enemy ascribes to an ideology that views it to be the destiny of Islam to conquer the world and implement a Caliphate based on Sharia law. In that world, all people must submit to Islam if not convert outright. That ideology has many followers and Osama bin Laden is only one of them. With or without him, it was inevitable that they would strike at us eventually.

In the five years since, we have seen a brief period of unity against the enemy. But that unity quickly broke down into in-fighting amongst ourselves. On the left, we saw the likes of Michael Moore and others (including, unfortunately, high-ranking leaders of the Democratic party) trying to pin all of the blame on President Bush. We've seen the conspiracy nuts trying to say the attacks were not the fault of the terrorists but were part of a government plot.

But we on the conservative side have been guilty too. We have focused too much on the fact that Clinton missed opportunities to get bin Laden during his administration. We focus on "the wall" that prevented law enforcement officials from cooperating to share intelligence. We have done much of this because we have been put on the defensive by arguments of the left. When they hit us, we naturally feel a need to hit back.

But, all of this is a waste, not to mention dangerous. The fact is that the vast majority of us were complacent prior to 9/11. Liberal and conservative both. We were a society obsessed with stories like Chandra Levy. How many of us viewed terrorism as a serious threat to our lives? I'm not talking about obscure position papers or memos passed from one government bureaucrat to another. As a people, as a nation, how many of thought about terrorism as anything more than an occasional, seemingly random tragedy that mostly happened "over there?"

We were wrong! We were being stalked by an enemy we refused to see. We should have seen it. The writings of the Jihadists were there. They have been there for centuries. They have increased in recent years. On 9/11 we learned that they really meant all those things they had been saying and that they were willing to act on them.

Perhaps there is time to play the blame game. It will help us how to sort out the lessons of history so we can prevent some future time when we allow a hostile enemy to gather enough strength to threaten us. But that time is not now. First, we must crush this foe!

When the towers collapsed, I was at work. The place I worked did not have a television, so it was only via radio that I learned of the events taking place. I would not see the images for several more hours. But I left my office and strolled through a parking lot behind the building and my thought at that moment was that we needed to defeat this enemy, not just the ones who attacked us, but all of those who are so motivated by their faith that they engage in terrorism. My mind reflected back on the Iran hostages, on Leon Klinghoffer, on TWA flight 847, the Marines killed in Beirut, the USS Cole and others. We couldn't, I thought, allow ourselves to settle for just brining to justice those directly involved in this attack. Instead, we needed to so completely win, that my children would grow up in a world in which terrorism was a thing of the past.

I had great optimism when Bush stated in his September 21, 2001 speech "Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated."

But now, it seems, we have lost that resolve. It seems to me that too many are still of the opinion that we should have gone after Osama bin Laden, and once we got him, that was victory. But as I said, this isn't about him. Even if he had been killed, prior to 9/11 or soon after, their ideology remains, with far too many disciples for us to return to that sense of security we had before 9/11.

Five years later we have many who want us to pull out of this fight, who tell us we are distracted and must focus on the real goal of getting Osama bin Laden. They want us to surrender the field in Iraq to the terrorists. They say we are just as bad as the terrorists because we have killed civilians. They think we can reach accommodation with groups like Hamas. Some ridicule our soldiers and exaggerate and outright fabricate tales of torture and war crimes. Conservatives are on the defensive, trying to refute these claims. Meanwhile, the terrorists are still there and they are still plotting and they are still capable.

I don't know how it can happen, but we must re-unite. We must move against the Islamic Fascist enemy and crush him. We must free those living under the tyranny of Sharia governments and built up moderate Muslims. At every point on the globe where Islamic Fascists are working to establish or extend their control, we and our allies must confront them and drive them into their caves and make those caves their graves.

That being said, I don't know how that can happen. We are so divided and the rhetoric so full of rage and blame. Right now, the democrats see this as their best issue for regaining power. But they should know that if they gain power, they will have to face this enemy. This enemy will strike at us again. For a little while they can try to blame future attacks on the previous administration, but in the end the truth is that they attack us not because of what we have done, but because of what they believe.

I fear it will take another 9/11 to reunite us. Unfortunately, the terrorists may be armed with more destructive weapons than airplanes when the next attack comes. I don't believe they can win. When pushed up against the wall, we will eventually see that we can't play politics with this and even the left will know that we must fight this enemy until only one side remains. The sooner we fight him, the lower the cost will be. September 11 showed us that we had already waited too long, but now it seems it may take even more than that horrible event to motivate our nation to fight until victory is achieved.

Good Sites To Visit For 5th Anniversary:

2996
Peggy Noonan
America Attacked
America Supports You

An Entire Party Going Insane - Illinois Edition

It is becoming quite apparent that virtually the entire Democratic party has lost its mind. The party of Michael Moore, Howard "Screamin'" Dean, and Nancy Pelosi added another notable nut case to its rolls when Florida Democrats nominated a 9-11 Conspiracy theorist to run for congress. Dr. Robert Bowman apparently thinks Dick Cheney, and not Osama Bin Laden brought down the World Trade Center.

Then, these democrats, who parade themselves around as the defenders of civil liberties threatened to pull ABC's license if they aired the Path to 9/11 miniseries. It was a great display of their affection for free speech. Hot air has more here

Now, in my neck of the woods, the candidate running to unseat Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, has revealed his credentials as certifiably loopy with today's letter to the editor.

John Laesch jumps into his irrational tirade early on in his letter. I would provide a link but the Daily Chronicle doesn't have it on their website as of yet.

Here are select quotes from a man who is really running to be one of our elected representatives. A man who desires to deliberate and legislate and help govern this nation through tumultuous times.

With the Bush administration pushing the envelope on fascism...

Recently, Gov. Blagojevich's opponent gave George Bush a kiss in Chicago as if
to endorse the rampant spending and reckless leadership of an
illegitimate president and his undisclosed vice president, Halliburton.
That alone should scare people into never voting Republican again.

I could not sit back while the Republicans destroy our country and our democracy, so I decided to run for U.S. Congress against Dennis Hastert. I am sick of the lies, corruption and failures of the Republican Party...

When the Bush campaign ran an ad that used actual footage of Kerry to point out a flip-flop on funding our troops the media cried foul and told us that the President had chosen to "go negative." But when democrats go off on absolute lunatic-fringe rants, the media seems to ignore it or report it as straight news.

Come on, the President compared to a fascist? Dredging up the whole "illegitimate president" thing. These are not the words of a calm, deliberative man of reason who should be trusted with the reins of government. These moonbats are thoroughly unhinged. It is scary to think that they could actually be given the power to manage the defense of this nation, regulate our lives and make decisions about taxing us.

Letter Writing

So, I'm being sucked back into writing a letter to the editor of the local paper. Tonight
this letter appeared, in which the author takes the Bush Administration to task for using the term "Islamic Fascism." In it he lists characteristics of fascist governments. I responded with the following, which I emailed in tonight:

Dear Editor,
In order to see if "Islamic Fascism" is a good label for the terrorists we should compare them to Robert Suchner's list of fascist characteristics (from his Sept. 5 letter) and see how they measure up.

Characteristics 1 & 8: "Powerful and continuous appeal to nationalism" and "intertwining of religion and government." Sayyid Qutb claimed that true Islam must wield political power. Hasan al-Bana declared "the Qur'an is our constitution." Sayyid Abdul A'la Mawdudi called his version of Islam "a revolutionary ideology and program which seeks to alter the social order of the whole world."

Characteristic 3: "Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause." Islamic Fascists have created a myth of a centuries old Jewish conspiracy to destroy Islam. Jews, they claim, were responsible for the death of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924 and according the Hamas manifesto "with their money they were able to control imperialistic countries and instigate them to colonize many countries in order to enable them to exploit their resources and spread corruption."

The media in many Muslim nations (Characteristic 6: "control of the mass media") regularly stereotypes Jews as treacherous. Islamist media outlets frequently repeat the lie that Jews use the blood of Muslim children in the baking of pastries during the Feast of Purim. Islamic Fascists also blame the ills of their societies on Christians, the West, Hindus (polytheistic unbelievers), and even moderate Muslims.

Characteristics 4 & 7: "Supremacy of the military over domestic matters" and "obsession with national security." Jihadists call for a continual offensive against the non-Muslim world. Abdullah Azzam demanded that Muslim leaders send out a Jihadi army "once or twice every year." He also wrote "Jihad is [the call to Islam] with a force, and is obligatory to perform...until there remains only Muslims or people who submit to Islam."

Characteristic 5: "Rampant sexism in keeping women in disadvantaged roles." The Taliban denied even a basic education to females. Ayaan Hirsi Ali bravely speaks for millions of voicoppressionen who have suffered opression, including female circumcision. Then there is the custom of Siqueh. Under these "temporary marriages" women and girls are regularly exploited as sexual slaves. The "marriages" can last as little as an hour before the woman or girl is turned out of her "husband's" home without any guarantee of economic security.

Characteristics 9 & 10: "Protection of corporate power..." and "suppression of the power of labor and unions." Sayyid Qutb writes that Islam "has a mandate to order the whole of human life" and includes "precepts for the conduct of government and finance, for the distribution of income and losses, and for [determining] rights and duties." Thus, business, government and labor are not separate interests but are all controlled by Islamic rule.

Characteristics 11 &12: "Disdain for intellectuals and the arts" and "obsession with crime and punishment." The Taliban demolished ancient works of art. Islamists threatened to kill author Salman Rushdie and did kill filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. In Iran this week, holocaust-denying President Ahmadinejad called for purging "liberal and secular lecturers" from the universities. Then of course there are his hangings of rape victims, but why revisit characteristic #5?

Characteristics 13 & 14: "Rampant cronyism and corruption" and "fraudulent elections." Apart from the UN, it is hard to imagine systems more filled with cronyism than the Taliban, Syria, Iran or the Palestinian Authority. As for elections, some Jihadists claim voting itself is sinful because it places sovereignty in the hands of mere humans rather than Allah. In Iran the Mullahs exercise a veto over who is on the ballot giving the people a choice between Islamic Fascists and Fascist Islamists.

It seems that "Islamic Fascism" fits like a glove. We are facing a centuries old ideology of pure xenophobic hate. It is rightly labeled Islamic Fascism because such a label separates it from mainstream Islam. Like other incarnations of fascism, we ignore its growth at great peril to ourselves and those who currently live under its tyranny.

I wanted to say so much more, but they ask that letter writers keep to 600 words or less. I edited like crazy and still went a bit over the limit.

Good News on Missile Defense

Great news on the latest test of US Missile Defense. A successful intercept of a mock warhead took place today. Read more here, and here.

A transcript of the test briefing is here. Some highlights:

Well, good afternoon, and I'm pleased to announce that the test that we executed
today was a total success. In fact, it exceeded even our primary objective on
the test. And we also met all the secondary objectives of the test.

Basically, what we did today is a huge step in terms of our systematic
approach to continuing to field, continuing to deploy and continuing to develop
a missile defense system for the United States, for our allies, our friends, our
deployed forces around the world.

The test that we conducted today was
significant in the fact that as the next step in progression, we in fact did
launch an operational interceptor out of an operational site at Vandenberg Air
Force base. It was conducted by operational crews that were manning operational
fire control systems in Colorado Springs. It was conducted with the support of
an operational radar in California that was also manned by warfighters
operational crews. And it was against a very threat- representative target that
was launched out of Alaska.

So all in all, this is about as close as we
can come to an end- to-end test of our long-range missile defense system. It is
the next step in the test -- in the progression because the last one that we did
in February was a validation that we could fly a target across the radar in
California and be able to generate a fire-control solution, as we say, to the
interceptor. And that was built on a test that we conducted last December, which
was actually the first flight of the operationally configured interceptor out of
Kwajalein in the South Pacific.

So this continual progression will proceed. We think we're on the right track. Just a reminder, though; this is a major portion of our missile defense system, but it is not the only portion of our missile defense system. And in fact, this intercept now is the fourth in the last 90 days of a hit-to-kill intercept using our ballistic missile defense
system.

Future tests will add countermeasures in an attempt to confuse the defense system.

I have always felt that the best response to a future test by North Korea of its missiles would be for us to blow that thing right out of the air. Deploying a working system in Japan would do wonders for bringing the North Koreans to the realization that their Nukes won't gain them any leverage at the bargaining table.