We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren’t punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That’s war. And this is war.
14 years later America has lost whatever martial spirit we had in the aftermath of the the attacks on September 11, 2001. Ann Coulter’s now infamous quotation expressed exactly what we felt for a few short weeks after 19 Muslims, doing exactly what their religion commanded, killed 246 people on four planes, 2,606 people in the World Trade Centers, and 125 people at the Pentagon. But soon after the horrific events of that day we were inundated with the patently false assertion that these men did not act in accordance with the tenets of Islam, that they were renegades, that Islam was a “Religion of Peace.” That, obviously, is risible, and should have been mocked mercilessly until it was never heard again, other than as a punch line.
But it wasn’t, and it crept into every official statement, every NY Times article, every long analysis of the rise of militant Islam, and most dangerously, the rules of engagement that governed the conduct of our armed forces. It also insidiously changed the mindset of the country, most obviously in New York City. We shifted from the anger of a nation that had been attacked and desperately wanted to fight back into a grieving nation that questioned every attack, every wayward bullet, every drone strike. Because if Islam was a Religion of Peace, then who were we to attack peace loving Muslims? We must be the evildoers that progressivism has been claiming, that world Socialism has been claiming, that the morally superior Eurotrash have been claiming.
New York City took it to new depths though….at once mourning those who were killed, rejecting any sense of anger and desire for retribution, wallowing in its victim-hood, and then inviting the scorpion for one more trip across the river. Remember the Islamic Center to be built quite literally in the shadow of the destroyed WTC?
The photograph above is of United States Marines from Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit at Garmsir, Helmand Province, Afghanistan, April 29, 2008, during Operation Enduring Freedom. They are doing what United States Marines have been trained to do for more than 200 years: killing people and breaking things. We need to return to that ideal. Killing our enemies is not an uncivilized thing….it is in fact quite the opposite. Civilizations that do not kill their enemies are subsumed by the evil of the world, losing all that makes them civilized.
The first step must be the categorical rejection of the concept that Islam is anything other than a violent, militaristic, revolutionary political philosophy that uses a cobbled-together religion to drive its adherents. Islam is what it does, and what it does is evil. Orwell was prescient — the manipulation of language is a powerful tool, and Islam and its apologists use it well. How can we win a war that we do not even admit is being fought, against an opponent whose name we cannot utter?
The second step follows organically from the first; confront militant Islam at every opportunity, with every weapon at our disposal. Does anyone believe that the destruction of militant Islam now would be worse than an existential fight for the survival of the West in 50 years? Or even worse, the wholesale destruction of the West by an ascendent Islam in control of the nuclear forces of Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and, if the demographics hold true, a Muslim Russia?
Well said, CBD. I wish more people could/would read your words and take them to heart.
As is the case in so many businesses, communities and nations, the rot begins at the top. We have no shortage of “ordinary” people willing to defend freedom; what we lack are people capable — and worthy of — leading them.
The mental rot is not confined to Choom Boy and members of his cabal. Bush 43 really set the wheels in motion when he declared that our enemy is, in his opinion (and therefore, in the U.S.’s official opinion) a “religion of peace,” and confronted our enemy by nibbling away at the corners of its empire.
Yes, we must go on the offensive against Islam. I do not regard a million Muslim lives as being a “fair trade” for a single American. If they wish to be our enemies, it is incumbent on us to destroy them.
But we also have to go on the offensive against those in D.C. whose concern is more for the welfare of terrorists than it is for Americans. And we must convince those shallow, self-centered appeasers in Congress that the nation they have sworn to preserve is worth more than whatever they get for selling us out.
The two enemies — within and without — need to be neutralized before we can ever feel safe again.
I don’t know why you thought I would find this post objectionable as I could not agree with you more.
We’re in for a world of hurt because of the 100 year coup that took us over in 2009 (if not earlier). And McConnell’s action yesterday is the icing on the cake.
G-d help us.
You New York City types are fickle.
Criticize NYC? Fighting words!
But you see the true face of New York; a progressive, multi-culti hell, so I am not surprised you agree.
JJ, McConnell is a prime example of the “enemy within” who needs to be, well, purged from our midst. If I didn’t know better — or think I know better — I would see him as part of a Vast, Evil Conspiracy. But I don’t think he is; he has let the Game of Politics destroy his soul.
Thanks to him, Choom Boy and the rest of the gutless, America-hating cowards in D.C., the next 9/11 (and there WILL be one) will almost certainly involve nuclear weapons.
As a relevant aside, the Jerusalem Post seems to have located a tiny pocket of sanity in Washington: http://bit.ly/1gftRAs
I have no faith in a positive outcome, but when things look as bleak as they do now, one has to grasp at straws….
The only way to defeat an enemy with a fundamental difference other than by obliteration is to cause that enemy to never want to experience your wrath again. Make no mistake, those that sympathize with the enemy but never pick up a weapon are also the enemy, and they are the ones that will control those with the weapons. This is the fallacy of wringing hands over “civilian” deaths. They are not innocent; they are the sympathizers.
Meant to write earlier about the title of this post. It’s not that the lesson has been unlearned; I don’t think it was ever learned in the first place.
As for criticizing New York? Hey, go right ahead. The New York that I remember as a kid and for a brief moment in the late 80’s up until 9/11/01 is gone. Maybe I just idealize it through the lens of a native and from a time when being sort of aloof and a bit proud didn’t make a difference.
Now, my body is here. My spirit is elsewhere. I better get the hell out of here before what might happen next makes what happened 14 years ago look like a local crime story.
This is the fallacy of wringing hands over “civilian” deaths. They are not innocent; they are the sympathizers.
Exactly.
I doubt any reasonable politician would want to loose base with their constituents and go to war. They might not get re-elected. Why not just round up these peace loving muslims that we capture in “war”, place them in a cushy detention center in say Guantanamo Bay, and then release them? World peace problem solved! And nobody dies! ….
To win a war you must do two things.
1– Destroy the enemy’s capability TO wage war.
2–Break his Will to wage war.
HOW this is done involves logistics,tactics and strategy.
I guess it should be further noted that failure in either two parts of the strategy leaves one right where we are now.