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SPIRIT OF FREEDOM
Last updated 17 October 2001: more updates to come
The Failure of Terrorism
The events of the last month have been frightening, for sure. However, from what I've seen of my family and circle of friends, the fear has had no lasting effect other than increased awareness, which is not a bad thing. We're not cowering in our homes, waiting for the next horror. We're not out in the streets in a mad search for Cipro and gas masks. We're not rioting against our Middle Eastern neighbors or burning effigies in the streets. Life goes on. And there's the problem with trying to frighten Americans--you can't do it for very long. Use our commercial airliners as missiles? It will never happen again, thanks to the courage of brave men on Flight 93. Try to poison us with anthrax in the most pathetic and cowardly manner possible? Shoot, the CDC said yesterday you can get rid of the danger by steam ironing your mail under a cloth. The anthrax attack must have cost millions in state planning and laboratory work, and it has killed exactly 1 person and can be defeated with a small household appliance. We have faced our fears--terror in the skies, terror in an envelope--and, having faced them, we move on, unafraid. The only thing these cowardly attacks do is strengthen American resolve--resolve to bring justice to the barbarians who carry out attacks on innocents while they cower in caves in Afghanistan or in palaces in Baghdad.
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever." --George Orwell, from "Nineteen Eighty-Four"
Even Orwell himself was not pessimistic enough to imagine the depths of human depravity seen on September 11 and in the recent anthrax attacks on innocent men, women, and babies. Orwell himself could not imagine the sort of monsters who would take advantage of a nation's kindness, diversity, and openness in order to commit an act of such unspeakable brutality. And the frightening thing is that it was only the beginning. This second Pearl Harbor was the first attack in a war in which thousands more innocent Americans will die for nothing else but going about their lives. So be it. These fanatics--Usama Bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and all groups like them--must be defeated now, or no civilized people will ever be able to live in peace and freedom. If indeed these monsters are not representative of Islam, Muslims also must join the fight to root out this cancer on their faith. The goal of these groups is not to bring down America, or drive Israel into the sea--it is far more than that. They want nothing else but world domination. They want a world that is Afghanistan writ large--uncivilized, unfree, not diverse. They want a world where fundamentalist Islam of their own hateful stripe is the world faith, with all others being destroyed. They want a world where women wear the burqa, where they do not vote, where they cannot leave their homes or be educated. They want a world where raped women are stoned to death for adultery. They want, as the priest who said the Mass for Barbara Olson declared, "the nothingness of evil." These evil men can do no good. They can build nothing, they can do nothing. They can only kill and destroy. The coalition that is being gathered against them now must succeed, or the future itself is in question.
The women in Afghanistan have an excuse--they did not know the depths of the horrors they would be subject to under the rule of fanatic militant Islam. We in the rest of the world are now without excuse. We know what these evil people intend, and we have the ability to fight them. History will judge us harshly if we do not take up the fight now--for ourselves, for oppressed Muslims living under the tyranny of fanatics, for future generations. We are in Berlin 1936--we have an enemy who has told us what they intend and showed us their brutality in the countries they already rule. The only question that remains is whether we have the stomach and perserverance to defeat them before they grow even more powerful.
The More Things Change...
"[T]here is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of western countries." -George Orwell, "Notes on
Nationalism," 1945.
...The More They Stay The Same
It all sounds so familiar: a large group of people who blame their backward societies and the fall of their culture on the Jews. Countries, groups, and media outlets that all say their problems could be solved if it weren't for the Jews. A charismatic madman with adherents who will follow him to the death, a man who honestly believes that at the end of the world rocks and trees will acquire the power of speech to point out the Jews hiding behind them. Great parts of continents under the rule of despotic madmen with access to horrific weapons of mass destruction, madmen with no compunction about raining down disease on the innocent. And still we seem unable or unwilling to make the connection. These people (al Qaeda, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, al Jihad, Hamas, and all their fellow travelers) are Nazis, pure and simple--twisted fascists who will tolerate no one but their own master religion. You don't negotiate with Nazis--you condemn their evil and then destroy it. And you don't stop with only the first country in which you found them--you have to root them out everywhere, regardless of the cost.
Who Cares for the Afghan People?
So far in the year 2001, the United States gave $124 million in humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan who are so oppressed by the Taliban. The United States is the world's largest provider of humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan. We did this even when we knew the government of Afghanistan sponsored terrorism. We are the only nation that was ever attacked on its own soil in terrorism that caused the death of thousands of innocents and responded by feeding the starving people of their enemy. In the same period we gave $16 million in humanitarian aid to Pakistan, despite the fact that we had their government under sanctions. It's clear from the protests we're seeing in Pakistan and Afghanistan that we need a Voice of America radio network in these totalitarian, censoring regimes in southern Asia where the people can hear, in Arabic, the truth of their situation, and hear from moderate Islamic clerics the horrors of the terrorism being carried out by the fanatics.
News and Views
Read Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish--This British conservative has a keen understanding of the scale of the conflict in which we find ourselves
Time for Courage--Editorial by Mona Charen
A Memo to American Muslims--One American Muslim finally speaks out on Islamic terror (10/16/01)
Transcript of Larry King Live 10/15/01--Judith Miller gets an al Jazeera spokeswoman to admit that her network calls suicide bombers who kill Jews "martyrs," but calls those who kill Americans "terrorists"
Let's Negotiate (A Parody)--Editorial by Joseph Farah on WorldNet Daily
Let Freedom Ring!--Editorial by Brenda Sikes on WorldNet Daily
The Ground War--Editorial by Bill O'Reilly
Bill Maher Was Right--Editorial by Debbie Schlussel on WorldNet Daily
James Lileks' Bleats--Daily observations by a writer who, in happier times, was able to concentrate more on the Simpsons, Star Trek, his family, and regrettable food
Berlin, 1936
A piece by the PBS program Frontline provides a sampling of bin Laden's statements regarding his goals:
February 22, 1998: "We--with God's help--call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who
are behind them so that they may learn a lesson."
"The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim."
December 23, 1998: "Acquiring [chemical and nuclear] weapons for the defense of Muslims is a religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so. And if I seek to acquire these weapons, I am carrying out a duty. It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the
weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims."
"Hostility toward America is a religious duty, and we hope to be rewarded for it by God. To call us Enemy No. 1 or 2 does not hurt us. Osama bin Laden is confident that the Islamic nation will carry out its duty. I am confident that Muslims will be able to end the legend of the so-called superpower that is America.
Help the Victims, Help the Heroes
Please make a donation to the charity of your choice. I have listed a few below for the sake of convenience, but there are many more out there. While you're at it, take the time to stop and thank any police officers, firefighters, EMTs, doctors, or nurses you see. They are true American heroes, all of them.
New York Firefighters 9-11 Disaster Relief Fund
American Red Cross World Trade Center Disaster Relief Fund
The Salvation Army Disaster Relief Fund
The United Way Disaster Relief Fund
Save the Children's Fund for Children Affected by the Terrorist Attacks
New York State World Trade Center Relief Fund
National Disaster and Search Dog Foundation--Support the canine heroes who are working to the point of exhaustion and injury for humanity
Do Your Part To Annoy Fanatic Militant Islam
1. Go to the church, synagogue, or mosque of your choice...or don't.
2. Go on with your life.
3. Buy stuff.
4. Fly the flag.
5. Befriend your Muslim neighbors, if you haven't before now.
6. Watch television, listen to rock and roll or rap, surf the internet.
7. Go to a public library, pick out the book of your choice, and read it.
8. Have the political beliefs of your choice. Vote.
9. Unify America.
10. Volunteer in whatever way your conscience, age, health, gender, or whatever allows to do your part to defeat fanatic militant Islam and make the world safe for civilized human beings.
11. Love one another.
12. Don't be afraid.
An Attack on the Civilized World
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