Remembering 9/11: Islamists are Our Enemy

www.netwmd.com ^ | September 11, 2003 | Andrew Jaffee

[forty_years]

I pasted the article into the first comment below so the pictures would show.

I watched the NBC evening news tonight. They didn't even mention the Islamists. Feel-gooders out of control.

[forty_years]

Remembering 9/11: Islamists are Our Enemy By Andrew L. Jaffee, September 11, 2003	Home   Search   Forum   Terms

Today is the second anniversary of the vicious attacks wrought against the United States on September 11, 2001 by Islamists (also known collectively as "militant Islam" and "Islamism"). We need to pause and remember. We need to remember the victims of 9/11. We need to remember their families and friends. We also need to remember who did this to America.

The 9/11 attacks were not just localized incidents in which passenger jets were forcibly crashed into the World Trade Center (WTC), the Pentagon, and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. This was an attack against all Americans and against all people in the world who believe in freedom and democracy. This was an attack against me.

In 1997, my daughters and I stood on the stern of a Manhattan-based tour boat, and were awed by the skyline of New York City:

Last year, we visited New York to see what was left of the WTC -- a big ditch:

Just because I wasn't in the World Trade Center doesn't mean the 9/11 attack wasn't directed against me. It was an attack against humanity. It was a statement of pure evil. Some misguided American soul once said to me soon after 9/11:

What is everyone so upset about? Most Americans didn't even know the people on the planes, in the WTC, or in the Pentagon. There's no sense of American identity. Its just a big mess.

He obviously doesn't understand America. He's going through life with blinders on. When I take my daughters and girlfriend to the all-you-can-eat buffet here in the American heartland of Ohio, we sit next to tables of Indian-Americans, rural white Americans, Arab-Americans, African-Americans, suburban whites Americans, Jewish-Americans, Latino-Americans, Chinese-Americans, etc., etc. He must've never listened to bands like ZZ Top who honored Jesus Christ with a hard-rockin', foot-stompin' song like "Jesus Just Left Chicago". No such creativity flourishes under Islamist rule. Music was illegal under the Taliban.

My "acquaintance" must not ever attend the local Lebanese, Carribean, Reggae, or Appalachian festivals. Has he not noticed the flood of immigrants, including Muslims, that flock to America every year? People from every nation on earth have immigrated to the U.S. We all live and work together pretty darn well. America is indeed a land of opportunity, freedom, and democracy. Do we have problems? Sure. If you want to read about our problems, just type "corporate greed" into Google and you can read all you want. But I wonder how the man I quoted above would feel living in North Korea, Saudi Arabia, or Cuba. I wonder what (and if) he'll be thinking today, the second anniversary of 9/11.

We need to remember how we felt on that tragic day -- not only the shock and the fear, but the disgust and the anger that surfaced when realizing how absolutely evil the perpetrators of this act were and still are. When I say "we," I'm of course talking about the sensible people worldwide who see the 9/11 attacks as an atrocity and great evil, not those who sympathize for terrorists and rationalize terrorism. When I say "we," I'm not talking about groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who "wants to create an Islamic state in America."

We must grieve for those lost on 9/11 -- and 500 of those killed came from 91 different countries. We must empathize with those they left behind. However, we must remind ourselves who it was that perpetrated such an evil act: The Islamists. Al-Qaeda, the group directly responsible for the 9/11 attack, is just one symptom of a much larger problem. And no, I'm not targeting or generalizing about Islam or Palestinians or anybody. I'm saying we should call a spade a spade. I'm saying Islamists support and are engaged in evil activities like terrorism.

Daniel Pipes is probably the world's greatest expert on Islamism. In his book, "Militant Islam Reaches America", he most eloquently said:

Does Islam threaten the West? No, it does not. But militant Islam does threaten it in many and profound ways. There is, indeed, no comparable danger in the world today.

One cannot emphasize too much this distinction between Islam -- plain Islam -- and its militant Islamic version. Islam is the religion of about 1 billion people and has been the host of one of the world's great civilizations. It is a fast-growing faith, particularly in Africa, but also around the world. In contrast, militant Islam is a utopian ideology, initiated in the twentieth century that attracts only a portion of Muslims (perhaps 10 to 15 percent), seeks to capture control of governments, and is nakedly aggressive toward all those who stand in its way, no matter what their faith.

In an article entitled "Protecting Muslims while Rooting out Islamists" which Pipes wrote for London's Daily Telegraph, he added:

Islamism is not so much a distortion of Islam, but a radically new interpretation. It politicises the religion, turning it into a blueprint for establishing a coerced utopia. In many ways, its programme resembles those of fascism and Marxism/Leninism.

This week's [9/11/2001] events mark not the outbreak of a new problem but the heightening of a two-decade-long pattern of Islamist violence. That violence is a truly global phenomenon, affecting such varied countries as Algeria, Pakistan, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Philippines. Islamists constitute a small but significant minority of Muslims, perhaps 10 to 15 per cent of the population. Many of them are peaceable in appearance, but they all must be considered potential killers.

In the same article (which all sensible people should read), Pipes counseled that we proceed forcibly but cautiously against militant Islam, building bridges with moderate Muslims, and:

Maintain[ing] the utmost respect for individual Muslims, mosques and other institutions. A time of crisis does not change the assumption that each of us is innocent until proved guilty.

When discussing the Islamists, we're talking about people who dress up children like suicide bombers, blow up buses full of civilians, run kindergartens to train children to become homicide bombers, crash planes full of innocent people into buildings filled with innocent people, and run extremist religious schools ("madrasas") that inculcate an early hatred of America in Muslim children. We're talking about people who celebrated the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. The Islamists have killed thousands of innocent people, many of them Muslims. Remember last week's bombing in Iraq where Muslim extremists killed at least 80 Iraqi Arab Muslims and wounded more than 100.

We can't negotiate with people such as these. On what grounds would we negotiate? Would it be something like what the French and German governments engage in?: "We'll ignore you and/or pay you off while you continue your plans to forcibly convert the world's populace to Islam."

I'm pissed off at the Islamists. I'm angry. I don't feel guilty about feeling anger. But my anger is not some flailing, mindless rage. I have directed it constructively, and am fighting the good fight on the political battleground by lobbying my elected representatives and trying to educate people about the dangers of Islamism. But I'll die before I allow some Islamist thug to disenfranchise my daughters and force them to wear bhurkas.

Photographs by Andrew L. Jaffee

[The Great RJ]

We must realize that the Islamic militants seek nothing less than an extermination of Western Civilization and particularly an end to Christianity and Judaism. Their goal is the creation of a worldwide Islamic theocracy--like Iran.

[cavtrooper21]

I will negotiate with them.
My voice will be the bark of my rifle.
My pen will be my saber, sharp as any word.
My ink will be their blood.
I have not forgotten.
I will never forget.
"I've fought them before" sings the blood of Roland
in my veins
"They can be beaten.." the shade of Kitchner growls in my ear.
"Avenge me" cry the fallen.
Against the fanatics there can be no mercy, for we will get only the mercy of the knife in return.

[gg188]

There is a huge problem of this "good islam" and "bad islam." It is a false, non-existent distinction that will get us all killed. Can you imagine our fathers identifying "good Nazis" and "bad Nazis"? "The EXTREME Nazis are the bad ones." What? How silly. The construct of "militant Islam" is a creation of the left. Our enemy is this violent cult called islam. They have shown us for over a millenium what they are. There is ONE koran, one mohammed (child molesting pedophile). How can SOME of these followers be acceptable while some are not? It is all the same. Thank GOD that our fathers did not allow the survival of "good Nazis." Nazis were exterminated. Japs were bombed into submission. There must be VICTORY.

[Uncle Miltie]

The construct of "militant Islam" is a creation of the left.

I beg to disagree.

First, Daniel Pipes, no slacker in this war, usefully points to the distinction. I know of no effective counter argument to his scholarship.

Second, even if you were right, we would want to create an "Allah-Allah-In-Come-Free" zone of purported Islamic moderation. If we back their religion up against a wall, we will have to kill every last one. If we give them a safe zone of non-murderous Islam, it may grow. So even as a strategic deception, the concept of a moderate Islam is useful.

We definitely got us a big, long war ahead of us. We allowed the Germans to remain German after having defeated Nazism. We must allow Muslims to remain Muslims after we have forcibly excised its cancerous types.

The choice of extremist terrorism or moderate civility will need to be put to each Muslim. Let's give them the option of civility.

[lainde]

bttt

[f.Christian]

" After World War II, the United States ran the Japanese occupation unilaterally. Without the meddling of other nations, the Japanese occupation went off without a hitch. Within five years, Gen. Douglas MacArthur had imposed a constitutional democracy on Japan with a bicameral legislature, a bill of rights and an independent judiciary. Now the only trouble Japan causes is its insistence on selling good products to Americans at cheap prices."

"By contrast, the German occupation was run as liberals would like to run postwar Iraq – a joint affair among "the Allies," the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. It took 45 years to ... clean up --- the mess that created."

[Porterville]

Bring on the war!!! Let us see who wins in open fields.

[gg188]

We allowed the Germans to remain German after having defeated Nazism.

You just DID agree with me.

We allowed Germany to remain. We did NOT allow Nazism to remain. We tried them at Nuremburg, hanged them, chased them down to the ends of the earth as well as South America. Muslimism is the Nazism of the Arabs. Mohams are the Nazis. We (our fearless forefathers, I mean) didn't allow Nazism to survive and come after us. Why would we allow any other bizarre weird cult that seeks to kill Americans?

With Nazis, we didn't say, ok we know all y'all believe all the Mien Kemph stuff, but we are gonna decide the GOOD Nazis from the BAD nazis---even though they all believe the same stuff. All islams believe the Koran. Yet we are gonna say, there are good Nazis and bad Nazis NOW??

Their founder and their creed say, in clear language, kill Christians, kill Jews, kill Europeans, kill Westerners, kill whitey. Conquer the world and force everyone to convert to towelheadism or else run 'em through with a sword. To believe those who swear by Mohammed and the Koran when they say, oh, we don't REALLY mean it, is to be beguiled much as the masses were by Clinton's "oral sex isn't sex."

It reminds me of the 60's, when militant black muslims would be invited into the homes of liberal pansies like, for example, Leonard Bernstein or Norman Mailer, and the homeys would say, you white m-f, we're gonna kill yo a$$, and the Bernsteins and Jackie Kennedy and the effete upper class would patronizingly say, oh, my you are so right, we deserve it so much, we white people are so bad! Take us now! These people---millions in our own country---PROFESS in WRITING that they will kills us, and we say, "Oh, now, now, dear, dear, you poor people, we know you don't really mean that." No wonder they think Americans are so stupid.

We certainly allow Iraq, Iran, Philippines, Malaysia, Saudia Arabia, Lawrence of Arabia, and the 1001 Arabian Knights all to continue to live in the deserts and bugger their camels and sons, stone their women and go on living in the stone age (while we have to listen libs who tell us constantly how freaking smart these guys are for inventing "zero" and what a great "civilization" they have, whacking the hands off of starving petty thieves.) HOWEVER, if we handle this as you describe---let Germany survive but defeat the Nazis---then, we don't allow their NAZIS, or, in their case, their Mohams, to survive. It is a cult that must be eradicated as we have Nazism and commies.

This is not some isolated incident. They have been coming at us beginning in about the 8th century A.D. To ignore more than 1 millenium of history and assign to it Western views of kindness, goodness, light, and magnanimity, will get us all killed.

[Melas]

No, we tried a select few of the Nazis. Most went home to their families to rebuild their nation.