Posted on 06/22/2004 9:30:35 PM PDT by FairOpinion
Yet another innocent American civilian has been slaughtered at the hands of Islamic terrorists. Here was a man who never hurt a soul, had nothing but admiration and respect for Moslem culture, murdered in cold blood with his decapitated head propped grotesquely atop his lifeless body. Savage is too kind a word to describe the perpetrators of this act. Savage is a word you apply to human beings. If anything good can be said to have come from the death of Paul Johnson, it is that perhaps it will be a moment of epiphany for the American people on all sides of the political spectrum. The truth is that we are all playing politics with the War on Terror. By doing so, we are placing our lives at risk and creating a level of fear and frustration in the American people that may have dire consequences for our nation.
We are losing track of the reality of the conflict we are facing and are replacing it with sound bites, self created crises, and talking points. The actual War on Terror will have direct repercussions on us for decades to come; however, we hear more rambling from Dan Rather about how despite 47 days of news coverage, the prisoners of Abu Graib are still upset. It is reality check time, folks. The Union will not stand or fall based on who wins the next election, our civil rights are not threatened by the military holding terrorists at Gitmo, and we are not engaged in a clash of civilizations pitting Christianity against Islam. We are fighting a gang of evil killers.
We are at war with a group of psychopaths. There is no negotiation, accommodation, or rehabilitation with these maniacs and we must kill them before they kill us. PERIOD. To be blunt, the cause of militant Islam's hatred of the West is not based on our support of Israel, American foreign policy, or poverty, but on Moslem extremists' hatred for our very way of life. Over 80 years ago, before there was an Israel, and America had no real interests in the Middle East, radical Islamists first wrote out the evils of our society based on the fact that we allowed unmarried men and women to dance together. That is correct. America was targeted as a decadent threat to Islam because we have high school proms. This is the insanity and illogic with which we are forced to deal. Trying to parley with these lunatics in a diplomatic setting would be the equivalent for negotiating with John Wayne Gacy. Al Qaeda is pure evil, and it needs sent back to Hell.
The American people are seeing the War on Terror in a far clearer light than our political leaders. We remember watching our fellow citizens jumping over 100 stories to their deaths to escape the World Trade Center fires, we remember Leon Klinghoffer being pushed off the desk of a cruise ship in his wheelchair into the Mediterranean, and when we see Paul Johnson's body on television, we know "there but for the grace of God, go I." We are afraid because we know the truth that our enemy would happily kill any one of us without hesitation as our leaders appear more interested in winning the hearts and minds of foreigners than defending our lives.
John Kerry's ideas about U.N. support are as ridiculous as they would be ineffective, and everyone knows it. President Bush has allowed the military to turn over key operations to foreign troops only to watch as they have time and time again allowed our enemies to escape. Our leaders need to realize that this is not a game, or intellectual exercise. John Kerry is not trouncing Bush in the polls because we understand that a Kerry victory would be tantamount to announcing open hunting season on Americans overseas. Polls show support for Bush declining not because Americans feel bad about how we are treating the Iraqis, but because he is not being forceful enough. Our leaders are arguing about everything except what really matters: Finding the members of terrorist groups and killing them.
These words may seem harsh and barbaric to you. You may not want to acknowledge the primal emotions that dwell within us all that fear and insecurity breed. When confronted with danger, human beings run, when there is nowhere left to hide we fight. After 9/11/01, where can we run when we are home? The time has come for decisive action no matter what the cost in international popularity. The Arab Street does not pay our taxes, we do. The UN does not elect our President, we do. And we are now demanding that our government defend us with the same ferocity as we would defend ourselves. If our leaders cannot meet this one basic requirement, what does that say about where America our government is, and worse yet, where it is going.
'Satanic' is the only term for these acts.
Amen, Brother.
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