You are right.
This is indeed a MUST READ.
I just read it, and one really can't convey the info very well -- everyone needs to read the full article, but here is another relevant excerpt:
"But Russias weakness carries a dire warning for us, too. For the west is also weak, in its ignorance, prejudice and gullibility. Terrorism only became such a potent weapon of war because the west allowed it to happen. From the first plane hijacks in the sixties, the west showed weakness by refusing to confront the perpetrators and even rewarding them by paying attention to their purported grievances.
When the US was repeatedly attacked by Islamic terrorism throughout the 1980s and 1990s, it merely sat on its hands, made token responses, or decided to cut and run. Osama bin Laden concluded from this that the US was weak. We know this because he said so. And so he unleashed 9/11.
But instead of learning the correct lesson that the current horrors are the result of such a failure to act, the west has succumbed to historical amnesia over those previous attacks. It is convulsed instead by hysteria over the war on Iraq, with absurd conspiracy theories about Zionists and neo-conservatives surfacing instead almost daily in the mainstream media and driving out rational debate."
BTT
I think our greatest weakness is our political correctness. News organizations can't even report this story using the correct word--"terrorists"--they search for euphemisms instead. They usually cannot bring themselves to say "Islamic" or to mention the race of many of the terrorists. Until we name this horror, and call it what it is, we will continue to be weak.
But let's not forget the lack of coverage of this atrocity in Beslan, either. Even Fox frittered the day away with Geraldo nattering on about how well a sailboat was being steered in the hurricane--a sailboat, it turns out, that wasn't being steered. It was anchored at sea to ride out the storm. So much for Geraldo the Sailer--but meanwhile, the news was mute about the horror that occurred in Beslan.
For shame.
Read some of the diary there as well. Pretty good stuff.
"If there is any one thing that more than anything else acts as a spur to more terror across the globe, it is the attitude of those in the west whose self-immolating credulousness means that they interpret every act of mass murder as further proof of the west's own wickedness. Every such act is therefore a double victory for the axis of terror, for which the willingness of the west to be so manipulated must surely have exceeded its wildest expectations."