Posted on 09/27/2001 2:57:42 PM PDT by MHGinTN
Followup essay to The World Will Never Again Be As It Was 9/10/2001; It Can Be Better , http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3bae2c543108.htm, by Marvin Galloway
Islamism (the barbaric totalitarian sub-cult seeking to radicalize one of the world’s great religions) has proven itself unable to co-exist with the more civilized faith of the Moslem world, much less the rest of the world’s great religions. The Islamicists’ terrorist acts, designed to instigate a worldwide war between Moslems and everyone else, are an ominous trend that cannot be tolerated by the civilized world. As greater destructive potential comes into the hands of these merchants of death and destruction, the terrorist acts will only grow in scope and body count. Note these excerpts from what Former Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said before the U.S. House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, September 20, 2001 … Netanyahu has extensive experience dealing with these fanatics [http://www.house.gov/reform/statement_of_netanyahu.htm], regarding the peril before the civilized world:
What is at stake today is nothing less than the survival of our civilization. There may be some who would have thought a week ago that to talk in these apocalyptic terms about the battle against international terrorism was to engage in reckless exaggeration. No longer.
Each one of us today understands that we are all targets, that our cities are vulnerable, and that our values are hated with an unmatched fanaticism that seeks to destroy our societies and our way of life.
Some of you may find it hard to believe that Islamic militants truly cling to the mad fantasy of destroying America. Make no mistake about it. They do. And unless they are stopped now, their attacks will continue, and become even more lethal in the future.
When in 1996, I wrote a book about fighting terrorism … I wrote, the consequences could be not a car bomb but a nuclear bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center.
Well, they did not use a nuclear bomb. They used two 150 ton fully fueled jetliners to wipe out the Twin Towers. But does anyone doubt that given the chance, they will throw atom bombs at America and its allies? And perhaps long before that, chemical and biological weapons?
This is the greatest danger facing our common future. Some states of the terror network already possess chemical and biological capabilities, and some are feverishly developing nuclear weapons. Can one rule out the possibility that they will be tempted to use such weapons, openly or through terror proxies, or that their weapons might fall into the hands of the terrorist groups they harbor?</font size=2>
The civilized world must face down this new totalitarian threat, now, with an eye to ending the enmities that give rise to such fanaticism, thus the strategy for annihilating this violent nemesis must be designed in such a way as to leave the existing peoples of the nations involved with charge over those nations when the source of evil is obliterated. A campaign with two distinct claws, a military-economic-political assault accompanied by religious-philosophical assault, is called for. This campaign is somewhat like treating a cancer patient whose disease has metastasized once begun via ingestion of carcinogens: cancerous tissue is excised, chemotherapy begun, and the patient is sent home with directions for a new diet and exercise routine.
A Military-Economic-Political Assault
The military assault brought to bear against this insidious terrorism disease must have two talons, foreign and domestic. Yes, there must be a domestic war; sorry to all those worrying about giving up any liberties; there must be a military styled campaign, at least in the intel sense, to find and destroy the terrorists already here in America and in other nations who wish to exist peacefully; these liberties can and will be restored, especially here in America, if we the sovereign peoples remain vigilant and involved in the political process such that our elected representatives legislate as we direct through our insistent voices and out votes. Addressing this notion of America’s flexible liberties is the voice of no less than Johnathan Turley [http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3bb21abb2aa2.htm]:
The Madisonian democracy was designed to handle bad, not good, weather. The Framers even inserted provisions into the Constitution to deal with extreme emergencies, including such drastic measures as the suspension of habeas corpus. We have a constitutional and legal system that can adjust to new threats better than any system on Earth. </font size=2>
The economic assault on terrorists is somewhat self-evident. These monsters must have funds to operate within the various economies; their sources are more numerous than merely Osama bin Laden’s hundreds-of-millions. Monies are collected from front-charities and from foreign princes, sheiks and governments.
Freezing the banking assets of such fronts and the terrorist accounts is an essential part of the coalition of nations concept. Freezing out whole nations from the world economic community requires cooperation among all other nations, some of whose self-interests might run contrary to the effort for a time. The cooperation of practically every nation on earth is required to shut down the money flow to these terrorist cells. Forcing suspension of banking for these terrorists is a formidable task, but America’s economic impact on the entire world of commerce is strong incentive to garner cooperation.
The political aspect of our war on terrorism is more complex than the other two assaults in this process. Michael Novak, in National Review, stated the following regarding the political/social perspective of the Islamic base from which the terrorists draw their supplicants:
If I understand correctly, the Taliban are profoundly hated throughout Afghanistan, nearly as much as the Soviets were hated. … Many see in Islam resources for empowering economic growth. … Islam once inspired a great civilization that far outshone the Christian West (then submerged by barbarian invasions) in wealth, commerce, architecture, and the fine arts. This period of Islamic preeminence lasted from about the 11th through the 14th centuries. Its civilizing effects remain still a powerful social memory. That is why the rough barbarism and political nihilism of today's terrorists repulse and embarrass many. Bin Laden's is not the face of Islam that they love and cherish. And they would love to be free from the very real threat of terror in their own midst.
For the truth is that nearly every traditional institution of the Middle East is now under threat from the terrorists.
The motivation of the terrorists was not essentially religious, but only given a religious cover to serve political purposes — to incite a larger Islamic vs. Western war. They were trying to use Islam for their own destructive purposes. They were not trying to make Islam become better, greater, more beautiful, an ornament to the human race. Their aim was to destroy the United States and its friends.</font size=2>
For a time the secret of Western success was seen to lie in two achievements: economic advancement and especially industry; political institutions and especially freedom.
Not all the ideas imported from the West by Western intruders or native Westernizers have been rejected. ... One such [idea] was political freedom, with the associated notions and practices of representation, election, and constitutional government. Even the Islamic Republic of Iran has a written constitution and an elected assembly, as well as a kind of episcopate, for none of which is there any prescription in Islamic teaching or any precedent in the Islamic past.</font size=2>
Defeating terrorism as issued from these terrorist organizations—and make no mistake, there are far more than just Osama bin Ladens fanatics to deal with—will require assaults of an economic, military, and political nature, but we must acknowledge at the outset, we cannot rule these peoples. They must rule themselves, if they can, and show they wish to co-exist, else we will have to destroy even the societies, because radical Islamism is a chronic threat, fed now by families raising their children to think in terms of suicide bombing and terrorist acts, as glorious!
In the next essay, we will seek to discuss the religious and philosophical nature of this war on terrorism, as it relates to Islam and Islamism. We shall seek to dissect the underlying belief system that fuels so much hatred and murder, contrasting that belief system with the underlying beliefs of Western societies.
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