Posted on 10/20/2002 8:03:22 PM PDT by TCSparkman
Peace Is a Mental Construct
By Cinnamon Stillwell Friday, October 18, 2002
With the Bay Area awash in anti-war rallies, it seemed a good time to address that so illusive of concepts and the stated goal of the pacifists: peace. The problem is, peace doesnt really exist. In fact, its never prevailed throughout the history of humankind. When it has briefly made an appearance, its because societies have had to fight off aggressors to achieve it. The truth is, peace is nothing more than a mental construct, adopted by the delusional left to justify its relentless anti-Americanism.
Perhaps the peaceniks are longing for some mythical state of innocence that Americans experienced in the twenty years or so leading up to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. But even if you look at it nostalgically, we really werent at peace during that time. Islamic terrorist attacks against America or American interests have been a constant since the late 1970s. Between the years 1979 and 2001 (pre-9/11), 800 people were killed as a result of Islamic terrorism aimed at America. Clearly, this concept of peace relies on an ignorance is bliss kind of attitude.
If were talking about Islamic terrorism since 9/11, the picture gets even clearer. Attacks against American interests and those of non-Muslim peoples have, if anything, increased since 9/11. The Islamo-fascists were emboldened by what they saw as the success of 9/11, to step up their Jihad against Western Civilization. This is a partial list of the types of Islamic aggression that have been on the rise since 9/11:
· Terrorist attacks against Christians and Westerners in Pakistan, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
· Terrorist attacks against Jews in the Middle East and in Europe.
· Countless arrests of Islamo-fascists with terrorist plots against a variety of targets all over the world.
· Fighting between Muslims and Hindus in India and attacks against non-Muslims in Kashmir.
· Attacks against Americans, both at home (the El-Al shooting in Los Angeles on July 4th) and abroad (Daniel Pearl).
Evidence of surreptitious state support for terrorism has also come out over the past year. It was discovered that Iran helped bomb a Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1994, in collusion with then-president, Carlos Saúl Menem. Czech authorities remain firm in their contention that 9/11 ringleader Mohommed Atta met with Iraqi Intelligence Agent Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani in Prague in 2001. Saudi Arabia has just been named as the single largest source of terrorist financing by a committee sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Needless to say, none of this bodes well for peace.
We experienced a short lull in terrorist activity until about a month ago, when it really started to heat up. The shootings of American soldiers in Kuwait, the bombing of the French tanker off the coast of Yemen ,and now the latest atrocity in Bali, Indonesia, should remind us all that peace is hardly an option.
All of these incidents occurred after our government issued the latest of its worldwide alerts for terrorism, the very alerts that so many dismiss as being alarmist. The attacks were also superceded by Al-Jazeera broadcasting another Al-Quaeda PR tape, this one featuring Ayman Al Zawahiri vowing to continue the Jihad and a doctored broadcast that is supposed to be the voice of Osama bin Laden. There is speculation that the airing of that video was a signal for Al-Quaeda cells across the world to step up their attacks. Whether or not you buy that explanation, its hard to deny that a pattern of sorts seems to be emerging.
Do the peaceniks consider these conditions to be those of a country and a civilization at peace? Is this the state that they are so vociferous about maintaining in their opposition to the war with Iraq? Its truly difficult to fathom the fantasy world that the pacifist crowd inhabits these days. I suppose they can simply be dismissed as idealists, but their refusal to accept the reality of the post-9/11 world is dangerous for all of us. While they attend protests for the nebulous concept of peace, the forces of death and destruction press on. If they didnt wake up after the attacks of 9/11, its hard to believe they ever will.
If they didnt wake up after the attacks of 9/11, its hard to believe they ever will.
Two great lines.
So I took the flower...looked her right in those smiling eyes...and I ATE IT. I thought she was going to have a heart attack. It was one of those special moments we remember all of our lives...lol
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