It Can't All Be Our Imagination

Yesterday (Friday, October 29), security authorities were scrambling worldwide in response to a flurry of terrorist activity. Many international flights were quarantined at airports while security personnel and the FBI investigated packages aboard any plane on which cargo of Yemeni origin had been loaded. At least two of the packages were determined to have explosive materials in them, but at the time of this writing, neither had made it to the United States.

We may never know the full extent of the actual danger. But it was bad enough to warrant the President of the United States briefly addressing the American people about the matter. Al Qaeda has loosened its grip on terror camps in Afghanistan and has been concentrating on the Gulf nation of Yemen. This is the same nation which harbored the suicide bombers who attacked the USS Cole during the Clinton administration, killing eighteen American sailors, and nearly sinking the Navy destroyer. The anniversary of the attempted sinking is drawing near as is the American election day. Al Qaeda is big on anniversaries and symbolic terror attacks to celebrate those anniversaries. The scramble yesterday may be part of that pattern.

Over the next few days, you will get far more news and facts about the security scramble from other sources, so I just briefly want to comment on two recent events that indirectly demonstrate that we are not yet ready to face the underlying reality full on. That reality is that this is not a "war on terror," despite the protestations of two administrations, one Republican, the other Democratic. This is a war of Islam on the West. Yet both administrations have spent a hundred times as much effort in defending "moderate Islam" and labeling the Muslim terrorists as "extremists" than they have rooting out the terrorists and their supporters/enablers, and destroying the beast. With the assistance of the mainstream media, political correctness has time after time defeated common sense and clear thinking.

You are expected to wear sackcloth and heap ashes on your head each time you even consider "profiling" people wielding Korans and wearing Middle Eastern garb ("Muslim clothing") in places where it is entirely inappropriate or solely for the purpose of establishing visually the wearer's primary allegiance. Even though the very many terror attacks and attempted terror attacks in the past ten years have been almost exclusively conducted by Muslims, we are supposed to believe that it's a sin to have certain suspicions about those who go out of their way to show you that they are primarily Muslim and that they intend to be "in your face" about it.

The two incidents to which I refer are the National Public Radio (NPR) firing of liberal journalist Juan Williams, and a recent complaint against Delta Airlines for "religious profiling" of Muslim passengers filed by the Council on American/Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Juan Williams was the victim of rigid political correctness. You all know the story by now. He dared to state than when he sees airline passengers dressed in clothing that indicates they identify first and foremost as Muslim, he "gets nervous." The NPR liberal fascists conveniently failed to review the rest of his statement in which, as a good liberal, he issued all the standard disclaimers, and then some. He was furious that racists and bigots drew generalizations about Muslims. He repeated the [irrelevant] truism that "not all Muslims are terrorists." Gee, not all Nazis were murderers, but enough of them were to draw valid conclusions about Nazism. Williams is far more generous toward Islam than I am. But his disclaimers simply weren't enough. He had deviated from the pure liberal line, and he was finished at NPR.

Williams had merely expressed his personal, logical, and very real visceral reaction to "Muslim garb," particularly on an airline. If you don't think that clothing or accessories don't have any genuine significance, consider how many innocent victims have been murdered in South Central and East Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago and New York City for simply wearing the wrong color tee-shirt. Wearing "Muslim garb" says "I am a Muslim, and I believe in Islam." Many adherents of Islam, even if not a majority, believe that killing infidels and forcing the living ones into submission is a major tenet of the religion. It's not ignorance, stupidity or religious hostility that would compel a non-Muslim to get a little nervous around those wearing that Muslim garb.

Not all snakes are poisonous, but unless you are a trained herpetologist or naturalist, it's probably a good idea to be leery of any snake that suddenly shows up in your space. In fact, until you're sure it's not a venomous snake, you should probably get out of the area. Is that some sort of ignorant speciesism? Or is it just good sense? Does it mean you're a bigoted snake-hater, or simply someone wise enough not to put yourself in harm's way?

The more immediate issue that concerns me is the proximity in time of the Friday explosives discovery and package alert for all airlines entering US airspace, and the CAIR complaint against Delta Airlines. Obviously, there's no direct connection between "Muslim garb" and mysterious packages containing explosives. I am talking about the liberal and Muslim convergence of opinion that it is more important to be sensitive about all things Islamic and emanating from Islamic strongholds than it is to be sensitive about getting blown up--along with a couple hundred of your fellow citizens.

CAIR supports all things Islamic, and is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation prosecution for funding and promoting Islamic terrorism. This administration particularly has a liaison officer who consults with CAIR before issuing any statement relating directly or indirectly to Muslims and/or Islam. CAIR is a major broadcaster of misinformation about the Ground Zero mosque, its adherents, and it funders. But since they are an Islamic organization, we are not to question their good faith, their facts, or their loyalties. Aw, phooey. I question them all.

I should also briefly mention the recent assaults on the Pentagon and Marine recruiting centers. Multiple shots fired, at some distance, over a period of several weeks. I'm not sure whether it's Muslims or not, but I know I can be pretty sure it isn't Swedish Lutherans trying to root out Italian Catholics. There are two likelihoods: Muslim terrorists or anti-war extremists. The latter are frequently the ignorant dupes of the former. Both are willing to commit murder in the name of tolerance. Now in all fairness, the attacks have been on buildings, not people, which is unlike the Islamoterrorists, so it may simply be someone who has a beef with the military and doesn't want to kill anyone. It's simply that events since 9-11 make my thoughts turn almost immediately to one source.

I'm tired of the pussyfooting and walking on eggs whenever the words "Muslim" or "Islam" enter into any public discussion. This isn't about "guilty until proven innocent." If it walks like a terrorist, looks like a terrorist, and is known to frequent the company of terrorists, it's probably a terrorist. As I've said before, in multiple articles, until I see a massive, visible and vocal nationwide movement against Islamic terrorism by the elusive "moderate Muslims," I'm going to continue to join Juan Williams in his nervousness. If those allegedly large majority moderate Muslims can show me they are with us in the defense of America and Western Civilization, I will apologize and mend my ways. Until then I'm going to continue to cling to my Bible, my gun, and my prejudices.