From the Halls to the Shores

Sep 11, 2006

Choose

Today there will be no shortage of people looking back at the events of five years ago. Remembrances will be made. Comparisons between now and then will occur. A whole lot of people will be looking backward.

I’m looking forward. And unless a few things change, I don’t like what I see.

As September 11, 2002 approached, both myself and a Marine friend had family members, civilian friends, and even total strangers ask us, “What are you going to be doing for the anniversary? Are you getting the day off or something?” To the family members and friends who asked this we were more polite, but the basic answer we gave was along these lines: “Are we gonna take the day off? What are you - stupid? We’re gonna do what we always do. We’re gonna go to work and we’re gonna protect your right to ask idiotic questions.” Ever since then, that’s what I’ve been doing. I go to work. I learn every thing that I can about the enemies of this country. And I do my part – small though it might be – to outthink, outwit, and outlast the bad guys. Call it “Survivor” if you want to. Only here, you don’t get kicked off the island… you get killed. Or you kill the other guy first.

And that question – “Are you going to take the day off?” – still haunts me. Not because of how stupid it is just on it’s face, but because of the underlying attitude: Let’s take a day off instead of doing MORE to ensure that the same thing doesn’t happen again. Maybe I’m just uninformed, but I’m a history buff, and I’m pretty sure that on December 7, 1942, no American was considering taking the day off. They were hustling, working, sacrificing, to make sure that the same thing didn’t ever happen again. That seems to be in short supply these days.

What we face now is an enemy as cunning, as manipulative, as politically savvy, as any who has ever walked the planet. He will claim responsibility for attacks and then send out others to deny them. He will tell you it was an inside job perpetrated by the Americans, and then laugh about how America got what it deserved. He’ll tell you this is not a war about religion, then that it’s all about religion, then cry foul about President Bush using the word “crusade,” but tell you that “jihad” doesn’t mean what you think it does.

He’ll tell you all this because he knows that while you’re trying to wrap your truth-based, best-intentions-seeking, western mind around his double-talk, he can get you fighting amongst yourselves and then stab you in the back… or the front, if you prefer…

I’m happy to see that the President had a moment of clarity a couple weeks ago and called the enemy by their name: Islamic fascists. I’m glad he did it. I’m even more glad to see that it upset them when he did.

However, I do not like the term. I think it understates the problem. Fascism, as we understand it nowadays, is inextricably tied to Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler. The problem is that the enemy we’re currently engaged with predates Hitler’s national socialism concept by over one thousand years. That, and I’m a big proponent of Godwin’s Law and it’s corollaries (which state that anyone who mentions Hitler or Nazis in a discussion not expressly about Hitler or Nazis immediately loses the argument.)

No, I would prefer it if we called the enemy by his true name: Jihadi (or Jihadist, if you like). These are people bent on one goal and one ideal. They want to make the world just like them. Every country an Islamic country. Every place of worship a mosque. Every opinion approved by the Prophet. There will be conformity, submission, or death. I’m not guessing at this. I’m taking it straight from the playbook.
Then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer [become believers] and pay the poor-rate (i.e. TAX – Mike), leave their way free to them. (Koran 9:5)

Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily (i.e. TAX, once again – Mike), being brought low. (Koran 9:29)
There are various translations out there, and native Arabic speakers are quick to point out that we here in the West don’t have a good translation. Well, as soon as they can show me the one that doesn’t involve either my death or monetary extortion, I might believe them. But so far, all I see is my pockets getting emptied or plans being made for me to fit into a coffin that’s only 5' 2''… and I’m 5'11''. Of course, there’s door number three – we all become good Muslims, and the world becomes a nice, big, homogenous caliphate, with rainbows and puppydogs for everyone. Well, maybe not the puppydogs…

Then there are those who I truly believe think Islam is meant to be peaceful. And to these good people I say, “Not everyone got the memo.” You can talk till you are blue in the face about how Islam is the ‘religion of peace,’ and how Americans are just ill-informed. Again, until you convince everybody on the other side that they are following some kind of flawed interpretation of Islam, then they have embraced this as a holy war. And while we don’t have to fight like we are conducting a holy war ourselves, it would be folly to act like the enemy isn’t. I say “would be.” Actually, I should say “IS.” Because that is what we are doing.

Political correctness that was once an annoying little way of twisting words to somehow lend “equality” to races, genders, and creeds, is now a weapon being used to victimize terrorists and legitimize actions that have led to the deaths of millions worldwide over the course of centuries. Only political correctness would allow the “traumatic childhood” of Zacharias Mousawi to be a determining factor in his escaping the death penalty. Nevermind whether or not he plotted against America and had a hand in the deaths of multiple thousands. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Only political correctness would allow the phrase “broad strata of society” to be applied by the Canadian Police to the terrorist plotters that were rolled up in June… nevermind the fact that all of them are Muslims of arabic descent.

And only political correctness would allow the history of Jihad – hundreds of years of campaigning, destruction, and forced conversion or submission – to be whitewashed into the footnotes of history texts, and somehow justified as some type of defensive action in retaliation to the Christian Crusades.

These are people who call Israel a Nazi state, and then claim there was no Holocaust, call Osama bin Laden a true hero to be followed and emulated, but who couldn’t have POSSIBLY been responsible for the events of 9/11 because – hey, who plans in a CAVE, ferallah’sake? - and will happily confirm that President Bush is simultaneously the single most evil super-genius to ever draw breath and a doddering idiot who can’t count to four. These are the kings of double-speak and using our own western standards against us, while adhering to no discernable standard of their own other than “all infidels must die.”

And how do we treat them? “Biggles! Put him in… THE COMFY CHAIR!”

If a/c, three hots and a cot, and interrogations under the most extreme conditions that can be provided by a Lay-Z-Boy are how jihadis are doing their “hard-time” in Gitmo, well, hell… Allahu Ackbar, baby! Sign me up. And you damn well better have high-speed internet when I get there, or I’m calling the ACLU, mofo…

This is what it has become, five years on from the biggest attack on American soil ever. Al-Qaida gets recliners, while Marines get shackles. Political correctness at it’s finest.

Want to speed through airport security? Buy your ticket under a name like Abu Omar. Maybe join CAIR, too. We don’t want to profile… that would be mean. And just to show you how fair we are, we’ll stop the 86 year old Medal of Honor winner, and give him a pat down… And if you like maybe a cavity search too… Would that make the baby Muhammed smile?

I know that some wingnut will eventually slime on over here and scream into the comments about what a racist I am, and how much of a chickenhawk I am, and why don’t I join the military if I believe in the cause so much and volunteer to go to Iraq to die for Bushitler-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Halliburton’s oil war. You are an idiot.

As to the bottom points - don’t type before you read, you moron. I’ve been there, done that, got the t-shirt, and will happily wear it to your next Code Pink rally, you fucking spineless assclown.

As to the first point, profiling IS NOT racism. Remember the DC sniper? He was SUPPOSED TO BE an angry white male all by his lonesome. Turned out to be two angry black males, who happened to dabble in a little thing called Islam, and had grand plans involving extortion and setting up terrorist training camps. Odd that…

There are people whose whole job is to put together a profile for the cops/FBI/CIA/whoever to work off of. Most times it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But whether or not it hurts your wittle feewings, I don’t give a damn. In the case of Malvo and Muhammad, the profile was wrong. Oddly enough, Islamic motivations played some kind of a role where none was expected.

Those who say that the two had no ties to Islamic terrorist groups are right. But they were just ahead of the times. Did the guy who busted into the Jewish Community Center in Seattle and started shooting up the place have any organizational ties? What about the guy who used his car to run down students at the University of North Carolina? In both cases, not that I’ve heard of. But then, after the actual event, you don’t hear much do ya? Press reporting just kinda stops, because hey, don’t want to fuel that “backlash,” do we? Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, folks. Nothing to see here. We need to be fair. Your strip search will be in Room 2, Sister Mary Catherine. Please cooperate for your own protection.

I see this getting worse before it gets better. I see a mass casualty event that ends with a mushroom cloud rising over a US city before the American public throws the political correctness playbook out the window. And even then… even then, the MoveOn.org and Daily Kos nutballs will rail against Bush, for (1) letting it happen, or (2) doing it himself to put the commoners back in line… or both… even if it’s 2010, and Hillary has been in charge for 2 years… you watch.

I see it taking something to THAT level before we as a nation GET IT. And until then we’ll just limp along. Political infighting and finger pointing will rise to a crescendo that will make the stuff we’re seeing now look like a high school student council election. Americans will become even more divided between those who want to take the fight to the bad guys and those who want to go all isolationist and figure that if we just get the hell out of the Middle East we’ll be left alone. Mr. Chamberlain? Yes… table for two… Mr. Hitler called and said he’s running a bit late, but to go ahead and start appeasing without him… (but there I go, braking Godwin’s Law…)

And then it’ll happen. And it’ll hurt. Like nothing this country has felt before. And THAT’S what it’s going to take for us to take the gloves off. A lot of hurt. Because nobody back here is feeling the pain. Nobody back here is paying attention. And everybody back here is applying our standards to the enemy. And the enemy don’t play that.

Win or die. It’s that simple. There is little available in the way of a third option that suits both parties. So that’s what it comes down to: win or die. And unless we pull our head out of our ass, and do it right quick, that “win” option doesn’t seem to be the front runner.

Bad guys need to fear us. Bad guys need to respect us. Bad guys need to know that when the Americans come knocking on their door in the middle of the night, they WILL NOT be going to what amounts to a damn health spa. They need to fear us worse than their darkest nightmares of hell. They need to be willing to shoot themselves in the head to escape what the Americans might have in store for them. They need to wonder how the Americans even found them, and then cower in the corner in pants-wetting dread of what awaits them. “So you want to torture innocent people, then?” I hear Code Pinko-boy scream out. No… but I want Jihadis to not have the slightest idea what they’re in for when we show up. Thanks to the New York Times, so much for that plan.

Which sends me back to square one… and a mushroom cloud.

So today, remember those who died, and remember those who did it. Sear the names of the dead onto your heart, and sear the names of the perpetrators into your brain. Commit yourself to the fight. Treat EVERY day like it was today. Don’t wait for the anniversaries as they come and go. Every day is a day in the fight against Jihadis… because for them, every day is a day in the fight against you.

If there are three images you must remember from 9/11 let them be these:

The slain.

Those who would wish it to happen again.

And our resolve to stand against evil.

Steel yourselves. Harden your hearts. And get ready.

Be victorious or perish.

Posted by: Mike the Marine / 18:08
|

From the Halls to the Shores

******************

Dissenters Stifled: 1

******************

Links

Archives

Sep 11, 2006

Choose