HJS Comments: One of the main reasons I became a scholar and analyst of ISLAM, instead of going fishing with the grandkids and hunting with their parents, and travelling around the country with nothing better to do, was not 9/11 itself, but what happened after 9/11. I watched President Bush climb up on some concrete pilings to be seen and heard. and thought my admiration knew no bounds when he put his arm around retired Fire Chief Bob Beckwith as he spoke. It almost did not matter what he said because what we needed at that time was a leader, a real honest-to-goodness leader to climb up on something and tell the rest of the world we are not taking this!
The following day, I looked everywhere and could not find any reports, editorials, or essays that gave me a clue about Islam or the motivation that made sense for nineteen young men from Saudi Arabia to fly into the World Trade Center twice, the Pentagon, and then try for a fourth target. All I wanted and what I thought we deserved was a clear understanding of the religion and the ideology of Islam, and where in that religion and ideology was justification for killing so many innocent people. Was there no person in this country, especially within our education establishment that could go on Fox, CNN, or write an authoritative newspaper article that could truthfully spell out for us what happened? Perhaps people tried but were turned away. I began to read and hear some strange mutterings about not wanting to offend the Islamic religion or Muslim countries.
When the 9/11 Commission Report was issued, according to ACT! For American, decent, authoritative folks on our side, the report referred to Islam 322 times, to Muslims 145 times, to Jihad 126 times, and to Jihadists 32 times. Anyone reading the report—all Americans should read it—had to take from the report a very good idea of just who was responsible for flying those airplanes into the buildings. We had a pretty good idea who the enemy was. However, since then it seems that many folks on the left have muddied the issue and tried to blow sensible ideas out of the water with Politically Correct torpedoes. Some Americans are easily fooled, but not all. When the president who kept us safe after the dastardly attack had to leave office at the end of his tenure, a new president—so new, nobody knows him yet—came into office and his words during the campaign trail alerted us that not everything would be the same.
The following day, I looked everywhere and could not find any reports, editorials, or essays that gave me a clue about Islam or the motivation that made sense for nineteen young men from Saudi Arabia to fly into the World Trade Center twice, the Pentagon, and then try for a fourth target. All I wanted and what I thought we deserved was a clear understanding of the religion and the ideology of Islam, and where in that religion and ideology was justification for killing so many innocent people. Was there no person in this country, especially within our education establishment that could go on Fox, CNN, or write an authoritative newspaper article that could truthfully spell out for us what happened? Perhaps people tried but were turned away. I began to read and hear some strange mutterings about not wanting to offend the Islamic religion or Muslim countries.
When the 9/11 Commission Report was issued, according to ACT! For American, decent, authoritative folks on our side, the report referred to Islam 322 times, to Muslims 145 times, to Jihad 126 times, and to Jihadists 32 times. Anyone reading the report—all Americans should read it—had to take from the report a very good idea of just who was responsible for flying those airplanes into the buildings. We had a pretty good idea who the enemy was. However, since then it seems that many folks on the left have muddied the issue and tried to blow sensible ideas out of the water with Politically Correct torpedoes. Some Americans are easily fooled, but not all. When the president who kept us safe after the dastardly attack had to leave office at the end of his tenure, a new president—so new, nobody knows him yet—came into office and his words during the campaign trail alerted us that not everything would be the same.
The change was not better, only bitter. In the first National Intelligence Strategy created under his administration—and we remember he said he would stand with the Muslims—the word jihadist, mentioned 32 times in the 9/11 Commission Report was mentioned 0 times in the new strategy report, while the word jihad, mentioned 126 times in the earlier report, was now mentioned 0 times. One would imagine that even had the words jihad and jihadist not been mentioned in the new strategy report, certainly we would find Muslims and Islam, mentioned in the 2009 National Intelligence Strategy. However Muslims and Islam were referenced 0 times. It is enough to make me wonder if anyone in authority has any idea who the enemy is, if it cannot be described within the meanings of those four words—four words that describe the 19 people who committed the atrocity!
We will not forget the willful crime that became a tragedy, nor will we forget the people who want to build a shrine to the people who authored that tragedy, and who believe that they have not yet finished with us. Well, on January 20, 2013 I expect a new leader, a real honest-to-goodness leader, to find something to step up on, perhaps retired Chief Bob Beckwith would be on hand again to help, and this new leader will announce to the world, “I have come here to finish the job; and any country that expects to do business with us had better help us, follow our lead, or get the hell out of the way!”
We will not forget the willful crime that became a tragedy, nor will we forget the people who want to build a shrine to the people who authored that tragedy, and who believe that they have not yet finished with us. Well, on January 20, 2013 I expect a new leader, a real honest-to-goodness leader, to find something to step up on, perhaps retired Chief Bob Beckwith would be on hand again to help, and this new leader will announce to the world, “I have come here to finish the job; and any country that expects to do business with us had better help us, follow our lead, or get the hell out of the way!”
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