Die, Infidel, Die

    In case you have been too full of holiday cheer to pay much attention to the news over the last week, there was another attempted terrorist attack on Christmas day.  A Nigerian national, a Muslim terrorist, attempted to bring down an international flight heading for the US from Amsterdam.  He had a bomb stashed in his underwear and due to his incompetence and an alert passenger, his attack was thwarted.  Apparently not all homicide bombers have the same IQ level. 
    A few months ago I wrote a piece entitled "When Are we Going To Take This Threat Seriously", mostly in response to the Fort Hood killings.  Obviously, the answer to that question is "not yet".  In response to this attack the security lines got longer, travelers can't put blankets, pillows or laptops on their laps and they must sit with their hands in full view during the last hour of their flight.  If we made the inmates at Gitmo do that the ACLU would be all over it but we put up with more inconveniences that do nothing to make us safer.  The terrorists continue to succeed in making us play the game according to their rules and there is no doubt more people will die at the hands of those who espouse the "religion of peace".
    Our problem is that we think that everyone is basically like we are.  We believe that everyone in the world, deep down, values innocent life, understands the basic concept of justice and loves apple pie.  For the few cold blooded killers we come across in our society, we assume some mental defect.  Otherwise, we think that if we can just come to an understanding, everyone will hold hands and sing campfire songs together in peace and love.  It is a misconception that is going to get a lot of people killed and will lead to the downfall of western civilization.
    If you want to understand the mindset of radical Islam, look back to the movie "Independence Day" with Will Smith.  After the aliens obliterate a bunch of major cities and kill hundreds of millions of people, the president tries to talk to one of the captured aliens.  He tries to negotiate, to come to a mutual understanding which will lead to peace and coexistence.  He is getting nowhere and finally asks the alien, "What do you want us to do?"  The alien simply replies "Die".  That is what we need to come to grips with when we interact with Islam.  There is no negotiation possible and any time we think there is, the Islamists are merely lying in order to further their aim which is to kill all the infidels and have the world to themselves and make it a place where every man will sport a beard, every woman will wear a burka and all people everywhere will stop what they are doing and pray five times a day, prostrated before Mecca.
    Any means is acceptable to accomplish this end.  A religion and ideology that rejoices when planes bring buildings down will be ecstatic if whole cities are leveled.  Like the Chinese, the Muslims have long range plans, they are patient and are biding their time.  Our policy is driven by the next poll and at most, the next election cycle.  Islam has one goal, world domination, and from the beginning under Mohammed, war has been the preferred way to bring that about.  Unfortunately for them, ideology keeps them mired in the seventh century and the innovative mind that developed advanced weaponry is foreign to them.  Not that they won't use it if they find it but the wealth and power produced by the political and economic freedom of the west has put them at a disadvantage.  At this point, they are reduced to minor terrorist attacks that kill people by the scores, and occasionally, the thousands.  They have been persistent in this.  Since 9/11 they have carried out over 14,000 fatal terrorist attacks throughout the world.  And yet we fail to see the war that has been declared against us.
    Our advantage will not last forever, however, because we are deliberately hamstringing ourselves in this fight.  We treat terrorist like criminals and instead of killing them, we want to bring them to trial.  The political and economic freedom that has given us our power is soon to be a thing of the past.  We are deliberately destroying our currency and our ability to compete economically through taxes and regulation; Cap and Trade and health care will be the final nails in that coffin and then we will be unable to fund the greatest military the world has ever seen.  We remain beholden to Muslim oil, a card they will play when it suits them.  Even when we decide to use our military, we develop such convoluted rules of engagement that our brave and well trained men and women find it difficult, if not impossible, to win.  On top of that, we have made Muslims a protected class within our society which allows them the freedom to spout hate and recruit more warriors to their cause.
    Mark my words.  By the end of the next decade, if we continue on this path, we will be a poor. broke nation whose interest payments on her debt will have crowded out military spending.  It will also reduce or eliminate social spending which will leave many people, particularly young, impressionable people, disaffected and ripe for recruitment by radical Islam.  Many middle eastern nations will have fallen into the hands of the radicals and oil will be a major weapon, further crippling our economy.  That is when the war of annihilation will begin in earnest.  Iran is already in the hands of the nuts and I predicted in "Memoirs of a Former American" that Pakistan will fall to the radicals as well and that both nations will funnel nuclear weapons to terrorists.  Do you think they care about nuclear fallout in far away North America?  Of course not.  And Europe is nearly theirs already, give it another generation or two at most.
    It is a bleak picture.  It is not inevitable, however.  We control our own destiny.  The only way great and powerful nations fall is when they destroy themselves.  There is no question that we are trying very hard to witness our own demise and the Muslims are cheering us on.  We are, however, still a republic and that means that our fate is in our own hands.  If we say no to the mealy-mouthed, incompetent, socialist wimps we have been electing and seek out tough people with real vision, there is hope.  As the president in "Independence Day" realized, theirs was a war for survival, a war for the right to exist.  When we finally realize that our war with Islam is not an ideological negotiation but a war for our very right to exist, then the tide will turn.  Because I will put my money on an unfettered twenty-first century American over a seventh century Muslim barbarian any day.