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September 21, 2001, Jeff Smith
So much has been written about our tragedy.
I’ve been mulling over it for the last week and a half, watching our
country and finding my bearings by finding a comprehension of the sheer
magnitude of the events. Watching the citizens around the nation raise money and
donations for rescue workers and families, watching the reports of the evil in
our society taking advantage of this and running their own scams.
Watching the candle-light vigils and the flags, and Madison’s own
extremist, pro-totalitarian’s protesting any military action in the name of
what they deem as “peace”. (Under Clinton they had their way: our embassies were bombed,
the USS Cole was bombed, and the World Trade Center was bombed – he sent a
bunch of $1.3 million Tomahawk missiles at some virtually empty tents and bombed
an aspirin factory and the Chinese Embassy in the middle of the night when he
knew no one would be there and called it a victory in our “war” against
terrorism; all it got us was a successful attack from our enemies.)
How we can have “peace” when these acts of blatant aggression and
barbarism keep coming, I have no clue. I’ve
also watched as a nation has once again found their God, and turned to Him for
help and comfort.
I am quite concerned about our country.
We are preparing for war. Our
President is doing the right thing; by carefully finding who is responsible and
committing our forces to sustained action to destroy the network of evil that
exists in our world. But I am
concerned that Americans do not completely comprehend what we are about to
undertake, the level of dedication, sacrifice and time it is going to require,
and the lack of distinction between the horrendous ramifications of losing
versus the invisible fruits of peace with victory.
If we lose, we will continue to sustain terrorist activity
on American soil, that will get worse with every incident.
From buildings blowing up, to gas attacks from boats parked off our west
coast in the afternoon so that the evening winds carry the gas into urban areas,
to the contamination of city water supplies by simply dropping a viral or
bacterial agent into a reservoir, to computer viruses unleashed from a PC on the
other side of some ocean, in some mountain pass in Afghanistan or some desert
town in Egypt. . . if we lose, these attacks will get worse and worse and will
not stop. Every new attack an
attempt to out-do the last, and every attempt taking more Americans.
If we win, Americans will go back to life as normal and
quickly lose sight of why we fought and what we won. Before we even see victory, vigilance will wane, and our
enemies will begin to grow again.
I want to take a look at who attacked us and their system
of religion and hatred, why they hate us, how they accomplished their victory;
and I want to look at an extremely unconventional tactic that America must
pursue if we want to see a long-term victory.
That victory is going to take guts, and most of all, we cannot give
up our Freedoms. This is a vital
war we are about to wage, and we must support it and we must not stop until we
have gained unconditional victory. Because
peace cannot exist under the constant threat of terror.
Usama (Osama, however it’s spelled) Bin laden has said
that he, and the rest of the extremist Muslims and Palestinians from this world,
hate America because of our support for Israel, the Zionist evil.
Yes, they hate the Jews, but the claim that their main reason for hating
America is because we support Israel is a lie and a religious front to supply
them with easy access to support for terrorist activity.
Their main hatred is for the West – our concept of Freedom and
Individual Rights. The institutions of the West mean all are equal and all are
Free. Opportunity creates wealth,
and this is what the mid-East extremists hate.
Not Israel. The hatred for
Israel stems from the support we give them and our resulting influence.
They hate Israel because of us, not us because of Israel.
The regions that these extremists come from, the Middle
East, all have extreme and oppressive governments. Their countries are poor, infrastructure weak, and their
people without rights. Women are
nothing more than servants of men, not even able to go into public without being
completely covered. They cannot
hold jobs, cannot be educated and are relegated as second-class citizens.
In all of these countries, individual rights do not exist, as the
individual is nothing more than a servant for those with power.
There is no value for human life, and hatred is preached from the instant
a person is born.
Extremist factions like Bin laden have hijacked their
religion (the same way the American Black Panthers and White Supremacists have
tried to hijack our belief systems). Like
Europe and Catholicism of the Middle Ages (that led to Martin Luther’s revolt)
the individual in these countries is not allowed to read the Koran.
That right and responsibility is left to those with power, like Bin
laden. Those individuals then have
immense power with which to control their followers by distorting the religion
to mirror their personal and political views.
Although there is in-fighting in the region about whether
Bin laden has the right to do so, his money goes a long way to stop resistance
against him, and Bin laden has declared a holy war against the West.
Because of that, any of his followers that commit suicide and kill an
American with him in this cause, go to Allah and receive dozens of virgins for
the rest of eternity. These followers are more than happy to commit suicide to kill
Americans, because they believe that they are headed directly to Heaven.
When an individual honestly thinks that he is not only helping his
country and religion, but is headed directly for eternity with great riches and
power, this person is impossible to ultimately stop and cannot be deterred.
It is not Bin laden’s hatred for Israel that is fueling
these attacks against America. It
is their hatred for our form of government, our Freedom, and our Capitalist
system that created the greatest nation on the planet in less than 200 years.
In the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, hundreds of
Muslims were killed in order to kill a few Americans. In Tanzania, to kill 12 Americans, these extremists were
willing to kill more than 200 of their own religion.
They do not distinguish between civilian or military targets – we are
all one enemy. They have no value
for life and would rather destroy us than coexist.
This is what we are going to war against.
No set of borders, no government system, just lies and hate.
Put simply, to make the world a safer place for our children, we are
going to war against evil.
Their attacks of September 11 were complete victories.
While expending minimal resources, they killed thousands of Americans
using our own every-day tools of capitalism, they instilled in every American an
intense fear for their own security, they destroyed our aura of untouchability,
they brought down America’s greatest symbol of Capitalism after their failure
in 1993, they shut down our nation for a week (stock market, sports, television
programming schedules and Hollywood releases altered to remove “distasteful”
movies, an already weak economy was dealt an incredible blow with a failing
airline industry, we’re waiting in line at the airport for three times as long
as before), and at the same time, they made money by short-selling our own
stocks. Now, there are calls for
the government’s ability to break on-line encryption and broadened search and
seizure powers in the name of security, while the war against cell phones
continues after phones allowed condemned individuals the chance to say
“good-bye” to their loved ones, told the world what had happened on the
hijacked planes and resulted in the heroes of Flight 93 taking the plane back
from the terrorists.
Freedom has come under assault form terrorist action
abroad, but more directly from our own government under the disguise of saving
lives. Giving those that hate our
system and even broader and more complete victory.
In addition, this was an easy battle for these terrorists
to win because of our societal norms. Stories
abound of instances like the manager of a quickie mart stopping a robbery that
was in progress, being fired because it is 7-11’s policy to do whatever an
assailant asks, in fear of someone getting hurt.
Our nation is full of weak individuals that sue every time they burn
themselves with hot coffee or smoke cigarettes for their whole life.
With no sense of personal responsibility, someone working for evil has an
easy job, because Americans will not stand up for what’s right and resist the
bad in this world.
The terrorists on Flight 93 failed in their ultimate
mission to crash into an American building because the passengers resisted their
efforts. In this case, American
Individual resistance to evil saved a number of American lives that will never
be known, and these people are heroes.
This is not meant to offend anyone, but no group of half a
dozen terrorists should be able to take over a passenger plane with more than 50
passengers, using nothing more than pocketknives and box cutters.
But our society will not defend itself, and evil is alone to control the
day, with nothing standing in the way of these atrocities except a society that
does not believe in resistance or self-defense.
Resistance is the only way to stop a terrorist willing to
commit suicide for his cause. That
resistance will harm the individual that resists, but it will most likely save
countless other lives.
As we go to war and Americans start dying to eliminate evil
that preys on innocent victims, we need a long-range plan.
At the same time that we are eliminating the individuals responsible for
individual attacks of the past, we must ensure that the systems and networks
these warriors of evil have set up are eliminated and destroyed in order to
hinder individuals that would step up as replacements.
Like prairie dogs in the prairie, who’s holes break the legs of horses
belonging to the ranchers, every time one of them sticks their head out of the
hole, we must be able, capable, ready, and willing to shoot and kill.
By going onto their land and killing their people, we are
going to give them fuel for further terrorism throughout the world.
But it is something we must do to stop these acts of barbaric aggression
in the future. And we must
eliminate their networks quickly to minimize the attacks against us that are
sure to come. By acting quickly and
ultimately, we deny the terrorists the time they require to organize and to plan
and to be careful, and they become much more easy to eliminate.
By giving them time, we allow their plans for future barbarism to grow
and take shape and get closer to execution.
And by giving these well-funded extremists time, we allow them to float
closer and closer to the ability to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction
– be they biological, chemical or nuclear.
At the same time, we must eliminate their support from
within. The greatest threat to Bin
laden and his cronies is Freedom and Capitalism. That is exactly what is needed if we are going to ultimately
eliminate this world threat, and these institutions should be our primary weapon
in this unconventional war.
Support, from any extremist faction, comes mostly from the
rank and file members of the bottom classes of society.
These classes have nothing to lose in life, and are gladly willing to
follow the extremism espoused by a few when they are promised a better life as
soon as the oppressors are eliminated. These
lower classes can be easily eliminated with capitalism and opportunity, as the
oppressed become free and the market creates opportunity.
President Bush has not only a responsibility here, but also
an awesome chance not only to rid the world of evil for future generations, but
to also greatly reduce the amount poverty in the world in a humanitarian effort.
By getting rid of individuals that harbor Bin laden types, governments
are going to be put in jeopardy of collapsing and changing.
Throughout the region of the Middle East, governments harbor these
extremists and do everything from giving them shelter to giving them financial
aid and access to laundered money. With
our war against these governments, we have a chance to ensure that they are
replaced with governments that believe in Capitalism, that believe in Freedom
and individual Liberty, and that believe in the sanctity of life.
This must happen if we are to hope for a lasting peace in
the region, and President Bush must be willing to follow through with
this unconventional effort.
By implementing capitalist and free systems of government,
we accomplish two things. One, is
to give the terrorists exactly what they hate.
Instead of being able to fight that system on foreign grounds, they will
be forced to fight it in their own backyards.
That will render protection to countries like America, and tie the hands
of the terrorists who want to carry on the war here on our shores.
They will have to fight America in their own nation, and not in ours.
At the same time, their numbers will continue to dwindle as their actions
allow us to find them, then kill them.
More importantly, though, these new systems, will, over the
course of one generation, dry up the base of support for these extremist
factions. As the lower classes that
support the Bin laden types move up the chain of wealth as Freedom and
Capitalism bring new opportunity that they have never seen, they will open their
eyes to the world of Freedom and Liberty. Where life is sacred, and Allah does not tell them to commit
suicide, because they will be able to read the Koran for themselves.
With opportunity will come a better life, and resistance to extremists
that risk that better life. Their
support will dry, and Bin laden types will need to work harder to find their
suicide bombers, because no one will want to kill themselves.
Extremists will always exist in every society.
In a tyrannical society, the extremists garner much more support than
they should because so many individuals feel oppressed, and are willing to die
to improve their life. But in a
free society, like America, these extremists will never have more than minimal
power and support. As our country
got richer, the Ku Klux Klan got weaker. As
blacks organized in the 60’s, the Black Panthers increased in strength, and
today, as the plight of the inner city gets worse and worse, the new Black
Panther movement and separatist activists gain strength and resolve.
The solution to all of these extremists is opportunity and
Freedom, and that is exactly what we must give them.
By giving these extremists exactly what they are fighting, in their own country’s of residence, America can take this fight back to their lands, out of our borders, and at the same time decrease poverty in the world while increasing Freedom. It will give us a long-term, sustained and self-fulfilling victory.
ABC has pledged to not show the video of the airplane crashing into the towers any more because it is too painful. I think that this is wrong. This war is going to be long and it is going to take resolve. Americans must be reminded every day of why we are fighting, and why American troops are dying on foreign soil. As soon as the body bags start coming home, Americans will lose resolve, and we need everyone on board if we are going to make this world a safer place for our children.
We once said that we would “pay any price, and bear any burden” to defend and implement Freedom in this world. This is an opportunity to Free the most oppressed region in the world, and America must not falter in our mission as the world’s beacon of Freedom. Once the body bags filled with our sons and daughters start coming back, we must strengthen our resolve and be willing to continue what we have started. God created this country for a reason, and this is precisely it. It will be expensive, but the cost of not doing it is even more expensive.
I thought, immediately after the attack, that the terrorists attacked a completely different country than what will be answering their attack. We’ve been fighting each other, both in politics and on our streets. We cannot agree and there is a lot of hate within us. But after the attack, we unified in a way that we’ve never seen before. Across the nation, groups did everything they could to help the victims of this barbaric action.
But I see that support, led by our media and international governments, waning. I don’t know if the country has the resolve to carry out and finish what has been started by our enemies. Peaceniks around the country are saying that going to war is making us “just like them”. But that is wrong. We hold human life sacred. This is demonstrated by the immense rescue efforts we go through every time an American pilot is shot down somewhere over a foreign land, or every time a child falls down a well, or by simply looking at the nation-wide support for the efforts in Washington DC and on Manhattan Island. We do not target the innocent because we dislike their religion or their system of government under which they live.
We do become like them as soon as we start restricting our Freedoms. Like airport security, which has greatly increased the cost of doing business in this country and forever altered our way of living Free but will do nothing to stop a terrorist from gassing a city or blowing up a building. We become like them as soon as we give the government the right to look at our mail and listen to our phone calls in the name of “security”. We become like them every time we put a television camera at an intersection to ensure everyone stops at the yellow lights, no matter what the circumstance. We become like them when we put restrictions on businesses that greatly hinder their ability to survive and compete. That is where terrorists win their ultimate victories, and that is where Americans are most likely to give the victory in their quest for security.
The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance. In recent decades, America has had a very easy existence in the world. Especially after we conquered the tyranny of Communism and found the “Peace Dividend” of the post-Cold War era. We’ve lived in a self-made cloud of invincibility where “suicide bombing” meant some guy half a world away with a backpack blowing up a bus – not our planes flying into our buildings while we work. Lately, we haven’t been vigilant. That peace dividend just caught up to us, and Americans need to be willing to pay the price that we have to pay to ensure that our children can grow up in a safe world, where their biggest worry is not if the shopping mall they just walked into is going to blow up, but whether or not they are going to get mugged by an American on their way home from it.
September 11, 2001
Never Forget
God Bless America
I Pledge Allegiance
To the Flag
Of the United States of America
And to the Republic
For which it Stands
One Nation
Under God
Indivisible
With Liberty
And Justice
For All