Two vehicles loaded with fuel, propane tanks and nails, much like the
vehicle-born IEDs in Iraq today, are found in London’s Piccadilly Circus, our
equivalent to Times Square. Then two Islamic radicals slam a car loaded with
the same into the Glasgow Airport in Scotland, while the US Department of
Homeland Security is reporting that the Al-Qaeda chatter indicates their desire
to commit an act of terror against the west that is a “spectacular event”, much
like the September 11th attacks. The investigation in the UK has moved quickly
and has resulted so far in eight arrests, most of who appear to be Muslim
medical doctors.
In the last several
days, the press and media, but more so the general public appears to be shocked
by the recent events and the “spectacular” chatter. Many political leaders have
expressed shock that most of the participants arrested in the UK terror plot
were educated doctors.
What I don’t understand
and what concerns me is, why the shock and disbelief?
The fact that the
alleged participants in the UK plot are educated men shouldn’t surprise anyone
at all. Don’t forget…Osama bin Laden was highly educated with an engineering
degree, as is Ayman al Zawahiri his chief deputy in Al-Qaeda who studied
behavior, psychology, and pharmacology at Cairo University graduating
in 1974 and earning a Masters degree in surgery in 1978. Mohamed Atta and
the other 18 men that banded together for the attacks on 9/11 were all
studious, educated and well traveled, much like the suspects recently arrested
and being detained by the British authorities.
Six years after 9/11,
and after many attacks against the west and the many attempts that have been
prevented since that day, we still have people in this country, including many
political leaders, who refuse to acknowledge the continuing threat that we face
from radical Islamists. Where have these people been?
Perhaps they missed
Osama bin Laden’s threats prior to 9/11 or even his statements in its immediate
aftermath. But surely they’ve heard at least one of Zawahiri’s twenty or so
messages over the past five years, or Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s in Iraq before he
was killed by the coalition, or Adam Yehiye Gadahn who recently threatened an
attack that would make us forget all about 9/11.
So, is it that we are
not listening or is it that we just don’t get it? My fear is the latter… and
here’s why. Spectacular these days, do not mean jumbo jets flying into
skyscrapers or oil refineries or the White House. It no longer has to be a
nuclear device or dirty bomb. The FBI, the U. S. Department of Justice and
Homeland Security have foiled some major events in the past five years and are
getting better everyday. But what if one of these groups took another approach
as they attempted to do in the UK? Coordinated attacks designed to create
carnage and mayhem, but done so in four or five different cities around the
country, like New York, Los Angles, Orlando, Chicago and maybe Miami. In a
tourist site or God forbid a school like they’ve done in Beslan? Maybe they
kill fifty to three hundred innocents’… men, women and children. Would that be
spectacular? More than you can imagine. The economic impact on tourism, the
airline industry, the stock market and every other financial indicator in this
country would mirror, if not surpass, the impact of the attacks of September
11.
We as a people need
to wake up and realize that we are truly at war with an enemy that is on the
attack. It’s not a poverty stricken enemy as some would have you believe and it
shouldn’t surprise anyone that they could be living amongst us already as we’ve
just witnessed at Fort Dix, New Jersey and in the United Kingdom.
Muslims are not our
enemy… radical Islamic fundamentalists are. If we don’t understand it, then
learn more about it. The western world needs to help promote the real Muslim
clerics that teach true Islam and hold those clerics accountable that promote
jihad and the killing of innocent people, Muslims, Christians and Jews alike.
We are at war with an
enemy that wants us dead because our religious, economic or moral beliefs
differ from theirs and they want to martyr or kill themselves in this battle to
prove their point. They have no rules, laws, guidelines or Geneva Convention,
making everything including children fair game. If our will to fight this enemy
is the problem, then our political leaders need to stop fighting each other
long enough to fix it. If they do not and they’re more concerned about their
political positions than they are fighting this war, then show them the door.
Beirut, 9/11, the USS
Cole, our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Amman, Madrid, London, Glasgow, Ft.
Dix, JFK and even Saudi Arabia. There is a war against us.
When exactly are we going to get it?
