The security restrictions arising from the foiled and failed attack on Christmas Day--which would have rained fire from the sky not terribly far from my hometown, had it succeeded--are still in place, for the nothing they're worth. True to form, we're still trying to prevent previous attacks. (And I'd love to know what good forcing passengers to remain in their seats in the hour before landing is going to accomplish.)
Luckily, our enemy is (so far) proving extraordinarily inept. They've succeeded several times since their one grand gesture in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, but their successes have been comparatively limited. Moreover, a great many of their attacks have been stopped before they could be carried out.
I can't understand why a terrorist hasn't just sauntered into an airport--never mind going anywhere near security--and detonated himself. If you're determined to suicide, it's pretty hard to stop you...Israel, which has extensive experience with suicide bombers, still only manages to prevent two in three.
Or why even bother with an airport? Why not a shopping mall, an amusement park, an office building? If al-Qaeda still had their one genius plotter, they'd undoubtedly have tried this by now. Sadly--from their perspective, of course--that "genius" was aboard one of the airliners on 9/11...which kind of shows he wasn't much of a "genius" at all and that al-Qaeda, as an organization, is spectacularly stupid.
It's about time we stopped pussyfooting around and started collectively understanding that Islam is not a religion of peace. The very word means "submission". While it is true that most Muslims understand 'submission' on a purely personal level, and discount the many overt Koranic scriptures stating otherwise, a depressingly large number take their scriptures literally. It would be nice, a nice start, if the moderates could speak up a little.
I understand why they don't, though. It's because they're Westernized enough to value their own lives. If there's anything a fundamentalist Muslim hates more than an infidel, after all, it's a moderate Muslim.
Incidentally, perhaps 2010 should be the year we stop referring to terrorists as suicide bombers. That's a Western conceit, borne of the sacrosanct idea (to us) that life is worth living. The suicide is, in truth, incidental. Oh, sure, those seventy two virgins supposedly await the martyr, but a successful martyr must take at least one infidel out with him. He therefore is properly referred to as a homicide bomber.
(And what's the deal with 72 virgins, anyway? Even if you're of the mindset that a virgin is eminently desirable...what do you do on the 73rd night of eternity?)
I truly hope this is the year we rout out the Islamic fundamentalists. Only when we do this will the world know some semblance of peace.
2 comments:
Islam will be a huge issue for many years to come. Great Britain is on the front lines right now as the British Muslim population begins to try to insert Sharia law into common British law. My one hope from this islamic insurgency (not only in Europe but in the US and Canada aswell) into Western culture is that it strengthens our resolve to keep state and church seperate. Even for those that are religious Christians, I hope they begin to see why we need to keep them seperate.
At least Sarkozy in France is taking Islamists head on, no pun intended (the burka)
I enjoyed your post.
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