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September 11, 2008
Staff Columnist: Remembrance to Vigilance; Have We Forgotten Too Much?
By Scott W. Winchell, Senior Vice President, Gerard Group
Straight Talk on Home Front Terrorism: Part 2: Terrorism in Context
By Ilana Freedman, Editor and CEO, Gerard Group
This morning, a very clear, bright, cloudless morning, not unlike that fateful day in 2001 when our lives were changed forever, I am especially sad. Though it has no bearing on others, one point does make it that much worse, and I share this with many, many thousands world-wide, for today is my birthday.
Progressively, over the past seven September 11ths, I find that I am more depressed than I was on that first September 11th in 2001.
I am more depressed because I see that we have learned so little and forgotten so much. I feel that I am banging my head against a wall because America has become jaded once again as if it was September 10th, 2001 all over again. That day before, like most of you, I was only concerned with my life and what trivial things I had to do the next day.
Since that day, there have been over 11,829 terrorists acts committed world-wide.
Yet, I look out at the world's events and we are more worried about lipstick on a pig than we are over the immense dangers this world has brought to our lives here at home.
Soldiers die in Afghanistan and Iraq, correctly or incorrectly you may say, because of that fateful day and the numerous events leading to it.
Life is a string of events, interconnected throughout history, and we the masses spend so much time looking only at the here and now. Take a moment please; join me in a moment of silence and remembrance for the 2,752 people who died that day at the hands of Islamic barbarians. Please do so also for the many thousands killed in other heinous acts of violence committed in the name of Allah since then.
In three locations, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, bravery and sacrifice were never more visible. In New York, hundreds of the bravest people I have ever seen lost their lives performing their official duties. These brave men and women went into harm's way as thousands ran in the opposite direction.
On Flight 93, the heralded words of one of the passengers who fought back will forever ring in our ears: "Let's roll!" To the selfless acts of kindness by civilians at the Pentagon, I say thank you. You are the true heroes of a nation who is still in desperate need of true leaders and heroes just like you.
Islamic fanatics still threaten us every day; and as we await yet another tape from Usama Bin Laden to come out today, we need to remember that day and the united front we shared, as the certainty of future events hangs like a dark cloud above.
What too many are isolated events, are indeed otherwise. Whether it is a homeless man in a high priced hotel in Denver, dead in his room with a pound of cyanide, or a man screaming Allah Hu Akbar on a subway train in Philadelphia as he buried his hammer into a man's head, or a nuclear equipped Iran, we must stay alert.
They mean what they say, and say what they mean. They want to take over the world and trap us all under sharia law or worse, under the roots of the flowers that bloom above.
On behalf of the entire Gerard Group International family, we shall always remember, we shall always remain vigilant, we shall always fight tyranny, and most of all, we shall continue shout from the mountain tops: "Wake up America!"
Please help us make this day less depressing by taking the time to educate ourselves and unite on the front we face, and turn our discourse into a serious discussion of the most important issue we face: The safety and security of our nation!
Scott W. Winchell is the Sr. Vice President at Gerard Group
This, the second of a multi-part series on the critical threat posed enemies who live and operate among us, using our democratic systems to undermine our society from within our own borders. The series offers an introduction for a presentation that will be given at the Fourth Annual Intelligence Summit that will take place in Washington D.C. on October 22-23, 2008. For more information on the conference, see www.intelligencesummit.org
Last Thursday, al-Qaida's commander in Afghanistan Mustafa Abu al-Yazeed posted a the 55-minute video in which he warned, "Once more the Crusader states that insult, mock and defame our Prophet ... that we will exact revenge at the appropriate time and place."
The video bore the logo of al-Sahab, al Qaeda's media production arm, and once again targeted Denmark, where the cartoons that triggered major rioting around the world in 2006 were first published. It included the "last testament" of Kamal Saleem Atiyyah al-Fudli al-Hathli, the suicide bomber who is thought to have carried out an attack against the Danish Embassy in Pakistan that killed 6.
"As for my final message to the worshippers of the cross in Denmark," al-Makki said. "I tell them, Allah permitting, this isn't the first nor the last retaliation. We will wipe you from the face of the earth."
On the face of it, al Makki is not saying anything we haven't heard before. We in the West tend to take these threats with a large grain of salt and go on about our business, because both the threats and the events seem so remote and unrelated to our daily lives.
Nearly every major jihadi organization - from Hezbollah and al Qaeda to Darul Uloom and Jamaat al Fuqra - has made open, well-publicized threats against America, and they all have well developed networks throughout this country. Terror-supporting states like Iran have done the same. One of the first things we need to learn about terrorism - whether it comes in the form of Islamic jihad, school shootings, or vehicular mayhem - is that we must listen to the threats and take them seriously.
The second thing that we learn is that we must listen to them in context. If we do not understand the frame of reference from which they come, we will not understand the gravity of the threats or the potential for the devastating impact of their strategy if we allow them to be successful.
One of the most serious mistakes that we make as we try to come to terms with our war against our Islamist enemies is that we look at them through the prism of our own values and culture. We assume that they are, at heart, just like us, and that if only we can reach out to them and offer them what we have, they will happily turn in their bombs for flat screen televisions and their guns for democracy.
We are wrong - dangerously wrong. This single misconception has been responsible for some of our most egregious foreign policy errors in recent years. We are, in fact, locked in an existential struggle with an enemy that wants nothing of what we have and will accept nothing less than our total destruction.
But even if we understand all this, it is not enough to just view them through the lenses of reality. We must also understand how they view us.
When we expect our enemies to respect human life, to esteem family, and to cherish personal freedom, we misunderstand them. We fail to take into account that they who have vowed to destroy us do not share our values. They despise our way of life and our concept of liberty. Kindness and cruelty have different meanings in their world. Polygamy, wife beating, child marriage, and honor killings are sanctioned by their religious beliefs. And what we call "fairness" is considered naïve and foolish.
If we do not recognize that there are no grounds for negotiations other than those which will provide them with the time to build their arsenals and prepare their assaults against us, we make ourselves dangerously vulnerable. Sadly, in these post-9/11 days, the luxury of blissful unawareness is one we can no longer afford.
The threat from within Abdurahman Alamoudi, a self-proclaimed "moderate Muslim" who once had access to the White House (until he was imprisoned on charges related to terrorism) was a master of taqiyah, the art of lying to non-Muslims to further the greater goals of Islam. Even while he played the role of 'moderate' to Washington politicians, he associated with leaders of Al-Qaeda, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, HAMAS, Hezbollah, and terrorist leaders from all over the Middle East. He explained the preferred method of bringing down the United States at a meeting of the Islamic Association for Palestine: "I think if we were outside this country, we can say, 'Oh, Allah, destroy America,' but once we are here. There is no way for Muslims to be violent in America, no way. . . . our mission in this country is to change it. "
His message was clear, and his 'other means' have become apparent. He advocated the infiltration and sabotage of America's systems, using, as he did, these very systems to bring them down upon themselves. Acting as a role model for Muslim jihadis in the United States, he established the process for the selection of Muslim clergymen for American prisons, choosing only Wahabi-trained imams, and turning the prisons into a fertile recruiting ground without triggering a single bomb.
Following his example, Islamists posing as 'moderate Muslims' have infiltrated institutions throughout American society. According to Paul Sperry, author of the book, Infiltration, radical Muslims "have infiltrated every security agency from the FBI to the Pentagon to the prison system, which is the top recruiting ground for al-Qaida."
In an interview with Front Page, Sperry said they have "gained firm footholds in America's public schools and universities; our political system; the federal and state prison system; law enforcement - including the Department of Homeland Security; the military - including nuclear weapons laboratories; and the highest councils of government."
The mere thought that people move among us as our friends while they tear down from inside the institutions that we cherish is deeply disturbing. Our political correct society has made us insensitive to the destruction that is being carried out under our noses without a word of dissent.
On this anniversary of 9/11, it is important to memorialize those who died on that awful day. But it is not enough. They will have died in vain if we also fail to recognize the overriding reality that seven years later America is still under attack.
More dangerous than bombs and guns is the insidious infiltration and corruption of our institutions by those who would destroy us from within. When in the name of 'separation of church and state' our public schools are forbidden to even acknowledge the time honored Christmas season, but they allow the teaching of Islam to our children as part of the curriculum, we know we have already crossed a dangerous red line.
The incremental infiltration of our schools, our local governments, our prisons, our universities and our corporations by proponents of radical Islam, is already well under way. How we respond to this creeping threat will determine the character of our nation for generations.
Never in our history has there been a greater need for vigilance to protect and preserve the blessings of liberty for which so many have fought and died. Political correctness at the expense of liberty is not only unacceptable; it is the path to national suicide.
America was always intended to be a multi-cultural cauldron in which the contributions of many would create a blended society, enriched by each contributing culture. But in today's America, the Islamist pre-emption of entitlement is methodically marginalizing every other culture but its own, using our laws, institutions, and traditions to further their religious and political agenda at the expense of our national character.
While America continues to sleep in politically correct submission, we are being systematically dispossessed. Unless we awaken soon, we will arise to a new world in which what made us great will have been lost. Our heritage of freedom will have been given over to tyranny, and we, who closed our eyes to the gathering storm, will have only ourselves to blame.
By Ilana Freedman, Editor and CEO of Gerard Group International, Inc.
The next article in this series will focus on the Islamist groups that have established centers throughout the United States and Canada to promote their radical agenda and perpetrate jihad against us.
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