FIVE YEARS AGO, THE ROAD TO VICTORY BEGAN
Five years later, we're still the best and freest nation on earth and he's living in a cave.
Five years later, we're still the flower of human civilization and they're a bunch of blood-letting savages blowing up their own their own people.
Five years later and our fists are still clenched.
Today we mark the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the end of the second Muslim ascendence. They killed our people, and slit their own throats in the process. They knocked down our buildings and sealed their own doom.
Because we woke up that morning. We woke up to the nature and name of the enemy. We woke up to the fact that we are not an exception to the rivalries of history. We woke up to the fact that enlightenment has not yet eliminated tribalism and that the creeds of the inferior drive the deeds of the inferior.
And any society or religion that seeks to impose itself on others through terrorism is inferior. It is beneath the dignity and nobility of humanity. And fully deseves to be destroyed by the world it seeks to dominate.
Before that morning, we looked at Islam through American eyes, through the rosy, optimistic, pluralistic eyes of America. We live in a society and a culture where people are free and equal, where civility and courtesy are common and respected, where the brutalities of the dark and disappointing past have been pushed aside. We live in a society and culture where religious freedom and tolerance welcome all believers and where our communities have room for every faith or following.
We were generous, kind and accepting, and we presumed others held similar virtues. We presumed that all people were the same, and were dedicated to the same priorities and objectives.
But we failed to see two things -- the good of our own religion and culture and the evil of their religion and culture. We failed to see the moral superiority of the Judeo-Christian ethic with its commandments to love your neighbor and do unto others as you would have others do unto you. We failed to see the moral inferiority of a religion whose message to the world is: Convert or die.
The relative morality of the two is based not on chauvenism or jingoism, nor should it be a basis for pride or boast. Rather, it is cause for humility and gratitude. And it is a reminder that where much is given, much is required.
It is also a reminder that all religions are not the same, and that all cultures are not equally valid or worthwhile. It is a reminder that the centuries have not passed for all, and that some live in an odd throwback mentality that shows little progress since the darkest days of human evil and conflict.
In Christianity, we believe that you can judge a tree by its fruit. In Islam, that fruit was September 11.
This is not an indictment of all Islam, but neither is it a continued pretense that Islam is a religion of peace. Nor is it acquiesence to the false but politically correct claim that terrorism is separate from Islam. The simple fact is that for tens of millions of Muslims in the Middle East, the actions and motives of Al Qaeda and Hezbolla and the Iraqi insurgents are Islam. The culturally retarded religious bigotry that calls for "Death to Israel" and "Death to America" is not the exception in world Islam, it is the rule. And Muslims who feel differently have had five years to say so.
But they haven't.
Instead, they have whined for more tolerance and greater accommodation, they have denounced America and blamed our policies for their attacks. Essentially, they have simply used other means to push forward the agenda of the terrorists -- the agenda of a rising Islam at the expense of other world religions, ideologies and cultures.
They have demanded religious tolerance in non-Muslim countries, and enforced religious homogeneity in Muslim countries. They insist on rights they will not grant. Islam seeks accommodation in Christian countries, but outlaws Christianity in Muslim countries. It is a double standard inherent in the religion and near universal in its practice. And that same thread runs through the actions of many Muslims in many parts of the world. Terrorism is a means to an end. Some Muslims use terrorism, others use different means to attain the same end.
That's what we learned five years ago.
And that is what will in time turn the tide of this Muslim ascendence. The fight is on, and some of it will be fought with guns and some of it will be fought with ideas. But it will be fought. It is a culture that promises that the truth will make you free versus a culture that threatens to behead the infidels. It is a holy war in every way. It was commenced by the other side in the name of their religion and it will be finished by our side because of the weaknesses of their religion.
Because it is a religion of compulsion, and humans are creatures of freedom.
We believe that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.
And no man or religion can long take away those rights.
The rising tide of Islam crested five years ago. They sought to exploit our openness, courtesy and trust, which are outgrowths of our religion and culture. And as long as we didn't know what they were doing, they were successful.
But we're on to them now.
They've shown their hand.
Just as the passengers on United Flight 93 learned the nature of the enemy they faced, and rose up to thwart it, so too have we as a nation learned the nature of the enemy we face. And we will rise up to thwart it.
We will break its back. We will put the genie back in the bottle.
Five years ago, they lost the element of surprise.
Five years ago, they bloodied our nose.
Five years ago, they sealed their own fate.
Because right always beats out wrong.
And they are wrong.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2006
