The Nature Of The Threat

I have talked about this before.

Terrorism, its adherents, its nature; I have mentioned all of it on these pages many times.

However, it's past time I displayed, for those of you who may not realize it yet, the nature and extent of the threat.

So, let's take a trip on the Way-Back Machine, shall we?

1979. On November fourth, the "Iran hostage crisis" began - a 444-day standoff inside the U. S. embassy in Tehran, during which diplomats and embassy employees from the USA were held hostage by the Iranians. There is speculation that this event was pivotal in causing then-President Jimmy Carter to lose his bid for re-election.

On November twentieth, a Sunni militant group of approxiamtely 200 men seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

1980. On April 30th, Iraqi agents take over the Iranian Embassy in London. This siege was, as it later turned out, a prelude to the Iran - Iraq war.

July 27th, Said Al Nasr, a member of the Fatah-RC, kills one and wounds twenty by throwing two hand grenades into a group of Jewish children waiting for a bus in Belgium.

October third, four are killed and twelve are injured when the Rue Copernic synagogue in Paris, France is bombed; despite claims of responsibility by the FNE, the police conclude the PLO was responsible.

1981. August 29th, the Stadttempel synagogue in Vienna is attacked with machine guns and grenades, wounding 23 and killing 2. Marwan Hasan and Hesham Mohammed Rajeh were convicted.

On October sixth, Anwar Sadat, then-President of Egypt, was assassinated by Islamic Jihad.

On October 20th, a synagogue in Antwerp, Belgium, is attacked, killing three and wounding sixty.

1982. On August 9th, a restaurant on the Rue des Rosiers, Paris, France is machine-gunned and bombed by Fatah-RC, killing 6 and wounding 22.

On September 14th, the Lebanese Prime Minister, Bashir Gemayel, and twenty-five others are killed by a car bomb. Habib Tanious Shartouni, a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, is convicted of the crime, and later released from prison by the Syrian army.

September 18th, a synagogue in Brussels is attacked, and four people are wounded. The gunman escaped, but is believed to be a member of Fatah-RC.

October 9th, the central synagogue in Rome, Italy is attacked with grenades and machine guns; one child is killed, and ten people are injured.

1983. On April 18th, the U. S. embassy in Beirut is destroyed with a car bomb. 63 people are killed. This action is attributed to Islamic Jihad.

September 23rd, Gulf Air Flight 771 is destroyed by a bomb planted by Fatah-RC. All 117 pasengers and crew are killed.

October 23rd, the U. S. Marine Barracks in Beirut is bombed. 241 Americans and 58 French are killed; 60 Americans and 15 French are injured. This remains today the single deadliest attack against Americans overseas since World War II. Although the true identity of the bombers is still not known, evidence points to Islamic Jihad. (Later, Hezbollah. Same folks, different name. Vive' la difference.

1984. On March 7th, 3 are killed and 9 wounded when a civilian bus is bombed in Ashdod, Israel.

April 2nd, 48 people are wounded when a shopping mall in Jerusalem is attacked by machine guns.

1985. February 23rd: Hezbollah destroys a Marks & Spencer shop in Paris; 1 is killed, 18 are wounded.

March 9th, the Cinema Rivoli in Paris is bombed, resulting in 18 injuries. Hezbollah claims responsibility, and no-one else wanted it.

June 14th, TWA Flight 847 was skyjacked. The passengers are held hostage for two weeks or so, and then released. Hezbollah, again, is responsible.

October 7th, the cruise ship Achille Lauro is hijacked. One passenger - an American Jew - is killed and thrown overboard. The hijackers were members of the Palestine Liberation Front.

November 23rd, EgyptAir Flight 648 is hijacked by Fatah-RC; in the Egyptian attempt to recapture the plane, 60 are killed.

December 7th, the Galeries Lafayette and the Printemps shops in Paris, France are bombed; 51 are injured, and the attack is attributed to Hezbollah.

December 27th, Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport in Rome and Vienna International Airport in Vienna are attacked by Fatah-RC. 18 are killed, and around 140 are killed.

1986. On February 3rd, two bombs are set in Paris; the Eiffel tower bomb fails to detonate, but the Claridge Passage bomb injures 7. The Fouad Ali Saleh group is responsible.

The Fouad Ali Saleh bombing campaign in Paris goes on for a good bit, with bombs on February 4th, February 5th, March 17th, and March 20th, killing 2 and injuring 52 total.

On April 2nd, TWA Flight 840 was bombed, resulting in four deaths and five injuries. The bomb was planted by Fatah-RC.

April 6th, the La Belle disco in Berlin is bombed by Libya, killing 3 and injuring 230 people, including over 50 American servicemembers.

September 5th, Pan Am Flight 73 is hijacked; 22 people are killed during the subsequent rescue attempt in Karachi, Pakistan. The hijackers are members of Fatah-RC.

The month of September was a memorable one for Paris; between Fouad Ali Saleh and Fatah-RC, five bombs are detonated, on the 8th, 12th, 14th, 15th, and 17th; killing 11 and wounding 159.

December 25th, Iraqi Airways Flight 163 is hijacked by Islamic Jihad. 63 passengers and crew were killed; 33 survived.

For some reason, 1987 managed to get away clean from the Middle East; all the terrorist activity during that year was Basque separatist, IRA, or Tamil.

1988. December 21st, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people, including 11 from Lockerbie killed by falling debris. Libyan intelligence officers were found to have been the perpetrators.

1989. July 9th, two bombs kill one pilgrim and wound 16 others in Mecca.

September 19th a suitcase bomb planted by Libyan intelligence destroys UTA Flight UT-772 on its way to Paris, killing all 171 passengers and crew.

The 1990s. Bush Sr. and Clinton. BY THIS TIME WE HAD NO EXCUSE FOR OUR LACK OF PREPARATION. THE BOMBINGS AND ATTACKS HAD BEEN GOING ON FOR OVER A DECADE.

1990: the PLF attacks Tel Aviv. The PLO attacks the U. S. embassy in Israel.

1992: The Israeli embassy in Beunos Aires, Argentina is destroyed by a bomb planted by Islamic Jihad; 29 are killed, 242 are injured. The Iranian embassy in Ottawa is attacked by MEK - an Iraqi religio-fascist group.

1993: This gentleman right here came all the way to the USA just to shoot up a busy intersection with an AK-47 and then head home; He killed 2 and wounded 3. The World Trade Center was carbombed, killing six and wounding over 1000. The bombing was orchestrated by a coalition of five groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah. A series of Muslim carbombings in Mumbai, India killed 257 and injured 1400 others, and a bomb in Calcutta killed 60 more a week later. The follow-on attack to the WTC bombing fell apart when the radical Islamic cleric in charge of planning it was arrested.

1994: Hezbollah blew up the AMIA building in Buenos Aires, killing 85 and wounding 300 or more. They also blew up Alas Chiricanas Flight 00901, killing all 21 people aboard. They also attacked the Israeli embassy in London, injuring 20 people. A banner year for them. This year also saw the beginning of the uprising in Bahrain, the bombing of Philippine Airlines Flight 434 by Al-Qaeda planner Ramzi Yousef, later convicted of assisting with the first WTC bombing, and the hijacking and attempted intentional crashing of Air France Flight 8969 by the Armed Islamic Group.

1995: The Operation Bojinka plot - to bomb 11 U. S. airliners, by Ramzi Yousef, is foiled after a fire in an apartment leads authorities to a laptop containing the plan. A whole series of bombings is carried out in France by the Armed Islamic Group. The OPM-SANG building in Riyadh, Suadi Arabia is bombed, killing 7, and the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan is bombed, killing 19.

1996: The Khobar Towers housing complex in Khobar, Saudi Arabia is bombed by Hezbollah, killing 19 U. S. servicemen and 1 Saudi, and wounding 372 people of varying nationalities. In his first "fatwa," or declaration of war, Osama bin Laden tells the world that the U. S. response to Islamic terror, and our response to the events in Mogadishu, (chronicled in Black Hawk Down,) indicate that we are disgraced, impotent, and weak, and promises double the rewards indicated by the Qur'an if young Muslims rise up to attack the U.S.

1997: The Luxor Massacre, in which Al-Qaeda - allied groups killed 62 people at the Deir el-Bahri archaeological site.

1998: The Wandhama massacre, in which Kashmiri Militant Islamics carried out "ethnic cleansing" against 24 Kashmiri Pandits. Oddly enough, this took place in Kashmir. Also, in India, a campaign of 13 bomb attacks, killing 46 and wounding over 200, took place in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. Al Umma, an Islamic fundamentalist group, claimed responsibility. In an orchestrated, simultaneous attack by Al Qaeda, the U. S. embassies in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya are bombed; 257 are killed, over 4,000 wounded. In a letter to the world, Osama bin Laden claims that the weak U. S. response to this bombing proves that we are weak, corrupt, and ready for destruction by the sword of Islam.

1999: The Russian Apartment bombings, carried out by Chechen Islamic separatists, led to the Second Chechen War, and killed nearly 300 people. Ahmed Ressam was caught attempting to enter the United States to bomb LAX as part of the millennium bombing plots.

The 2000's. DURING THE CARTER, REAGAN, BUSH SR., AND CLINTON ADMINISTRATIONS, DOZENS OF BOMBINGS AND ATTACKS HAD TAKEN PLACE. WHY WEREN'T WE TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY YET?!?

Highlights of 2000 include the bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 sailors and wounded 40 more, off the coast of Yemen. This was perpetrated by Al-Qaeda.

Regardless of any other events in 2001, the standout is September 11th.

I was at work that day, repairing a network workstation, and one of my co-workers came running in to tell me someone was watching it on CNN, and one of the WTC towers had been hit by a plane. CNN had already figured out what the Air Force took a couple more hours to get: it was deliberate. Not an accident.

I set up a networked video feed, so that CNN's coverage popped on every workstation in the building. Everyone there clustered around a workstation; classes came to a halt; work came to a halt; everything came to a halt. Some of the girls were crying.

I remember these motherfuckers. That's what went through my head. I remember the sorry bastards that attacked us, after we saved them from "ethnic cleansing," in Kosovo. I remember the ongoing campaign of terror against us, even if our leaders do not.


Maybe I was wrong to think that. But I don't think so. Because I can read, and the list above, which is no doubt incomplete, tells me that my first thought was exactly right.


Now we know the face of our enemy.


We ought not, as a nation, to forget ANY of this. Not just the images from 9/11, but the story in its entirety. We ought not to forget the fact that our enemies used our restraint to call us cowards; our attempts to settle things peacefully to call us disgraced; our attempts to stay out of the conflict to call us cursed before God. We ought not to forget those who died - ANY of those who died - but we ought to REVERE those who were going up the stairs when the WTC came down.


We ought to revere those who brought down Flight 93, rather than see it used as another weapon against us.


We ought to revere those who have fought and died to protect us ever since.


We ought NEVER to forget the face of our enemy, and the nature of the threat.


But most of all, we ought to STAY AMERICA. Because if we let our freedoms be destroyed by a tyranny of fear, our liberties be eroded and destroyed by leaders without vision and strength; our very moral underpinnings be bled away in the name of "security" against a threat that by its nature cannot be blocked away - if we let this happen, then our enemies have won. Because their purpose, their conviction, their goal, is the destruction of the United States. And they DO NOT CARE if they accomplish it, or if we do it ourselves.


Every 90-year-old granny strip searched by airport security makes bin Laden's heart warm with joy.
Every soldier spat on and mistreated makes him dance a fucking jig.
Every time our government tightens the noose upon our necks one notch tighter, it makes him weep with delight and praise the name of his God. For he knows that we have forgotten the face of our enemy, and in the desperate quest to stop one idea, we've opened the door to a far more dangerous one.


America is more than the WTC. It is more than cheeseburgers, barbecue, Ford Explorers, and video games. It is more than Hollywood.


America is an idea that there can be a place where people can get along; they can be as rich as they're willing to earn; they can do anything they want that doesn't hurt someone else; and they can rely on each other to help out. (Except in New Jersey.)


But we have forgotten the face of our enemy. Our enemy is fascism - totalitarianism - in all its forms, be it crazed Islamofascism, in which all nations must bow to Shar'ia or be bombed endlessly, or be it our own government slowly turning us into a police state from within.


We ought not to forget it. And we ought to fight it every step of the way.


The firefighters going up the stairs when the tower fell would want it that way.