Jinn of Current Events

When 3,000 people are murdered in Manhattan, and a symbol of liberty and prosperity is forever destroyed; when three years later hundreds of children are taken hostage and killed in the Beslan massacre, after hundreds of innocents have also been murdered in Bali and Madrid; it is our obligation to never forget the victims. But to keep this memory is not our main task. We must above all know who the murderers are, understand what their goals are, and then we must choose how to respond to these barbarians

And in this choice resonates the countless decisions our ancestors had to make in order to survive, so that our lives are now possible: to raise our heads and fight for our freedom -- or to bow down, close our eyes, and hope that the enemy will not find us or will not reach us too soon, that submission to their bloodthirsty god will not be too painful, that slavery will not be too unbearable an agony, that the knife cutting our throat will not take too long to finish its work. To fight the agents of cruelty, tribalism, tyranny, and death -- or to give up our values, give up our life. That is the choice.

The Second World War lasted 6 years and saw the utter defeat of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Bushido Japan, at the cost of millions of victims to an axis that had emerged almost 20 years earlier. The Third (aka Cold) World War lasted 45 years and saw the defeat of the Soviet block, at the cost of tens of millions of victims to a tyranny that emerged 70 years earlier. The Fourth is still at the beginning. Each war has its battlefields, campaigns, tragedies, perfidies, victories, heroes. Each enemy of our civilization has its particular ideology -- and all have in common the hatred of individual freedom. We are witnessing the first battles and campaigns of WW IV.

The victorious campaigns are inaugural, in Afghanistan against the Taleban who sheltered Al-Qaida and treated women as chattel, and in Iraq against the Baathist regime that tortured and murdered millions over 30 years. The enemy is certainly weakened and no longer on the offensive, as the semi-surrender of Libya demonstrates. But the enemy survives and remains a threat in other locations, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Pakistan, Egypt, Sudan -- and the enemy continues to plot our death. Let us make no mistake about this: if this enemy finds other opportunities to kill hundreds or thousands of innocents, they will continue to do it with joy; if they could murder millions with biological or nuclear weapons, they would do it without a shred of hesitation.

On September 11, 2001, our enemy showed their face and brought their war to the midst of the civilized world. We could have done nothing, as had been the case since the 1979 Tehran hostage-taking, and thus allowed them to continue to attack us without retribution But a huge armed coalition threw itself into the battle because of the 9/11 massacre.

That is why this date matters. It marks the realization that the Islamo-fascist enemy wants to be the agent of our submission, of our death. Their credo is primarily that slavery is the proper human condition, that liberty is an insult to their god, that women are inferior by nature (like chattel), that reason is wicked, that the pursuit of happiness is a vice, that death is preferable to life. And for them the existence --anywhere-- of people who live and think differently is an affront deserving of death. Islam teaches them that any part of the world not entirely under their tyranny is "Dar al-Harb" -- the realm of war. Islam requires of them "jihad" -- a supreme effort to wage war on Earth in order to achieve a totalitarian supremacy of their religion by killing or crushing the 'Infidels" --those who do not share their beliefs. The massacre of thousands of innocents, or even of hundreds of schoolchildren, is the logical fruit of their totalitarian ideology. They are proud of these massacres.

Exactly three years ago , on what should have been a beautiful September day in London, I understood that a major war had started. In the last three years, I have studied the enemy and learnt that they have a clear ideology, Islamo-fascism (or Jihadism), and that this war will be won only when all Islamo-fascist regimes have been thrown to the trash-can of history -- thus joining other barbarians of the past such as the Aztecs, Nazis, Fascists, and Communists. I hope that this war will not last 50 years or more, and that we will not reach a stage where each one needs to take arms to defend ourselves against the Barbarians of the 21st Century. If all goes well, if the victorious campaigns continue, maybe we will be able to live in peace and without fearing mass-murderers targeting children before the end of the decade. Our cause is just and the ultimate victory is certain, but the war will be long and difficult, depending both on our resolute actions and the evil deeds of our enemy.

Each time hundreds of innocents have been killed in the last three years, I have been reminded how much we owe to those who risk their lives to defend our liberties, and each time I silently re-affirm my readiness to fight to the last breath so that my beloved ones can live in freedom. If I were in my 20s again I would again have joined the armed forces who fight for our sake. My small contribution today is this letter.

Love,
(signed)

P.S.: to remember what happened on 9/11 take a few minutes to watch the following slideshows. You will find all of the emotions of that day as raw now as then:

• http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/lgf-september11-slideshow.php
• http://www.gunstuff.com/america-attacked.html (7MB)