Friday, July 15, 2005

The Enemy Within

When we think of terrorists, most of us probably think of the images of hooded gunmen, chanting on camera and performing horrible acts. They’re this age’s bogeyman, the monsters that are somewhere “out there.” I think most of us believe that, somehow, we’d know one if we saw one.

But coming out of the media this week in the flow of stories about the London bombing investigation is some very, very unsettling information.

They are very likely already here, and may be every bit as ordinary as your next door neighbor.

This story from the AP profiles some of those believed to be involved in the London bombings, and reports that:

“Thirty-year-old Mohammed Sidique Khan worked as a counselor in a youth center. He seemed to spend more time in the gym than the mosque…”

“Hasib Hussain, 19, was a charmer who liked to flirt. He wore blue contact lenses and hair so long that one friend said it ‘fell like a curtain’…”

What about 22-year-old Shahzad Tanweer? The Leeds Metropolitan University student and avid athelete “… was normal. We used to drink Coke and Fanta together.." a soccer teammate said.

And today comes the news that another person apparently connected to the attacks, Magdy el-Nashar, 33, had been a grad student in chemical engineering at North Carolina State. He earned his doctorate from Leeds University.

A grad student – a PhD. Not the sort of radical, abnormal person you’d expect to build a terrorist bomb. But there it is.

In fact, neighbors and family report being completely shocked. Hindsight puts the only warning sign on the “religious school” some of them attended in Pakistan. But no one who knew them suspected anything.

Most educated American voices are quick to point out that radical Islam is the exception, not the rule. But here’s the thing – if even one tenth of one percent of the Muslims living and working among us every day have this radical ideology, how many potential terrorists are there already within striking distance? According to ReligiousTolerance.org, estimates on the number of American Muslims range from 1.1 to 7 million. Worldwide, the range is .7 to 1.2 billion.

That means that if even one tenth of one percent of the Muslims in this country subscribe to the more radical view, there could be 1100 to 7000 potential terrorists here – living and working among us, teaching in our schools (Khan) , serving our fish and chips (Tanweer).

Worldwide, we’re talking potentially 1.2 million.

So what are we to do? In World War II, this country was so concerned about the potential of attacks from within that our government moved well over 100,000 people of Japanese descent (some American-born, and none with a history of anti-American activities) to “relocation communities” in the interest of “military security.”

Is that the answer? I hope not. But it’s no secret that the monsters who want to harm us, those who hate us, seek to exploit our weaknesses.

Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed , living and openly preaching anti-US and anti-UK terrorist rhetoric in Great Britain, has said, “We will use your democracy to destroy your democracy.” It doesn’t get any clearer than that. Make sure to click on his name above for some of his other gems.

Our freedoms are also our Achilles heel. Our porous borders, the lack of scrutiny of the average American, our freedom to travel within our borders at will – all of it – also makes us vulnerable.

So what are we to do? Wake up, for one. You cannot practice appeasement with people who have openly told you they are going to work your system in order to bring it down. There is no placating them with anything other than our destruction. They want to kill us. Period. Those are the stakes.
We need to examine how we do things, to strike a balance between preserving the rights of Americans and doing everything possible to eliminate the terrorist threat. It means finding them, wherever they are. It means making hard decisions about national security, about the powers of investigative bodies, about who is allowed to come here, and from where. It means recognizing that sometimes you have to take measures to obtain information, and the hug-a-detainee philosophy doesn’t cut it.

There’s a segment of this country that wants to be safe, but doesn’t want to do anything non-touchy-feely to get there. They can’t be allowed to dictate the course of action.

I wouldn’t want to be in the position of making all those judgment calls. But that’s why we elect people to do so. Our elected officials need to do what is right. We need to meet terrorism head on, even if it means making decisions that don’t play well in the press. And it needs to be a collective effort, not a situation where one segment keeps calling for more security, yet vilifying the people trying to provide it.

Because they’re here. They’re in our schools, our businesses, our neighborhoods. And another attack isn’t a matter of “if,” it’s a matter of “when.” We are either going to fight this war like we intend to win it, or the consequences are going to be disastrous. There are worse things than 9/11, and we need to do whatever is needed to prevent them from happening. We need to find and eliminate the enemy within, without destroying who we are.

The people who are charged with the task of securing this country need to abandon the "politically correct" in favor of the "reasonably sound" - they need to start taking responsibility for securing this country from the terrorist thugs who would see her destroyed – they need to start making the decisions, denying resources to those who would attack us, hunting down those who would kill us.

They need to start acting like we’re in the middle of a war – because the enemy sure is, and he's already in our front yard.
UPDATE: Greyhawk also has a post up about this issue.

posted by Pam @ 3:03 PM |

Iraq War Today is...
...News and photos of Heroes deployed to the Middle East and elsewhere. IWT is dedicated to all of our military Heroes - past, present and future.