#71 Houdini: I just watched that video link you posted. My heart is still pounding from seeing all of those images and all of that devastation.
Our sense of the true evil and wickedness that was required in order to carry out these acts tends to dull over time. The horror is no longer as fresh as it was on 9/11 and for the many months following the incident. Grief did its job: helped everyone recover and move on.
But in the case of 9/11, we really shouldn’t allow ourselves to become too removed from the source of the terror perpetrated against us that day.
And this is exactly where the line is drawn between “torture” and “enhanced interrogation techniques.” In a civilized world, wars are fought between soldiers: each one a fighter and representative for his own country.
In the uncivilized world of Islamic extremism, which is not representative of the Muslim faith, there are no soldiers and there is no nation or country being defended or represented. There is only holy jihad.
To wish this were not so is to invite more and worse acts of terrorism against us. Those who would like to create some kind of faux reality, where the Islamic extremist is actually a civilized human being, are putting all of us at risk of further attacks.
When did the goal of the United States become so trite as to think that it’s more important for us to look like the nice guy on the block than to protect our own citizens? This great nation has kept millions of people worldwide safe from harm. We have fed, rebuilt, treated, and sacrificed the lives of our own citizens and soldiers in order to bring a better life to people all over this globe.
If they aren’t appreciative of our sacrifices, there’s nothing we can do about it. We are not responsible for their response to our generosity.
However, we are responsible for keeping our own citizens safe from harm – the obligation to ourselves far outweighs the obligation to appear “nice” to the non-American.
The need to protect this country trumps the need to worry about appearances.
