Tuesday, February 26, 2008

IT WAS 15 YEARS AGO TODAY, AL QAEDA TAUGHT THE BAND TO PLAY...

Remembering the first WTC bombing whose anniversary is today:
On the morning of February 26, 1993, Islamic militants steered a nondescript Ryder van through the winding darkness of the parking garage under the World Trade Center. They had spent years planning this moment in secret meetings at mosques and jailhouses, in rural outposts that served as paramilitary camps, and in safehouses where explosive compounds were mixed in makeshift labs.

Loaded into the van’s rear compartment was a 1,400-pound chemical bomb.


The 'silver lining' of the resultant devastation was that the terrorists miscalculated and did not manage to bring down the towers like they intended, and thus did not cause the degree of terror they had hoped to do.

McCarthy notes, "In hindsight, we now know the silver lining caused us to miss the ferocity and determination of our enemies."

This was in 1993. Then there was Bin Laden's February 23, 1998 declaration of war on the US and Israel for a variety of "crimes" against Islam (including, btw, Iraq--remember, this was 1998):
[...]in compliance with God's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:

The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God."


The Clinton Administration barely noticed then, and the heirs of that Administration, as well as almost the entire Democratic Party, remain clueless now--about the threat, and about the intentions of the enemy.

Recently, Henry Kissinger told Der Spiegal magazine that:
SPIEGEL: Isn’t German and European opposition to a greater military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq also a result of deep distrust of American power?

Kissinger: By this time next year, we will see the beginning of a new administration. We will then discover to what extent the Bush administration was the cause or the alibi for European-American disagreements. Right now, many Europeans hide behind the unpopularity of President Bush. And this administration made several mistakes in the beginning.
[…]
Kissinger: … But I do believe that George W. Bush has correctly understood the global challenge we are facing, the threat of radical Islam, and that he has fought that battle with great fortitude. He will be appreciated for that later.

SPIEGEL: In 50 years, historians will treat his legacy more kindly?

Kissinger: That will happen much earlier.


Specifically, Kissinger believes that Bush managed to take the fight to the Islamists and by doing so has changed the dynamics of the conflict to the advantage of the west. You've got to wonder how many bombings and how much further loss of life in the homeland would have been tolerated by a Gore administration; and if they would have ever come to understand the global nature of the threat. Certainly, the party of Gore, of Clinton, of Obama still do not.

Soon the world will not have a visceral hatred of George W. Bush--a relative visionary in a world of near-sighted, and ideologically-limited leftists, obsessed with their loss of power, influence, and relevance in the new century--to be a shield against the reality of Islamic fanaticism.

So, may I introduce to you/ the act you've know for all these years,/ O.Bin Laden's jihad terror thugs.

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