“In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate,” a terrorist declares on the Flight 93 cockpit recording. That’s followed by the sounds of the terrorists assaulting a passenger.
“Please don’t hurt me,” he pleads. “Oh God.”
As the passengers rush the cabin, a Muslim terrorist proclaims, “In the name of Allah.”
As New York firefighters struggle up the South Tower with 100 pounds of equipment on their backs trying to save lives until the very last moment, the Flight 93 passengers push toward the cockpit. The Islamic hijackers call out, “Allahu Akbar.”
The Islamic supremacist term originated with Mohammed’s massacre of the Jews of Khaybar and means that Allah is greater than the gods of non-Muslims.
Mohammed Atta had advised his fellow terrorists that when the fighting begins, “Shout, 'Allahu Akbar,' because this strikes fear in the hearts of the non-believers.” He quoted the Koran’s command that Muslim holy warriors terrorize non-believers by beheading them and urged them to follow Mohammed’s approach, “Take prisoners and kill them.”
The 9/11 ringleader quoted the Koran again. “No prophet should have prisoners until he has soaked the land with blood.”
On Flight 93, the fighting goes on. “Oh Allah. Oh the most Gracious,” the Islamic terrorists cry out. “Trust in Allah,” they reassure. And then there are only the chants of, “Allahu Akbar” as the plane goes down in a Pennsylvania field leaving behind another blood-soaked territory in the Islamic invasion of America.
Today that field is marked by the “Crescent of Embrace” memorial.
Thousands of Muslims cheered the attack in those parts of Israel under the control of the Islamic terrorists of the Palestinian Authority. They shouted, “Allahu Akbar” and handed out candy.
But similar ugly outbreaks of Islamic Supremacism were also taking place much closer to home.
On John F. Kennedy Boulevard, in Jersey City, across the river from Manhattan, crowds of Muslim settlers celebrated the slaughter of Americans. "Some men were dancing, some held kids on their shoulders," a retired Jersey City cop described the scene. "The women were shouting in Arabic."
Similar Islamic festivities broke out on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, a major Islamic settlement area, even as in downtown Manhattan, ash had turned nearby streets into the semblance of a nuclear war. Men and women trudged over Brooklyn Bridge or uptown to get away from this strange new world.
Many just walked. They didn’t know where they were going. I was one of them.
That Tuesday was a long and terrible education. In those hours, millions of Americans were being educated about many things: what happens when jet planes collide with skyscrapers, how brave men can reach the 78th floor with 100 pounds of equipment strapped to their backs and what are the odds are of finding anyone alive underneath the rubble of a falling tower. They were learning about a formerly obscure group named Al Qaeda and its boss. But they were also being educated about Islam.
Islamic terrorism was once something that happened “over there.” You saw it on the covers of Time or Newsweek back when those were staples of checkout counters and medical offices. But even after the World Trade Center bombing, it wasn’t truly “over here.” But now it was. The war was here.
Each generation is born into history out of a moment of crisis. We are defined by our struggles. By the wars we fight and do not fight. On a Tuesday morning in September, my generation was born into history.
Some of us were born into it better than others.
At Union Square, I passed NYU students painting anti-war placards even as the downtown sky behind them was painted the color of bone. They ignored the crowd streaming up past them and focused intently on making all the red letters in NO WAR line up neatly on the white cardboard.
In the years since, I have seen that look on the faces of countless leftists who ignore the stabbers shouting, “Allahu Akbar” in London or the terrorist declaring, "In the name of Allah, the merciful," among the bloody ruin of a gay nightclub in Orlando. Instead they focus on their mindless slogans.
“NO WAR,” “Stop Islamophobia” and “Refugees Welcome.” The world of the cardboard sign and the simple slogan is an easier and neater one than a sky filled with the ashes of the dead.
On September 11, some of us opened our eyes. Others closed them as hard as they could.
That Tuesday irrevocably divided my generation. Some joined the military, the police or became analysts. Others turned left-wing activists, volunteered as lawyers for terrorists or converted to Islam.
The passengers on Flight 93 who took the lead were in their thirties. But the two firefighters who made it to the 78th floor of the South Tower, Ronald Bucca, who did duty in Vietnam as a Green Beret, and Orio Palmer, a marathon runner, were in their forties. Those men and women had the most meaningful answers to the old question, “Where were you when it happened?”
I was just one of countless people moving upstream away from Ground Zero.
The great lesson of that Tuesday morning was that it wasn’t over. It wasn’t over when we understood that we wouldn’t find anyone alive in that twisted mass of metal and death. It wasn’t over when the air began to clear. It wasn’t over when the President of the United States spoke. It wasn’t over when the planes began to fly again and the TV switched from non-stop coverage of the attacks and back to its regularly scheduled programming. It wasn’t over when we were told to mourn and move on.
It still isn’t over.
After every attack, Boston, Orlando, San Bernardino, New York, Paris, Manchester, London, Barcelona, we are encouraged to mourn and move on. Bury the bodies, shed a tear and forget about it.
Terrible things happen. And we have to learn to accept them.
But Tuesday morning was not a random catastrophe. It did not go away because we went back to shopping. It did not go away with Hope and Change. Appeasing and forgetting only made it stronger.
Everything I needed to know about Islam, I learned on September 11. The details of the theology came later. I couldn’t quote the Koran while the sirens were wailing. But I learned the essential truth.
And so did you.
“Where were you?” is not just a question to be asked about September 11, 2001. It is an everyday question. What are you doing today to fight the Islamic terrorists who did this? And tomorrow?
I found my answer through my writing. Others have made a more direct contribution.
But it’s important that we keep asking ourselves that question.
The 9/11 hijackers, the members of Al Qaeda, of ISIS, of the Muslim Brotherhood and the entire vast global terror network, its supporters and fellow travelers asked themselves that question every day.
They are still asking it.
From the Iranian nuclear program to the swarm of Muslim Brotherhood organizations in America, from the Muslim migrant surge into Germany to the sex grooming gangs of the UK, they have their answers.
Our enemies wake up every day wondering how to destroy us. Their methods, from demographic invasion to WMDs, from political subversion to random stabbings, are many.
A new and terrible era in history began on 9/11. We are no more past it than we were past Pearl Harbor at the Battle of Midway. Its origins are no mystery. They lie in the last sound that came from Flight 93.
“Allahu Akbar.”
We are in the middle of the longest war in American history. And we still haven’t learned how to fight it.
September 11 has come around again. You don’t have to run into a burning building or wrestle terrorists with your bare hands. But use the day to warn others, so you can answer, “Where were you?”
(This article originally appeared at Front Page Magazine)
“Please don’t hurt me,” he pleads. “Oh God.”
As the passengers rush the cabin, a Muslim terrorist proclaims, “In the name of Allah.”
As New York firefighters struggle up the South Tower with 100 pounds of equipment on their backs trying to save lives until the very last moment, the Flight 93 passengers push toward the cockpit. The Islamic hijackers call out, “Allahu Akbar.”
The Islamic supremacist term originated with Mohammed’s massacre of the Jews of Khaybar and means that Allah is greater than the gods of non-Muslims.Mohammed Atta had advised his fellow terrorists that when the fighting begins, “Shout, 'Allahu Akbar,' because this strikes fear in the hearts of the non-believers.” He quoted the Koran’s command that Muslim holy warriors terrorize non-believers by beheading them and urged them to follow Mohammed’s approach, “Take prisoners and kill them.”
The 9/11 ringleader quoted the Koran again. “No prophet should have prisoners until he has soaked the land with blood.”
On Flight 93, the fighting goes on. “Oh Allah. Oh the most Gracious,” the Islamic terrorists cry out. “Trust in Allah,” they reassure. And then there are only the chants of, “Allahu Akbar” as the plane goes down in a Pennsylvania field leaving behind another blood-soaked territory in the Islamic invasion of America.
Today that field is marked by the “Crescent of Embrace” memorial.
Thousands of Muslims cheered the attack in those parts of Israel under the control of the Islamic terrorists of the Palestinian Authority. They shouted, “Allahu Akbar” and handed out candy.
But similar ugly outbreaks of Islamic Supremacism were also taking place much closer to home.
On John F. Kennedy Boulevard, in Jersey City, across the river from Manhattan, crowds of Muslim settlers celebrated the slaughter of Americans. "Some men were dancing, some held kids on their shoulders," a retired Jersey City cop described the scene. "The women were shouting in Arabic."
Similar Islamic festivities broke out on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, a major Islamic settlement area, even as in downtown Manhattan, ash had turned nearby streets into the semblance of a nuclear war. Men and women trudged over Brooklyn Bridge or uptown to get away from this strange new world.
Many just walked. They didn’t know where they were going. I was one of them.
That Tuesday was a long and terrible education. In those hours, millions of Americans were being educated about many things: what happens when jet planes collide with skyscrapers, how brave men can reach the 78th floor with 100 pounds of equipment strapped to their backs and what are the odds are of finding anyone alive underneath the rubble of a falling tower. They were learning about a formerly obscure group named Al Qaeda and its boss. But they were also being educated about Islam.
Islamic terrorism was once something that happened “over there.” You saw it on the covers of Time or Newsweek back when those were staples of checkout counters and medical offices. But even after the World Trade Center bombing, it wasn’t truly “over here.” But now it was. The war was here.
Each generation is born into history out of a moment of crisis. We are defined by our struggles. By the wars we fight and do not fight. On a Tuesday morning in September, my generation was born into history.
Some of us were born into it better than others.
At Union Square, I passed NYU students painting anti-war placards even as the downtown sky behind them was painted the color of bone. They ignored the crowd streaming up past them and focused intently on making all the red letters in NO WAR line up neatly on the white cardboard.
In the years since, I have seen that look on the faces of countless leftists who ignore the stabbers shouting, “Allahu Akbar” in London or the terrorist declaring, "In the name of Allah, the merciful," among the bloody ruin of a gay nightclub in Orlando. Instead they focus on their mindless slogans.
“NO WAR,” “Stop Islamophobia” and “Refugees Welcome.” The world of the cardboard sign and the simple slogan is an easier and neater one than a sky filled with the ashes of the dead.
On September 11, some of us opened our eyes. Others closed them as hard as they could.
That Tuesday irrevocably divided my generation. Some joined the military, the police or became analysts. Others turned left-wing activists, volunteered as lawyers for terrorists or converted to Islam.
The passengers on Flight 93 who took the lead were in their thirties. But the two firefighters who made it to the 78th floor of the South Tower, Ronald Bucca, who did duty in Vietnam as a Green Beret, and Orio Palmer, a marathon runner, were in their forties. Those men and women had the most meaningful answers to the old question, “Where were you when it happened?”
I was just one of countless people moving upstream away from Ground Zero.
The great lesson of that Tuesday morning was that it wasn’t over. It wasn’t over when we understood that we wouldn’t find anyone alive in that twisted mass of metal and death. It wasn’t over when the air began to clear. It wasn’t over when the President of the United States spoke. It wasn’t over when the planes began to fly again and the TV switched from non-stop coverage of the attacks and back to its regularly scheduled programming. It wasn’t over when we were told to mourn and move on.
It still isn’t over.
After every attack, Boston, Orlando, San Bernardino, New York, Paris, Manchester, London, Barcelona, we are encouraged to mourn and move on. Bury the bodies, shed a tear and forget about it.
Terrible things happen. And we have to learn to accept them.
But Tuesday morning was not a random catastrophe. It did not go away because we went back to shopping. It did not go away with Hope and Change. Appeasing and forgetting only made it stronger.
Everything I needed to know about Islam, I learned on September 11. The details of the theology came later. I couldn’t quote the Koran while the sirens were wailing. But I learned the essential truth.
And so did you.
“Where were you?” is not just a question to be asked about September 11, 2001. It is an everyday question. What are you doing today to fight the Islamic terrorists who did this? And tomorrow?
I found my answer through my writing. Others have made a more direct contribution.
But it’s important that we keep asking ourselves that question.
The 9/11 hijackers, the members of Al Qaeda, of ISIS, of the Muslim Brotherhood and the entire vast global terror network, its supporters and fellow travelers asked themselves that question every day.
They are still asking it.
From the Iranian nuclear program to the swarm of Muslim Brotherhood organizations in America, from the Muslim migrant surge into Germany to the sex grooming gangs of the UK, they have their answers.
Our enemies wake up every day wondering how to destroy us. Their methods, from demographic invasion to WMDs, from political subversion to random stabbings, are many.
A new and terrible era in history began on 9/11. We are no more past it than we were past Pearl Harbor at the Battle of Midway. Its origins are no mystery. They lie in the last sound that came from Flight 93.
“Allahu Akbar.”
We are in the middle of the longest war in American history. And we still haven’t learned how to fight it.
September 11 has come around again. You don’t have to run into a burning building or wrestle terrorists with your bare hands. But use the day to warn others, so you can answer, “Where were you?”
(This article originally appeared at Front Page Magazine)
Comments
Lets roll.
ReplyDeleteThis blog post has been included in my roundup, Shiloh Musings: Interesting Posts from Blogs Near and Far aka "Havel Havelim" You're invited to visit and read the others.
ReplyDeleteI had completely forgotten about the Qur'an after first reading it in 1974 while researching for my thesis on "Great Religions of the World". I started re-remembering it in 1993 after the first attack on the WTC when they parked a truck full of ammonium nitrate in the parking garage and set it off. They didn't succeed in bringing the tower down even though they killed six people and injured 103 others.
ReplyDeleteBut it wasn't actually until 9/11 that I really began my deep look back at my 1974 thesis.
In that thesis I had concluded that Islam was not a great religion of the world, as most people portray it, but an 1400 year-old, elaborate plan of conquest, that uses religion as its cloak of deception. The glaring flaw in Islamic ideology is Medina. Had Muhammad stuck with his original plan of using his peaceful Meccan religion (a blatant copy of Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism) to convert the Qurayshi people Islam would have made it no further than Mecca. So Medina played an important role in the spread of Islam. Muhammad had to erase all of his previous peaceful verses with violent, forceful ones. I don't even believe Islam had a name at the Meccan point but after Medina is was called "Submission"...Islam.
Allahu Akbar...
You sound like Paul Revere, revised. The JIhadis are coming! One if by land, two if by sea, and if by air--three. Then 4, and 5, and 6, and . . . 9 . . . 11. . .
ReplyDeleteMillions of Americans were being educated about many things." But one important thing still eludes these millions: tolerance does not mean giving up our way of life to one that wants to destroy us! Tolerance is only that, tolerance, not acceptance.
ReplyDeleteMost people in America and other western nations are in some level of denial. Aware of current events but not understanding how they fit into the bigger picture. The left has succeeded in making the conversation about Islamic terrorism into just another spat between the competing western culture ideologies of liberalism vs conservatism and therefore too many people don't believe the divide is between Islam and everyone else.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThe Islamic supremacist term originated with Mohammed’s massacre of the Jews of Khaybar and means that Allah is greater than the gods of non-Muslims.
Daniel,
I think I'm at least as angry at Islam as you, and as afraid of it as well. After all, I live in an 'occupied' area of Jerusalem and often wake up at 4 in the morning to the blood-curdling sound of the muezzin in the neighboring Arab village chanting his curses at us.
Nonetheless, I think it is worth remembering that the greatest medieval Jewish philosophers who wrote their works in Arabic and lived and suffered among the Arabs who were more powerful then than today, universally used the name "Allah" (grammatically identical to the Hebrew 'Eloah') to mean God, i.e. the God whom Jews worship. Our difference with them centers on their deranged and evil prophet, but trying to make some kind of philosophical case that they worship a "different God" doesn't get us very far.
The Muslim God is Muhammad. So they are really idolators who have denied God. Muhammad created a religion to satisfy his quest for power and to satiate his sexual perversions. He was not the model of a good man.
Delete9/11 was my next to last step. Beslan was the final turning point.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the article. As you say, we are in the longest war in American history because we refuse to recognize the enemy. That is, we categorically deny the fact that those who believe in Islam hate us and will continue to attack the West unrelentingly. As do members of the Left wing, so followers of Islam hate and fear freedom and individual rights and will continue to do everything they can to destroy our Western world. That leaders in the West evade, or outright deny, the truth of this is an absolutely vile, disgusting betrayal of us and our way of life.
ReplyDeleteEverything I needed know and learn about islam was shown to me on 9/11 and ALL the time after that.
ReplyDeleteHeltau
Back in the good ole’ days, when some important virtues were better than the democrat party’s many and long evils now brought home to front and center in America, with the majority being mentally sick, undereducated, miseducated people (look at HRC, and she and hussein’s crooked degenerate DNC), and back when the Catholic hierarchy had some self-respect, a degree of public respect, and occasional intelligence, along with Protestants, back then, there was this wonderful quote appropriate for TODAY, and ALWAYS, by the regarded, (perhaps more outside the Church) Bishop Fulton J. Sheen,
ReplyDeleteA Plea for Intolerance by Fulton J. Sheen – Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen http://www.alliance4lifemin.org/articles.php?id=158
In 1931, Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen wrote the following essay:
“America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance-it is not. It is suffering from tolerance. Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. OUR COUNTRY IS NOT NEARLY SO OVERRUN WITH THE BIGOTED AS IT IS OVERRUN WITH THE BROADMINDED.”
“Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil … a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. Tolerance applies only to persons … never to truth. Tolerance applies to the erring, intolerance to the error … Architects are as intolerant about sand as foundations for skyscrapers as doctors are intolerant about germs in the clinics.”
“Tolerance does not apply to truth or principles. About these things we must be intolerant, and for this kind of intolerance, so much needed to rouse us from sentimental gush, I make a plea. INTOLERANCE OF THIS KIND IS THE FOUNDATION OF ALL STABILITY.”
Remember when Jesus, overturned tables in the temple of the moneychangers? That is intolerance against the impiety of the practioners of the evil of not honoring God, within God’s house……
That represents a truly good side of the Church, now missing even more, than in a long time. That quote is always TRUTH. It reflects, from the wishes of God, “LET LOVE BE GENUINE. ABHOR [HATE] WHAT IS EVIL; HOLD FAST TO WHAT IS GOOD.” -Romans 12:9
It helped us to be the exceptional America, we are, have been, and will be, for all citizens of America, and for those we can help outside!
"crescent of embrace".... just a coincidence?...or who is really honored there?
ReplyDelete@JackIAm:
ReplyDeleteAnd yet the evangelical RIGHT over looked Trump's numerous moral failings as they were exposed during the campaign with the logic "Why look under a rock when you can use him as a stepping stone." They have lost all credibility for distinguishing no less preaching right from wrong.
fsy
ReplyDeleteReb dov Bar Leib has explained how we Jews worship a different aspect of G-d from the Xtians and Muslims.
The Notzrim worship G-D the father (compassion), the Muslims worship G-D the King (judgement).
But only we Jews have the balance of Aveinu Malkeinu, who has compassion and judgement.
Thank you for posting this, but what I have to say will not be so eloquent.
ReplyDeleteI lived and worked in the ME for awhile and had developed some degree of sympathy for the arab populace, largely because their leaders keep them ignorant of the truth and riled up against the rest of the world.
Any sympathy I had quickly faded after the take over of Iran by the mullahs. That was followed by the sheer idiocy of do-gooders insisting we help the mujahideen in Afghanistan. I got to "meet" one of those guys where I worked. He was there being treated for his war injuries. I realized then we were in war, and he was not on our side.
The icing on the cake was WTC #1. Unfortunately, our so called leaders have failed us every step of the way. I am getting old and decrepit, but I can guarantee you this: Even if I must do it from a wheelchair or a walker, there will be a payback.
9-11 isn't even in the top 5 of Moslem atrocities committed in the 100 years previous. What is?
ReplyDelete1. the 2.5 million Assyrian and Armenian Christians slaughtered by Turkish and Kurdish Moslems in the early 20th century
2. the million odd Hindus and Sikhs slaughtered in Pakistan (which then included Bangladesh) following the partition in '48'
3. the 2.5 million Hindus slaughtered in Bangladesh in the 1970's while Lennnon, McCartney and Harrison sang "Give Peace a Chance"
4. the 200,000 to 800,000 unbelievers in Islam slaughtered by Indonesian Moslems in E. Timor (also in the 1970's)
5. the million odd assorted unbeliever in Islam slaughtered in the Sudan at the end of the 20th century
10,000 Nigerian Christians have already been slaughtered since 9-11.
Moslems have slaughtered an estimated 250 million people in the name of Islam...and counting.
Not to mention the internecine slaughter of Muslims by other Muslims. Add those in and the number probably doubles.
Delete===========================
ReplyDeleteHOW MUSLIMS REACTED TO
THE DESTRUCTION OF
THE WORLD TRADE CENTER:
===========================
“Public opinion in the Arab world is split about 50 50, between those who appalled by the bombing [of the World Trade Center] and those who applaud it”.
SOURCE: Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World after September 11 (page 52) by Thomas L. Friedman, year 2002 CE, Farrar Straus Giroux Publishers, New York, ISBN-10: 0374190666 ISBN-13: 978-0374190668
_________________________________
“Yasir Arafat is only with us after 10 PM on weekdays, when Palestinians who have been dancing in the streets over the World Trade Center attack have gone to bed.”
SOURCE: Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World after September 11 (page 85) by Thomas L. Friedman, year 2002 CE, Farrar Straus Giroux Publishers, New York, ISBN-10: 0374190666 ISBN-13: 978-0374190668
_________________________________
On September 11 we learned all the things about Saudi Arabia that we did not know: that Saudi Arabia was the primary funder of the Taliban, that 15 of the [19] hijackers were disgruntled young Saudis, and that Saudi Arabia was allowing fundraising for Osama bin Laden, as long as he did not use the money to attack the Saudi regime.
SOURCE: Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World after September 11 (page 88) by Thomas L. Friedman, year 2002 CE, Farrar Straus Giroux Publishers, New York, ISBN-10: 0374190666 ISBN-13: 978-0374190668
_________________________________
“Why did a U.S. hospital worker here [Saudi Arabia] tell me he was appalled to see Saudi doctors and nurses around him celebrating 9/11 [the destruction of the World Trade Center]?”
SOURCE: Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World after September 11 (page 188) by Thomas L. Friedman, year 2002 CE, Farrar Straus Giroux Publishers, New York, ISBN-10: 0374190666 ISBN-13: 978-0374190668
_________________________________
“This is not to say that U.S. policy is blameless.
We do bad things sometimes.
But why is it that only Muslims react to our bad policies with suicidal terrorism, not Mexicans or Chinese?”
SOURCE: Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World after September 11 (page 197) by Thomas L. Friedman, year 2002 CE, Farrar Straus Giroux Publishers, New York, ISBN-10: 0374190666 ISBN-13: 978-0374190668
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