http://www.opinioneditorials.com/guestcontributors/fsalvato_20071109.html November 09, 2007
A Nation Ignorant of Being at War Frank Salvato There can be little doubt that terrorist organizations have arrived on the shores of the United States of America. The thousands of lives lost on September 11, 2001 stand as testimony to this undeniable fact. The attacks signaled to the world that radical Islamofascists were serious in their declaration of war against the United States and her Western allies. An examination of Osama bin Laden's 1996 fatwa - his declaration of war - indicates that this conflict is a generational conflict and a confrontation as we have never experienced before. The truth of the matter is that terrorists have been migrating to the United States, establishing their organizational cells, infiltrating and fading into our communities for decades; laying in wait for the correct moments to strike. These are precisely the events that preceded the flights that delivered the nineteen 9/11 hijackers and thousands of innocent people to their destinies. Today, dozens of terrorist organizations with thousands of operatives exist and operate within the borders of the United States. These organizations include, Hezbollah, Hamas, Abu Sayyaf, Islamic Jihad, Jamaat al Fuqra, the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda, to name but a few. These organizations have cells in Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Washington DC, as well as Tucson, Denver, Tulsa, Detroit, Cleveland, Orlando, Kansas City, Boston and many more cities in the United States. Radical Islamist front groups and sympathetic "philanthropic" organizations such as the Holy Land Foundation and the Council on American-Islamist Relations - both named in evidence offered in a recent federal court case involving the funding of terrorism - have set up regional branches around the country. They are not only raising, laundering and funneling money back to the Middle East to support their terrorist organizations, they are setting up jihadi training camps right here in the United States. The recent exposure of a suspected Islamist jihadi training compound at Islamberg, New York, and many more like it around the country, stands as a stark warning to the American people (and our government) that we must detoxify from our caustic relationships with moral relativism and political correctness and embrace the reality that radical Islamist jihadis are here, now, and training among us for future attacks on our nation. Many counterterrorism experts, including former CIA Director James Woolsey, founding member of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, Dr. Bruce Tefft, and Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, agree, it is not a question of "if" there will be another attack on American soil, it is a question of "when." The only questions left unanswered about this future attack are how lethal it will be, where it will take place and whether we will have had enough foresight to have acquired the information needed to literally help save our own lives. In his 1998 fatwa Osama bin Laden said: "The Americans started it and retaliation and punishment should be carried out following the principle of reciprocity, especially when women and children are involved. Through history, America has not been known to differentiate between the military and the civilians or between men and women or adults and children. Those who threw atomic bombs and used the weapons of mass destruction against Nagasaki and Hiroshima were the Americans. Can the bombs differentiate between military and women and infants and children?" The key words here are, of course, his references to Hiroshima and Nagasaki but, more importantly, his declaration that "retaliation and punishment should be carried out following the principle of reciprocity." The issue of terrorism is a deadly serious one. If we are to take bin Laden at his word - and only the intellectually challenged and the suicidal would ignore him at this point - it is a deadly serious issue that includes his quest for nuclear capability. This absolute threat directly affects every American - as well as every freedom loving citizen of the world, yet accurate, fact-based, first-source information on the threat of terrorism is not readily provided through traditional channels. Adequate information about the threat we face is not forthcoming from our government nor are we served by a self-serving and agenda-driven media. Websites that offer accurate information on the threat of terrorism are routinely removed from private sector Internet search engine indexes for mentioning terrorism in relation to Islam, while those who do attempt to educate the public on the origins and activities of terror groups in the United States are either ignored by the mainstream media or smeared by biased special interest groups. With our nation's borders left unsecured, a plethora of terrorist organizations with thousands of operatives on American soil and multiple sightings of al Qaeda's nuclear expert, Adnan el Shukrijumah (a terrorist hand-picked by Osama bin Laden to perpetrate what many are describing as the "American Hiroshima" and a member of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List) in North and Central America, we can ill-afford not to be engaged on this, the quintessential conflict of our time. The American people need accurate information regarding the threat on terrorism so that We the People can understand our government's actions and engage our elected officials when necessary, providing them with educated opinions and reasoned oversight so that they can act prudently on our behalf. The fact of the matter is that fundamentalist Islamofascism is being fought in countries around the world. From Iraq and Afghanistan to Somalia and Sudan, Indonesia and India to Paraguay, China, Russia, the UK, France and the United States, radical Islamists - especially Wahhabis and Salafists - are training, planning and engaging in activities meant to cause harm to the west in general and particularly the United States and those who stand in her defense. If we don't embrace the reality that we are a nation at war, if we don't start taking seriously the threat that radical Islam poses to our nation from both a violent and an ideological standpoint, we will lose this conflict. If we lose this conflict there will be no gay rights, no tax cuts and no need to debate universal healthcare or immigration reform. We will all be pining for the inequitable days of political correctness as we exist under the savagely oppressive tenets of Sharia Law. To those of you who don't think this can happen or can't fathom it happening at the hands of a group of 7th Century throwbacks with AK-47s and Soviet Era rocket launchers, to those of you who believe that the United States can remain invincible without an engaged citizenry, I leave you with this thought. The leaders of the USSR couldn't fathom their nation's demise either...right up to the moment it no longer existed. Related Reading: Bin Laden's 1996 Fatwa http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html Terrorism Knowledge Base: United States http://www.tkb.org/Country.jsp?countryCd=US Gov't Likely to Retry Muslim Charity http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Oct23/0,4670,MuslimCharityTrial,00.html JihadWatch: Islamberg, New York http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/016411.php Islamberg Not The Only Radical Muslim Compound Flourishing In North America http://canadafreepress.com/2007/cover052107.htm James Woolsey https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publica tions/books-and-monographs/directors-and-deputy-directors-of-central-intelli gence/wools.html Frank Gaffney http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/home.aspx?sid=47&categoryid=47&subcat egoryid=115&newsid=12531 Bin Laden's 1998 Fatwa http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1998.html The Anti-Google Search Engine Index http://www.newmediajournal.us/daily_columns/anti-google_search_engine_index. htm FBI's 10 Most Wanted Profile: Shukrijumah http://www.fbi.gov/terrorinfo/elshukrijumah.htm Adnan el Shukrijuma http://www.nctc.gov/site/profiles/el_shukrijumah.html Basics Project: Terrorism http://www.basicsproject.org/terrorism/terrorism.htm Basics Project: Wahhabism http://www.basicsproject.org/terrorism/ideology.htm#Wahhabism ### Frank Salvato is a political media consultant, a freelance writer from the Midwest and the Managing Editor for www.TheRant.us . He is a contributing writer to OpinionEditorials.com and AmericanDaily.com. He has appeared as a guest panelist on The O'Reilly Factor and his pieces are regularly featured in Townhall.com and occasionally featured in The Washington Times as well as other national publications. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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