Coffins and Shahids

YOWUSA.COM, 24-April-04
Marshall Masters

Warning — This Article Contains Shocking Images

Despite a Presidential order, the images of our loved ones returning from the far-flung battlefields of the Middle East in flag-draped coffins has captured the nation's attention as we learn that ex-NFL player Pat Tillman, fell in combat this week in Afghanistan.  Now that our economy has finally rebounded from the devastation of 9-11, America is somewhat torn between its urgent desire for blissful-appearing, self-centric material pursuits and the brutal realities of the world.

The sad part is that most Americans look at these coffin images and miss the point.  These fallen warriors are not "better you than me" political action figures.  Rather, they are America's volunteers.  Brave enough to answer the first call; they heroically laid down their lives with the understanding that our civilization faces the mortal and implacable threat, of an oil-funded civilization gone mad.  Unlike those of us who are prone to Vietnam analogies and other such baby boomer denial paradigms, today's events have a clear precedent to the past.

As the saying goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words." 

Shahid Suicide Bombers, whether they are Palestinian, Iraqi, Saudi, Iranian or whatever, are not the heroes of a battling an external oppression.  Rather, they are minions of internal oppression, who live in a civilization that has been led beyond the "nothing left to lose" stage to point where the sole meaning of life is mindless, vicious brutality. 

When Will We Finally Get It?

Let's review that past few years and then boil all it down into one pithy sentence.

• 1998 — I CAN'T FIND "UBL" ON THE NASDAQ: Usama bin Laden declared war on the USA, while everyone is bragging about their bulging 401K plans.  Consequently, we're a bit a slow on the uptake as Clinton treats UBL like a carjacker with the 9^th Circuit Court in his pocket, and Bush spends the first months of his administration asking "who's on first?"
• 2000 — DEATH IS THE ONLY TRUE PEACE: Arafat walked out on Clinton and Barak at the Camp David peace talks and unilaterally started a terror war on Israel to prevent receiving huge land concessions and billions of dollars in USA aid.  The Europeans felt sorry for Arafat and blindly pumped millions of Eurodollars into the PA, which were promptly diverted to Arafat's campaign of terror.  The EU deemed an audit to be unnecessary because only Jews were dying.  Now that non-Jews in Spain are getting the same treatment, the EU is living the axiom, "What goes around comes around."  OK, time to call the auditors.
• 2001 — HONEY, PHYLLIS SAYS TO TURN ON THE TV: The rest of the world sees Americans leaping to their death from the Twin Towers.  We're not allowed to see this, so we wring our hands and lament, "Who the hell is Usama bin Laden and why doesn't he love us?  Meanwhile the guys from Foggy Bottom are already on the phone, "Uh hello AAA, could you mail us a current map of Afghanistan?"
  
  
• 2002 — ZE CRAZY AMERICANS ARE GREEDY IDIOTS: France and Russia accuse of Bush wanting to invade Iraq for the oil, while they and their cronies at the U.N. continue to secretly steal billons of dollars with the U.N. Oil for Food program.  Profits are so good; Russia is faced with a severe Caviar shortage.
  
  
• 2003 — NO YOU DID NOT DO THAT!  Convinced that he'd paid plenty enough for protection from the USA to his U.N. Oil for Food program cronies, Saddam continues to play WMD hide-and-seek games as the U.N.  Meanwhile, Turkey gets the full support of NATO and celebrates its new security shield by giving Bush the raspberry.  So now, the leaders of U.N. are against the US, while they are "for" continuing to line their pockets and calling America every name in the book; meanwhile, Turkey is courageously hiding behind the piano.  Any idiot could see this is not the time to stage an invasion of Iraq.  Problem is that Bush is not any idiot… duh.  Closing scene; Saddam in his rat hole muttering "no you did not do that."
  
• 2004 –FREEDOM IS AN ENTITLEMENT PROGRAM:  We thought that if we freed the Iraqi people from a brutal dictatorship and then gave them security, that they'd rise up en masse to secure a free and democratic future.  Gosh, that must have really been heady stuff during the pre-war White House briefings.  The boots-on-the-ground reality is that the Iraqi people see their country as a huge branch office of the American welfare system.  Congratulations, Americans!  We've freed a country of future welfare recipients!  No wonder Bush is dead set on the June 30 turnover.  If we miss that date, we'll never get them off the rolls.  Meanwhile, live Iraqi soldiers are running away from terrorist fire fights while dead American soldiers are being flown home in flag-draped coffins.  This will teach us to free cowards.

Now, we get to the pithy sentence part.  We're at war and we have two choices — win or die.  Politicizing the war in order to win an election is a just great way to gloss over this simple fact.

The fact is that we're in a life-or-death death struggle with a failed civilization, and using denial polemics to keep them at arm's length is a fool's game.  Why?  Because our denial polemics have only proved effective for the corrupt and self-serving Islamist leaders who have been have been steadfastly programming generations of their young to die as shahids.

Ex-NFL player Pat Tillman, understood this when he chose to fight in Afghanistan.  Unfortunately, many Americans will not understand what he and those who have already sacrificed so much have seen.

Tillman didn't need to see us digging mass graves in America to figure it out, but how many of us will?

Through our inaction in the past, we let radical Islam define the options, and no amount of denial polemics will ever change that.  Consequently the Nazi reality of the past is now reborn as the WMD-empowered Islamist reality of the present.  We win now or die later.