Terrorism Works

I stole that title from Alan Dershowitz, who is at times infuriating, at times very insightful.

He published a book in 2003. It's called Why Terrorism Works. When I walked past the newsstand four years ago and saw the cover, I thought, "What's that lefty Dershowitz going on about now?"

I bought the book and read it in one sitting. He nailed his subject cold, and said what we don't want to hear: terrorism works. It puts a group on the front page and ushers their gripes into the limelight. It does not matter how much blood is spilled or how many arms go flying through the air. Terrorism works because it gets attention. Due to our historically recent desire to play Mr. Nice Guy to everyone and anyone, we feed that attention. We will bend over backwards before shutting someone up or shooting them down. The terrorists know this, and they push that advantage at every turn.

Dershowitz
In his book, Dershowtiz shows in no uncertain terms that the PLO got the attention they desired by hijacking planes and shooting people. To this day, the PLO is the only group, as opposed to an actual country, that has a speaking seat in the UN. One of their terrorists from the old days has said that discussion got them nowhere. Within ten years of blowing things up and terrorising airline passengers, they were in NY. Twenty years after that, they were shaking hands with Bill Clinton at the White House.

That's a tough argument to deny, since all the facts are there. Talk-talk-talk...nothing. Bang-bang-bang...the UN. Pow-pow-pow...Clinton. Boom-boom-boom...Israeli withdrawal from West Bank settlements. Got the message? They do. They wrote it.

I was leafing through the papers today and found a couple of interesting articles. They're the usual mundane ones about cancelling Halloween and Christmas celebrations because not everyone celebrates them. It's an argument that comes from the 1990's, but now it has a new twist: not celebrating these occasions because of Islam.

That's a pretty big shift in our culture. It used to be phrased as, "Not everyone celebrates them." Now it's, "Islam doesn't celebrate them."

In Colorado, an elementary school has changed Halloween to a "fall celebration." That's pretty pathetic. The word "celebration" exists only in the sense that you are celebrating something. A birthday, an anniversary, a holiday. Heritage. I would be okay with "fall celebration" if they were celebrating the principal falling down the stairs ten years ago, or perhaps if they were worshipping the Moon Goddess for Autumn Solstice. Then it would have some meaning.

"Fall celebration" has been created by these people precisely because it has no meaning. It is their way of saying "We're done. We are no longer the people we once were. We are no longer the people that our parents raised. We have changed. And since change is always done for the better, we are now better than we were before."

No costumes are allowed at the school's Fall Celebration. You can't dress up as Little Bo Peep, but neither can you dress up as a big pile of dead leaves. I suppose they're going to herd the kids into the gym, shout "Hooray!" and then go back to class. What else can they do? Fall Celebration has no meaning, and therefore no meaningful acts to perform.

Think about that. From this moment on, these children are being indoctrinated into the belief that one of their biggest pieces of cultural heritage is somehow wrong. They will now be raised to shun October 31st as a sham.

It gets better. In Illinois, a school district has allowed Halloween and Christmas to still be celebrated in schools, but on one condition: Ramadan must be celebrated as well.

And here's where I've got you by the short and curlies: because you know what Ramadan is. And that's why terrorism works.

Pre-9/11, I doubt very few of you knew what Ramadan was. The religion of Islam, and Islamic culture, would have been very foreign to you. Four airplanes took care of that. Suddenly Islam was on the front pages. A group called CAIR was now a lobbying force to be reckoned with.

Beirut Aftermath - '83
Islamic terrorists have tried for decades to get their agenda inserted into Western dialogue. It worked in the Middle East, but it took a lot longer to make it's way to North America. They bombed Marines in Lebanon, the World Trade Center in the early '90s, the USS Cole, and two US embassies in Africa at the end of the century. But it was 9/11 that put them on the map.

9/11 was the most successful day in terrorism's history. Muslims instantly became a minority group in North America. TV newscasters now bring them on regularly, to give a Muslim perspective.

The mother that started the ball rolling on Ramadan being celebrated in the Illinois school had this to say: "Did I say ban holidays? I did not. I said please help us stop the cycle of hatred. I said let's celebrate all of the holidays."

There's quite a bit of garbage in that statement, but let's pick the cycle of hatred.

If you mean the suicide bombers in Iraq, the murderers in Madrid and London, the killer of Theo van Gogh, or the murderous thugs in Thailand, then I am all ears. Otherwise, forget it.

I was having a discussion with a friend the other day. She was doing a pretty good Rosie O'Donnell, telling me that Christians are as bad as Muslims, and Christians have committed tons of atrocities and blah, blah, blah.

I said, "Name one from the past hundred years."

She hemmed and hawed. I said, "Okay, two hundred."

And she couldn't. Oh, sure, I guess if you Googled "looney+christian+killer+dude" on the web, you might come up with something. But be realistic. You can't name me one modern Christian group that has specifically declared their hatred of all other groups and set out to kill them with bombs, guns, and knives to the throat, while ceaselessly quoting the Bible as their excuse for doing so.

Lenin
Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Franco, Milosevic, Mao, Pol Pot, Amin. Those guys were political killers. Religion made no difference to them whatsoever, except in the sense that they didn't want it around because it gave people funny ideas about who's really running the show. (Random aside: I love when people say that the UN and Europe should be consulted on geo-political matters; look what five of those leaders did to that continent).

"Stop the cycle of hatred." Excellent phrase, and that mom was a genius for using it. How can you argue against someone that hates hatred? Except for this fine point: the mother began this whole discussion because she wanted her daughters separated from other school children during lunch.

And here I thought this multi-cultural deal was supposed to bring us all together. Not so. Islam, however, is a separatist faith and culture, in word and deed. Yet a highly successful one. Jews have never had Hanukkah and passover celebrations in public schools, and they've been around these parts for centuries. Then again, they haven't blown anything up to show their displeasure about it.

Terrorism works. That is our message.

Multi-culturalism has already sounded the death knell of the West. Here, we separate people for their beliefs. By trying to make us a big, happy family, we've pushed each other further and further apart.

Our culture (yes, we have one; sounds funny, doesn't it?) is slowly being stripped away. We are becoming a meaningless people. Every time a bomb goes off, we don't rebel against the murderers. We sit down and listen. And listen. And listen. And give.