XDA

I hate to give the Jihadists ideas (and I won't) but Hugh Hewitt has already talked about this--a single Jihadist with 500 strike anywhere matches could damage for decades the economy of the western part of this great country during a dry summer. Our hateful enemies don't have to have grandiose plans to damage and kill us. Home-grown Jihadists and recent emigres have been taking on individual acts of terrorism:

Shooting spree at El Al counter at LAX by 41-year-old Hesham Mohamed Hadayet in 2002;

Shooting spree in and around DC by John Muhammad and Lee Malvo in 2002;

Singularly unsuccessful suicide bomber at OU game in 2004 by Joel Henry Hinrichs III, 21, believed to be converting to Islam;

SUV as WMD at UNC (Chapel Hill) by Mohammed Reva Taheriazar in March, 2006;

Shooting spree in Seattle Jewish Community Center last month by Naveed Afzal Haq, 30; and yesterday,

SUV as WMD on the streets of San Francisco (and across the bay) by Omeed Aziz Popal from Afghanistan.

This last one is being denied an act of terror by Mayor Gavin Newsom and the SFPD chief (despite the fact that witnesses at the scene said he immediately identified himself as a terrorist) and he drove to a Jewish neighborhood to run down most of his victims.

There is none so blind as he who will not see.

All of these were by Muslim men (with one exception in Oklahoma) against innocent Americans yet all together they have received less coverage together than one day of Boulder DA Mary Lacy's making legitimate for a while the pathetic ravings of Mr. Karr.

Time indeed to wake up, as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday. Money quote:

I recount that history [about appeasement in the 1930s] because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism. Today -- another enemy, a different kind of enemy -- has made clear its intentions with attacks in places like New York and Washington, D.C., Bali, London, Madrid, Moscow and so many other places. But some seem not to have learned history's lessons.

We need to consider the following questions, I would submit:

With the growing lethality and the increasing availability of weapons, can we truly afford to believe that somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?

Can folks really continue to think that free countries can negotiate a separate peace with terrorists?

Can we afford the luxury of pretending that the threats today are simply law enforcement problems, like robbing a bank or stealing a car; rather than threats of a fundamentally different nature requiring fundamentally different approaches?

And can we really afford to return to the destructive view that America, not the enemy, but America, is the source of the world's troubles?

These are central questions of our time, and we must face them and face them honestly.

We hear every day of new plans, new efforts to murder Americans and other free people. Indeed, the plot that was discovered in London that would have killed hundreds -- possibly thousands -- of innocent men, women and children on aircraft flying from London to the United States should remind us that this enemy is serious, lethal, and relentless.

But this is still not well recognized or fully understood. It seems that in some quarters there's more of a focus on dividing our country than acting with unity against the gathering threats.
It's a strange time:

When a database search of America's leading newspapers turns up literally 10 times as many mentions of one of the soldiers who has been punished for misconduct -- 10 times more -- than the mentions of Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith, the first recipient of the Medal of Honor in the Global War on Terror;

Or when a senior editor at Newsweek disparagingly refers to the brave volunteers in our armed forces -- the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard -- as a "mercenary army;"

When the former head of CNN accuses the American military of deliberately targeting journalists; and the once CNN Baghdad bureau chief finally admits that as bureau chief in Baghdad, he concealed reports of Saddam Hussein's crimes when he was in charge there so that CNN could keep on reporting selective news;

And it's a time when Amnesty International refers to the military facility at Guantanamo Bay -- which holds terrorists who have vowed to kill Americans and which is arguably the best run and most scrutinized detention facility in the history of warfare -- "the gulag of our times." It's inexcusable. (Applause.)

Those who know the truth need to speak out against these kinds of myths and distortions that are being told about our troops and about our country. America is not what's wrong with the world. (Applause.)

The struggle we are in -- the consequences are too severe -- the struggle too important to have the luxury of returning to that old mentality of "Blame America First."

One of the most important things the American Legion has done is not only to serve and assist and advocate, as you have done so superbly for so much of the past century, but also to educate and to speak the truth about our country and about the men and women in the military.

Not so long ago, an exhibit -- Enola Gay at the Smithsonian during the 1990s -- seemed to try to rewrite the history of World War II by portraying the United States as somewhat of an aggressor. Fortunately, the American Legion was there to lead the effort to set the record straight. (Applause.)

Your watchdog role is particularly important today in a war that is to a great extent fought in the media on a global stage, a role to not allow the distortions and myths be repeated without challenge so that at the least the second or third draft of history will be more accurate than the first quick allegations we see.

You know from experience personally that in every war there have been mistakes, setbacks, and casualties. War is, as Clemenceau said, "a series of catastrophes that result in victory." And in every army, there are occasional bad actors, the ones who dominate the headlines today, who don't live up to the standards of the oath and of our country. But you also know that they are a very, very small percentage of the literally hundreds of thousands of honorable men and women in all theaters in this struggle who are serving our country with humanity, with decency, with professionalism, and with courage in the face of continuous provocation. (Applause.)

And that is important in any long struggle or long war, where any kind of moral or intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong, can weaken the ability of free societies to persevere.