Editorial -

Muslim’s Hope To Intimidate by Mayhem and Desecration,
But Underestimate the Basic Strength of Average Americans

So four Americans traveling in Fallujah, Iraq, are ambushed and killed! They were armed security personnel, mostly well-trained ex-soldiers, passing through an area acknowledged to be dangerous, even more so than in other parts of this war torn nation. Had that been the end of the story, it’s likely we all would have been saddened yet aware that these men took the risk willingly - they were contract workers - and unfortunately they became casualties. But tragically that wasn’t the end of the story.

The dead Americans were first attacked by small arms and then burned – and it hasn’t been made clear that they were in fact all dead when their vehicles were lit on fire – but then their bodies were pulled out of the vehicles and subjected to vicious mutilation. Crowds of Iraqi’s, comprised of a range of ages from barely pubescent children to young adults and middle-aged and older men, went about illustrating a lack of civilization that was breathtaking to behold. Youngsters mugged gleefully for the cameras while older Iraqi’s joyfully went about their grisly work. It was truly a carnival of the macabre.

They danced jubilantly on the still smoldering vehicles, holding their robes up to keep from getting singed, while others used metal poles and shovels to smash and stab the charred remains of the Americans. 

But that wasn’t yet enough! One corpse was dragged behind a vehicle while pieces of flesh and appendages flew in every direction.

But even that wasn’t enough! The crowds then, with a great party atmosphere – laughter and smiles, dancing and gesticulating – took the remaining victims and hung them from a bridge, leaving their charcoaled remains waving in the wind, subject to further mutilation by various individuals who had yet to fully express their true nature.

Many Americans and other Westerner’s have said that Iraq, with its ancient history, was the one Arab nation with the greatest potential. An intelligent and hard-working populace, with a higher level of general education, that was held down by a tyrant could be expected to accomplish great things once the totalitarian restraints were broken. This doesn’t seem to be the case. 

Many more Americans, and others, have said that the great Muslim majority, the moderates, are not like the radicals, yet it’s hard to reconcile that assertion, or belief, with the faces of the young gleefully participating in a massacre, and with what appears to be average Iraqi’s of every age happily violating the very tenets of the Muslim faith; i.e., that the dead shall not be desecrated. The Muslim faith, apparently, is adhered to and rigid in only certain areas, and under certain circumstances, such as when a so-called Muslim cleric directs his ‘faithful’ to commit murder and mayhem. The silent majority is resoundingly silent, to the point of appearing non-existent.

Yet we think the Arab Islamist radicals and their stable of power-hungry Muslim clerics have made a mistake! They have learned no lessons from either American history or the history of the Twentieth Century; instead they looked no further than our responses to the cowardly Pan Am airliner destruction over Lockerbie, Scotland; the Mogadishu battle where a small American force fought bravely and with great effect - killing many times their number in a brutal firefight - until they were overwhelmed and treated similarly to the Falujah desecration; the Marine barracks bombing, and the attack on the  U.S.S. Cole. Looking at how little a price they paid for their viciousness in these instances, the Arab leaders apparently decided  we are weak and can be intimidated.

The so-called intelligentsia of the radical Muslim world – Osama bin Laden, et al – and the so-called Muslim clerics, whose basic literacy makes them seem superior to their ‘followers,’ aren’t as smart as they think they are, or as some Westerner’s believe. In their arrogance and false religiosity they have concluded Americans cannot stand up to totalitarian and fascistic barbarism. They have mistaken restraint and concern for overall human ramifications as weakness!

In the end, they have made the same mistake that Hitler, Tojo and various other tyrants have made in the past; that is, they assumed that we are too concerned with wealth and comfort to be able to look at horror directly and not flinch in our purpose. They clearly didn’t learn from the reaction to the September 11 assaults, even though so much of their world is vastly different now.

But it is likely that the Muslim clerics and other leaders of armed Islam fell into the trap of convenient self-delusion, believing that degrees of magnitude were involved and that we would still be intimidated by smaller war crimes, commonly known now as acts of terrorism. It’s not unlikely that they instructed their simple-minded, educationally ignorant, and religiously besotted minions to not only kill, but to burn and desecrate the bodies of Americans whenever possible.

It’s a great mistake!

Americans have faced atrocities before, and every time it hardened their hearts and their will. We think, in fact, that had more of the American media followed the solid journalism of The Washington Post and revealed every detail of the Fallujah atrocities, Americans would have insisted that the city be encircled immediately, not days later, and demanded that house-to-house, and building-to-building searches be conducted until every single one of the miserable creatures that could be identified as involved in the massacre was either rounded-up and taken prisoner or killed.

As it is, we have many photos and camera shots of these venomous and amoral people, and we should use every bit of our technological know-how to assure that no one who can be identified, no matter how young or old, escapes from justice. We should view them like we did the Nazi SS, and this is fully appropriate for we should recall that much if not all the Arab world was subservient to and enamored of Hitler’s Germany.

The Arab leaders have overplayed their hand. As usual, they want to use totalitarian techniques of fear, intimidation, and violent assault to obtain power. And we know how they will use that power. They will subjugate the populace and assure it remains poor and ignorant while building fiefdoms for themselves, but unlike the Nazi’s who mixed extreme Capitalism with Fascism, the Arabs mix Islam with Fascism. As a result they cannot build up and modernize their societies, but must rely on oil sales to finance themselves while keeping their countrymen in the 11^th Century.

They mistake us entirely. The Bush Administration, having gotten us into Iraq, must not hesitate now! Mr. Bush and the people of the Bush Administration will find, if they look, that Americans of every political persuasion will support an all out effort to bring these war criminals to trial, or to kill them where they stand if they should decide to fight. Every single one, young or old, should be brought to justice, one way or the other.