‘Please, God, No...It's So Hot, I'm Burning Up’

Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF version Frank Salvato "The floor is completely engulfed. We're on the floor, and we can't breathe, and it's very, very, very hot...I'm going to die, I know it. Please, God, no. It's so hot, I'm burning up!" These were some of the last words of Melissa Doi, 32, one of the thousands of innocent victims that perished at the hands of radical Islamists on September 11, 2001. In all, 3,017 souls were lost and 6,291+ people were injured on that fateful day by al Qaeda terrorists in New York City, Arlington County, VA, and Shanksville, PA. Now, eight years later, one of the biggest fears held by counterterrorism experts and experts on radical Islam is coming to pass and we are less safe for it. One of the biggest fears advanced by myself and people who I have had the honor of working with in the quest to educate Americans on the threats and dangers posed by radical Islamists, is that the American people would soon forget the horrors of September 11th; that they would start to forget the sense of helplessness they felt as they watched the World Trade Center collapse into the streets of New York City, the carnage at the Pentagon and the despondency of rescuers demonstrated in a field in Shanksville. We all understood that there would be a waning of the immediacy felt in the aftermath of the attacks – immediacy of response, education and prevention – but we feared the encroachment of apathy to the grotesque loss of life and butchery foisted upon the American people on that day. We feared it because we all understood – and still believe today – that to abdicate vigilance to the threat of Islamist aggression is to set the stage for another catastrophic event. In the days after the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Liberal media (formerly referred to as the mainstream media) began to remove the images of the attacks from our television screens. Gone were the images of dust-covered people wandering the decimated streets of New York. We were no longer able to see the images of heroic firefighters and Pentagon workers frantically searched for people to rescue. And we were no longer provided the images of frustrated first responders – professionals trained to save lives – milling about the wreckage of an airliner in a field with no one to save. The media explained the removal of these images – these realities – by insisting it was done in the name of preventative tolerance; to quell any hatred, any catalyst for retribution toward the Muslim community. The images of the most devastating attack to be perpetrated on American soil by a foreign enemy were replaced by a full-blown propaganda offensive designed to demand “tolerance” toward the American Muslim community. This propaganda offensive was employed not only by the media, but by our government. Leaders in Washington DC, including President George W. Bush (whom I respect and admire to this day) insisted that Islam was a “religion of peace” and that the terrorists who attacked our nation were a small, radical and violent faction of an otherwise peaceful religion. And as the message was repeated, the American people began to distance themselves from the feeling of vulnerability that embraced the country on September 11, 2001, the images of that day fading into the history books. During the hours of the attack on September 11th, and over the course of the next few days, as we waited to see if any survivors would be found amongst the wreckage of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, many of our lives were changed forever. Many of us did the civically responsible thing and took the time to study the culture that gave birth to the fanaticism of al Qaeda and the ideology that harbors those who would champion brutal oppression, violent conquest and denial of Natural Law to all but their own in the name of religion. Some of us – including myself – came to understand that the ambitions of radical Islamists were far greater than simply striking out at “the Great Satan,” the United States of America. In fact, the goal of radical Islamists – be they Sunni or Shi’ite – was to establish a global caliphate as directed by their Prophet Mohammad; a caliphate that would encompass the world and bring all the people of the world to exist under Islamic Law; Sharia Law. The quest to establish a global caliphate understood, the popular notion among the Progressive Left that the attacks were retribution for American policies in the Middle East was exposed as naïve, hollow and sometimes disingenuous rhetoric. Even Osama bin Laden’s 1996 and 1998 declarations of war against the United States, while calling for the withdrawal of American forces from the Islamic holy land of Saudi Arabia went further in conveying that jihad was the way to the global Caliphate and that the establishment of the global Caliphate was the path to Allah. Truth be told, the freedom and liberty valued by the United States and the West is simply a hurdle that radical Islamists have to navigate on their journey toward religious fulfillment. The hatred for Western culture held by radical Islamists, for those that value freedom and liberty, is not exclusive to the United States, as is evidenced by the terrorist attacks in Europe, the South Pacific, Asia, Africa and elsewhere. Today, the US government has identified 72 terrorist organizations, with thousands of operatives, existing and operating within the borders of the United States. These organizations include al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Abu Sayyaf, Islamic Jihad, Jamaat al Fuqra and the Muslim Brotherhood, to name but a few. They have literally set-up offices in Boston, Chicago, New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Tampa, Washington DC and over 38 other cities around the country. The recent conviction of officials from the Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas, Texas – in which the Council on American Islamic Relations (a Saudi funded pro-Islamic lobbyist group) was named an unindicted co-conspirator – exposed the fact that many Islamic organizations disguised as “charities,” some with IRS 501c3 tax exempt status, are raising, laundering and funneling money back to the Middle East to support their terrorist organizations. In our schools, the wrongfully accepted premise of separation of church and state is routinely violated on behalf of Islam under the guise of teaching tolerance. Some California schools even had the audacity to suggest that parents were outside of their authority when they complained about school children being made to be “Muslim for a day.” Would the schools mandate that students be “Catholic for a day” or “Jewish for a day” or “Protestant for a day” we could be certain that the American Civil Liberties Union would unleash all of its resources to stop said action. CAIR, it has been found, routinely initiates lawsuits on behalf of Muslims in pursuit of preferential treatment. From cab drivers refusing to take fares that carry liquor, to prayer rooms and foot baths being constructed in public places using taxpayer monies, to receiving contractual obligations from private employers that agree to special treatment in the workplace, CAIR has facilitated the preferential treatment of the American Muslim in American society. Through it all, the voices coming from within the American Islamic community who decry such unwarranted preference are muted by the deafening silence of the majority of American Muslims who selfishly refuse to address not only the inequity of status that taxes the rest of American society in deference to their religion, but the violence perpetrated in the name of their religion. To add to the complexity of the situation, the United States is experiencing a diminishing birthrate among our people. Conversely, the Muslim birthrate in the United States greatly surpasses the birthrate of Americans. Left to the singular device of reproduction the US population – as well as the world population – will be consumed by those who practice the Islamic religion through simple demographics in a few generations. By the sheer power of their numbers, Islamists, including those who wish to establish a global caliphate, will be able to inundate and monopolize any democracy on the face of the earth and no political maneuver, no procedural end-around and no amount of military might can overcome this inevitability. Meanwhile, President Obama has adopted the strategy of extending an “open hand” of peaceful engagement to rulers and despots like Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syria’s Bashar Assad and the Afghan Taliban – tyrants who routinely use the “fist” of totalitarianism and the ideology of radical Islam to not only attack the West but to destroy their own people. To date, this open hand has been met with indifference at best and indignation in the least. Here at home, Attorney General Eric Holder, in one of the most transparent acts of political persecution, has chosen to investigate the Central Intelligence Agency for inappropriate behavior in the use of enhanced interrogation techniques when questioning radical Islamist terrorists captured on the field of battle. Newly released information has validated former Vice President Dick Cheney’s assertion that these techniques garnered critical information that prevented additional attacks on American soil. Further, both President Obama and Attorney General Holder – along with the Progressive Left – are doing everything in their power to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and to introduce terrorists into the US legal system, a system routinely manipulated by the ACLU and CAIR. It can be argued successfully that the US government and the American people are not doing all we can to win the battle against radical Islamist aggression. In fact, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to argue that some within the inner workings of Washington DC actually champion the advancement of Islam in the United States. On this, the eighth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, we need to rededicate ourselves to understanding the threat that radical Islam presents to We the People of the United States and to the people of the West. We need to take the time to read the Quran and the Hadith – in tandem – so as to realize, first-hand, the violent and oppressive tenets of the Islamic religion, the tenets embraced by radical and fundamentalist Islamists. We need to call on the American Muslim community to lead the charge against these violent and oppressive tenets, to confront the demons within their own religion and to bring about a reformation of their religion so it can exist peacefully with the many different people of the world. Only when these things come to pass will we as a human race be able to face down and conquer the evils and barbarity of radical Islamists. Make no mistake, radical Islamists are at war with the world. They have said as much in the past and they continue to say as much today. The question we have to ask ourselves is this: Why do we refuse to listen to what they are saying? From their graves, the 3,017 souls lost on September 11th, 2001 and the many lost in radical Islamist attacks around the world, beg for justice. It is our duty as human beings to hear them and to defeat radical Islam wherever it exists. In memory of those lost on September 11, 2001. FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Frank Salvato is the managing editor for The New Media Journal. He serves at the Executive Director of the Basics Project, a non-profit, non-partisan, 501(C)(3) research and education initiative.