RUTHFULLY YOURS

On 9/11/12, somehow the existence of an unknown movie provoked the worst sort of protests and the U.S. Ambassador to Libya was pulled out of his car, dragged through the streets, and brutally murdered. The video has gone viral throughout the Middle East and the same people who cheered the 9/11 bombings rejoiced once again in the defilement of the Great Satan.

The choice of date was, I am sure, no accident. The Muslim world from Morocco to Pakistan is in a state of flux and uncertainty. The forces of extreme conservatism are on the rise and the hope of the Arab Spring has faded into the harsh reality of the same grinding poverty and hopelessness that gave rise to the protests. The price of flour has risen; a precursor to unrest going back to the days of the Pharaoh’s granaries.

And the monstrous conduct of the extremists is quietly accepted or even condoned. The Egyptian government soldiers guarding the American Embassy in Cairo stood aside as a mob attacked and entered the grounds of the U.S. embassy, tearing down the flag and replacing it with the banner of Mohammed.

While the U.S. Embassy in Cairo apologized for release of the offending film in a democratic country with a First Amendment, there have been no word of apologies by the Egyptian and Libyan governments for the violation of sovereign United States territory.

9/11 has become a celebration of Salafism in much of the Middle East. It is a recruiting tool and a reminder to the faithful of the jihad that must be fought until the end. Whether it is years or centuries the goal remains the same.

Our government ignores the ethnic and religious cleansing of Christians and other non-Muslims using the argument that these are the internal affairs of sovereign countries, but when those same countries violate the basic human rights of guests who are supposed to be given shelter and protection under their own interpretation of Sharia, nothing is said.

We are silent in Afghanistan when the Taliban or the Haqqanis throw lye in the faces of schoolchildren or murder a wedding party for the crime of dancing. There is little or no concrete action to destroy the vicious mindset that radical Islam perpetrates.

Commodore Stephen Decatur knew something of Islamic barbarism. He was sent by President Thomas Jefferson to subdue the Barbary Pirates, who had terrorized commerce in the Mediterranean and beyond for hundreds of years, hijacking ships, murdering their crews, and enslaving the survivors.

Decatur led the American fleet forces against the Bashaw of Tripoli, the chief among the Barbary Pirates, and repeatedly crushed them in battle. In 1812 he was ordered back again for the second Barbary War to end slavery and the predations of the Algerian corsairs, where he again subdued the Tunisian, Algerian, and Libyan pirates.

Not long before his death, Decatur, the greatest living American naval officer and the one with the most experience in dealing with the Islamic world said “Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong.”

Unfortunately, our State Department no longer believes this.

As Salafism rises and strengthens and in a culture that understands only force, they take heart in these humiliations of the great enemy. The alternate reality of the Middle East turns even great defeats into victories, so when an American diplomat is dragged through the streets, they rejoice and rededicate themselves.

9/11 has become a symbol to the other side as well.