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I was recently in a discussion about a religious practice wherein a child’s head is cut and the child is left to bleed awhile. I observed that as Paul Harvey used to say, it is not one world, and that not every culture is compatible with ours here in the West. My adversaries countered with the notion that everyone in the West or in the world would agree with them and that the practice must be stopped.
First off I agree the practice should be stopped as should the brutal practice of female circumcision. I have spoken out against such brutal practices in the past and will in the future. But what some kind hearted people in the West still don’t get—and this will literally be the death of us—is that Osama Bin Laden and many of his chief followers are wealthy, educated men from good families. And yet they are willing to do things like strap bombs on retarded girls and use them to blow up strangers. There is only so much rational argumentation you can usefully entertain with someone whose ultimate response is, if you disagree with him then God hates you.
Let us sincerely hope that the more loving among us are right and that there are moderate elements with who we may say: come let us reason together. But unless these moderate elements can get the upper hand, all the reasoning in the world is not going to help.
It also doesn’t help when decent upstanding citizens do everything we ask and more, as the father of the Detroit Christmas day terrorists did, and government authorities still botch the job. If authorities need help doing their job I would be happy to oblige.
If someone is on a watch list then get confirmation from each of the nations he passes through that he was physical searched and passed through some sort of bomb and explosives detector. After all, what good is a watch list if it doesn’t tell you which ones do the cavity search on? Not the old lady in the wheelchair. But rather the gentleman screaming death to America in Arabic. If a foreigner can’t get a passport then we should not let him in the country. If another western nation will not grant someone a visa then he belongs on the no fly list. By the way, when it comes to foreigners, not US citizens, why have a watch list? Why not put all the watch list people on the no fly list instead? I am far less worried about our own home grown radicals than those radicalized outside the US.
The best news I have heard lately on the terror front is the continuing political unrest in Iran. It is good to see good and decent people yearning for freedom but it is unclear what practical good outsiders can do against a brutal regime. It almost seems like the same problem we began with. Yes the behavior is deplorable but can we really do anything to stop it?
