Not as bad as all that

Submitted by Charles R. Vail (United States), Dec 21, 2005 at 21:35

Dear Mr. Pipes:

I'm not nearly as pessimistic as you, which is not to say that I'm unconcerned. While institutions and elites may be backtracking and acting blithely, my strong sense is that ever greater numbers of the public are coming to see and accept the implaccability of this enemy, and that it really and truly is bent on world domination, along the way causing the deaths of as many infidels as possible. That's a far cry from where we were four years ago, when I'm quite sure that most Americans, including me, didn't understand that there is a distinction between Arabs and Islamics, didn't know what jihad was, knew nothing about Sunnis and Shiites, and if given a pin and an unmarked map of the world would have had difficulty putting the pin within a thousand miles of any given Arab country.

And I do believe that any further serious terror attack on this country, especially one using WMD, will unleash a rage in the American soul not seen since Pearl Harbor, if even then. The calls to cry havoc and unleash the dogs of war will rise to the heavens, overwhelm any attempts by elites to suppress them, and result in such a rain of death and destruction that the countries responsible for creating, supporting, aiding, abetting, or in any other way advancing the cause of the Islamic radicals, will be thrown back into insignificance for another five hundred years.

Four years ago most Americans were hardly aware that we had this enemy. Even fewer understood his purpose and nature. Now, after four years of sacrifice and a steady diet of confronting the true evil before us, only fools can still believe that this will not sooner or later end up in a violent clash of civilizations. The elites may not see it, may not wish to acknowledge it, but I think the public does, or at least is coming to. And I think we will be up to the challenge.

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