We are in a Human Rights war — and THIS war can end when we have a World Without Dictators.

My post of about a year ago includes:

http://tomgrey.motime.com/1068850240#172420

“Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe.” This sentence, spoken last week by George W. Bush, is about the most jaw-dropping repudiation of an established bipartisan policy ever made by a US president.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23012-2004Oct10.html

Of course we’ve all been regaled with stories of the glorious pinnacle of enlightened civilisation that was the Caliphate, resplendent while Europeans lived in squalor and barbarity. But the fall of the Abassid Caliphate was really the high-water mark in Islamic civilisation, and no matter how bejewelled it may look from 900 years’ distance, we can be sure that it was a far cry from what any of us, even the most blinkered po-mo afficionado, would recognise as civilised. But as a prelapsarian Eden is it seen by the Jihadists, and they want it back.

If ever there’s a unifying factor in nations or groups waging senseless war on their neighbours it’s this snivelling cultural inferiority complex. The ‘root causes’ of Islamic terror delve a lot deeper than the glib shibboleths of the Not In Our Name crowd can acknowledge. Grubbing them out is going to take a lot more than pious talk and wishful thinking.

A whole lot of Americans think we are safer, by the looks of our airports. They were ghost towns for months after 9-11, but now have returned to the status quo ante. If you ask the flight crews, however, they will tell you passengers are today watching each other and reporting suspicious people like crazy. This may be the most important of all post 9-11 security changes. But how fragile is it? Can one or two more terrorist hijackings end the current serenity? …who knows?

And Kerry could?

No terrorism is acceptable, and there never will be an acceptable level of terrorism. We must fight with all our military might until all terrorism has been erased from the Earth.

Anyhoo:

Brent Scowcroft, who was Bush I’s National Security Advisor, said something very similar a couple years ago. He even used the word “nuisance” just like Kerry.

And, whatever the status of “are we safer,” the related question “could we be safer here in the homeland” is certainly “yes.” Kerry has pointed out many of the ways that Bush is not keeping the homeland secure. And, of course, there’s the small matter of three million illegal aliens who’ll stream over our borders this year. I doubt whether the Bush administration will guarantee that none of them are terrorists.

And Dilys, I think you’re right about liberal arrogance. But Jews with any historical sense at all should know that when the chips are down, the only club we’ll ever be welcomed to with outstretched arms is our own.

Roger, you’re starting to sound like Don Rumsfeld. Don’t be insulted, he’s one of my favorite administration officials.

Oh, and cute picture of your daughter and the typewriter yesterday. Truly priceless.

When they murdered Israeli athletes in Munich, was that “an acceptable level of terrorism”?

When they interrupted revelers in Netanya with a suicide bomb for the bar mitzvah boy, was that “an acceptable level of terrorism”?

When they strafed bullets through the backs of escaping schoolchildren in Beslan, children who had been raped and tormented for days, was that “an acceptable level of terrorism”?

When they turned a Bali nightclub into a charnel house, was that “an acceptable level of terrorism”?

When they sawed the heads off Daniel Pearl and Nicholas Berg and Ivaylo Kepov and Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley and Kenneth Bigley and, and, and, and, was that “an acceptable level of terrorism”?

When they lobbed a bomb at the USS Cole, was that “an acceptable level of terrorism”?

When they destroyed a Jewish community centre, killing dozens in Buenos Aires, was that “an acceptable level of terrorism”?

When they blew up a synagogue in Istanbul while worshippers were at prayer, was that “an acceptable level of terrorism”?

When they bombed a subway in Moscow and a commuter train in Madrid, was that “an acceptable level of terrorism”?

When they flattened a hotel full of holidayers in the Sinai, was that “an acceptable level of terrorism”?

When they commandeered the airplanes that obliterated the World Trade Centre and thousands of innocents, was that “an acceptable level of terrorism”?

When they aimed two of those airplanes at the very symbols of American democracy, was that “an acceptable level of terrorism”?

They have taunted us, tricked us, threatened us, mocked us, manipulated us, schemed against us, sabotaged us, abused us, debased us, dehumanized us and slaughtered us.

They have turned back the clock to a time of darkness and savagery.

Tell me, Mr. Kerry, at what point does the level of terror become unacceptable?

When is it time to say, “basta: enough is enough”?

Half a million dead? A million? More?

What’s your bottom line, your tipping point, your “do not pass go”?

Tell me, Mr. Kerry, because I and millions of other potential terror victims are still dying to know.

WHY? SENATOR EDWARDS, IN THE FIRST OCTOBER SURPRISE, HAS INFORMED US THAT IF THE DEMOCRATS ARE ELECTED, CHRISTOPHER REEVES WILL RISE UP, PUT ON HIS SUPERMAN SUIT AND PROTECT US ALL.

One, Kerry panders to fear and denial on the part of anyone, Jewish or otherwise, who cannot face the terrorist threat, and wishes it would all just go away.

Further, visualize the map on which many Kerry voters emotionally draw the boundaries regarding who is With Us and who is Against Us.

That is, some of Gould’s expatriate outrage is likely based on the media-identified American liberal’s implicit assumption that the foreign intelligentsia will hail them as kin, comes the revolution, and then they will all be jolly and vindicated together whilst the Philistine Know-nothing Lumpen Flyover Redneck Petit Bourgeois Have-a-good-day Other Americans Get Theirs.

Welcome home, Carol.