Justifying terror

I’m not into witchcraft, but if I were, I’d be heading out this Halloween with some potent spells in my back pocket. Then again, if I were into sorcery, I wouldn’t have to wait till the day of magic to get the job done. Just aim the curse at the culprits and go!

Get rid of the evil and pave the way for, as they say, truth and justice. And peace.

Isn’t that what “they” say we are supposed to work toward? Isn’t that what the foaming-at-the-mouth liberals are spouting on college campuses during 21st century teach-ins? Isn’t that what the intellectual elite are accusing the victims of ignoring?

Among the latest examples of such idiocy is an author honored with the prestige and money of a Nobel Prize. No poverty stricken Third-Worlder he. No desert nomad or barefoot cave-dweller. One might suspect that Egypt’s Naguib Mahfouz lives a privileged life – one that enables him to give interviews in which he denounces the seekers of justice and legitimizes and empowers the killers.

In a reported interview in Al-Ahram, an Egyptian English-language weekly, the gracious gentleman accuses the United States of terrorism, saying the war on terrorism is itself “just as despicable a crime” as the 9-11 attacks!

While couching his calumny in sympathetic words, claiming grief “for the thousands of innocent civilians whose lives were destroyed,” he goes on to equate that with what he describes as “bombing innocent civilians” in Afghanistan. He goes on to call U.S. actions “folly” and advises this country “to discern the nature of and reasons for terrorism.”

Astonishingly, he equates terrorism with an illness and says the cause must be attacked, not the symptoms.

I can hardly wait for the psychiatric business to classify it that way so that the perpetrators won’t be held responsible for their actions. Just imagine what lawyers would do with that if any terrorists ever wind up in a courtroom?

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client is not a bad person, he’s a sick man and as such, is not responsible for his actions. Society didn’t respect him. His mind and, indeed, his brain were affected by the hardships and challenges he faced because the whole world didn’t agree with him. It would not be fair to punish him for something over which he had no control. He’s suffering from terrorism. It’s not his fault. Actually ladies and gentlemen, it’s your fault, and you can right that wrong by finding him not guilty.

Don’t laugh; stranger things have happened.

Naguib Mahfouz accused the United States of causing terrorism by its defense of murdered citizens, and he went on to say that those actions “now even give terrorism additional justification.”

Isn’t it reassuring to know that terrorism in and of itself is justified, and opposition to it makes it even more justified!

What perversion would cause educated, presumably civilized and mentally normal people to justify actions by those whose stated and specific goal is to destroy the way of life that critic enjoys?

The problem with all of this misguided criticism is that these people have their priorities skewed – to say nothing of their morality and ethics. In their twisted world, the innocent dead of 9-11 are justifiably dead because the killers had “just cause” for their actions.

Never mind the validity of the “just cause” – just the fact that they had their own justification for what they did, no matter how perverted, makes it OK in the eyes of those who, if truth be known, hate the United States and Israel and Christians and Jews and capitalism and freedom and, yes, even Western Civilization and all it encompasses.

They will deny it of course, but it’s true. What sort of warped mentality would benefit from the largesse that such culture bestows on its citizens and, while under that umbrella of safety, lash out and call for its very destruction?

Are they crazy? Do they have a death wish? Why would these people of the 21st century be encouraging a terrorist movement whose goal is to destroy all we have and turn the clock and civilization back a thousand years?

I ask again, are they crazy?

Is that how they really want to live, or do they believe they would be safe and the “result” will be for everyone else? Elitist to the end. They sound like Marie Antoinette on the way to the guillotine.

Actually that brings to mind what should happen. Heads should roll, literally or figuratively. Not of the critics although many of them should face the firing squad for treason.

No, the rolling heads should belong to those at whom the war on terrorism is directed. Not innocent civilians but the dangerous men among them who plot the murderous end of us all.

The evil is among us around the world and unless it is cut out, it spreads like a cancer. It already has, because of our neglect. It’s time for radical surgery; if not, the surgeon (America) will die.

Would that a simple curse on Oct. 31 would do the job.