Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America (37 page)

Now, we can sit around making diversity quilts, singing love songs, and painting beautiful pieces of art about harmony and peace all we want, but it is not going to change reality. The pseudorealists of the West, pushing their touchy-feely, goody-two-shoes, righteous-indignation attitude and view of the world and how they think it should be, are chasing a concoction of idealistic imaginings like little children chasing butterflies. There is a big hornet’s nest ahead and they’re going to run headlong into it. Our lives are on the line. Our civilization is on the line. If the Islamo-fascists take over, the only art you are going to see is huge painting of mullahs and dictators along the highways. The only sounds you are going to hear are the moaning and groaning of someone’s hands being cut off, or the cries of a daughter being killed by her father in the name of honor, and the Islamic call to prayer “Allahu Akbar” resonating across town from the Islamic mosques five times a day. When was the last time you visited any country in the Middle East controlled by the Muslims? The last time I visited Beirut I was greeted as soon as I drove out of the airport by a huge picture of an Iranian ayatollah. This is Beirut, once known as the Paris of the Middle East. And you think it can’t happen here? Wake up. We didn’t believe it either when the war started in Lebanon.

We cannot play Russian roulette with our safety, the security of our children, and the future of Western civilization. We cannot base our survival strategy on some exaggerated theory of moderate Muslims who pick and choose verses trying to downplay the savagery behind Islam while refusing to see evil, refusing to hear about evil, and condemning the people who warn you about the evil coming your way. This is a flat-out suicidal strategy. The stakes are too high for the wrong assumptions. People tell me they don’t know whom to believe anymore; they are confused. I tell them to believe the people who preach in their mosques and say on TV that they want to kill them. They usually follow through.

I think the biggest disservice the American media did to the American public was not airing the videos of the beheadings of Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, and the rest of the innocent victims of Islamic horror. They got lots of airplay in the Middle East. Why not here? The American public needs to see what is at stake and what type of enemy we are dealing with. I have such respect for Sean Hannity for having the spine to play the audiotape of the beheading of Nick Berg. As painful as that was to hear, it shakes you to the core. I remember that precise moment I heard the audio. I had just finished shopping at the mall and having lunch with a friend. I got in my car, started driving down the street, and turned on the radio. I didn’t realize in the beginning what I was hearing. By the time my brain made the connection and heard Hannity explaining, I felt weak and nauseated. I had to pull to the side of the road, where I shakingly parked my car and then sat for twenty minutes staring at the road. It was a tremendous flashback to the violence, fear, and terror of those many years in Lebanon. It took me by surprise that I would react this way, as I was here in this wonderful country, where I have been enjoying freedom and security. At the same time it reinforced what I realized while watching the events of 9/11: what happened in Lebanon has come to America. We need to get active, get involved, and fight. We are at war.

The president and Congress need to declare war against radical Islam and Islamic countries harboring and financially supporting terrorist organizations. Stop pussyfooting around with political correctness, negotiations, and diplomacy and declare war. These radical Islamists are already acquiring nuclear suitcase bombs and trying to smuggle them into our country to detonate them in an American city or many cities simultaneously, as Osama bin Laden already stated.
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We are not talking about the death of a few thousand only. We are dealing with their goal of killing millions. The have already told us they want to kill at least 4 million Americans. Why aren’t we listening? We must declare war and set our eyes on victory, and only victory, as an end result. Partial victory, as was the case with the first Gulf War in the 1990s, is not victory. It’s a
hudna,
a trucelike period where our enemy gets more organized and strengthened and we get lulled into a feeling of accomplishment and success. It’s a lie. Victory is where you kill your enemy and eliminate its threat. Unless we act decisively and eliminate our enemy effectively, it is not victory. Now, as radicals seek to get their hands on nuclear bombs, I wonder if by the end of the day there will be anyone left alive to admit how wrong they were in their misjudgment. I wonder who will be calling for a special investigation and who will be around to hold congressional hearings?

I want to take this opportunity to humbly salute the men and women of the United States military who are fighting every day on the front lines away from their families and the comfort of America to protect our freedoms. As a survivor of war, I thank you humbly from the bottom of my heart for preparing a country where I can live and prosper because of your contribution to our laws, freedoms, safety, and country. Without your sacrifice America would not be what it is today. Without your dedication to what America stands for, people like me would not be able to be here writing this book and exercising my freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom to live in peace. You are not only my heroes and the heroes of America, but you are the heroes of millions around the world who wish they had a dedicated army like you to protect them, to fight for them, and to save them. Even though you may never hear it from those millions, allow me to speak for those under the tyranny of Islamic regimes. Even during the years in my bomb shelter I always knew that America’s military was a beacon of light to the world. My father would say that we needed America’s army to come liberate us like they liberated Europe in World War II. They were the true freedom fighters and protectors of human rights and dignity. I didn’t realize what shackles the U.S. Army had around its feet until I got to America and learned about our self-defeating, self-destructing groups such as the ACLU, who do not realize the value of our great military and the importance of supporting it in every way Citizens from all around the world look up to you as the defenders of freedom. They may not be able to verbalize it in their oppressive society, but they know it deep down inside their hearts. On their behalf I salute you one and all. God bless and protect you.

Our government needs to take stronger action not only against those persons who seek to destroy us, but also against those individuals who impede our fight on the war on terrorism, well intended or not. Tougher laws must be implemented that protect our right to life and liberty, and if that means a declaration of war putting other rights on hold for a while, so be it! As I have learned from my own life’s experiences, nothing in life is free, especially freedom. Here are several initiatives that I believe will protect us in the homeland.

We can arrest and expel all we want, but if the terrorists are sneaking right back in through our borders, we are wasting our time, financial resources, and efforts. We need to build fences that divide us from Mexico and Canada and install the latest technological equipment to monitor them and ensure that no one is crossing. People argue that it would be a major undertaking which would cost billions of dollars. We can take the billions of dollars annually that illegal immigrants are costing our nation in social services and crime (paid for by with our tax dollars),
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and use it for our protection instead. That money could be invested in a fence and employees monitoring surveillance cameras at our borders, stopping our enemy from entering the U.S. At this point the cost to security is not the poor Mexicans who want to come here to work for minimum wage or less. It is al Qaeda sneaking in a suitcase bomb to detonate in a major American city. The cost of a nuclear attack on New York City would be immeasurable. We already have legal ways available for anyone wishing to enter our country legally.

The immigration and naturalization process needs to be whipped into shape. Even after the transfer of INS immigration enforcement responsibilities into the DHS and forming the new Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) we still have problems. ICE needs to be more diligent with its lists of aliens who have applied for a visa or green card. But at least it is a step better than what we had with the INS. The INS approved Mohamed Atta’s student visa six months after he died while blowing up the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. How could someone actually look at Mohamad Atta’s application and stamp it approved? The INS should never have approved even his tourist visa, since he was considered an “intending immigrant,” one who was likely to seek permanent status. Atta overstayed his visa and should have been deported.
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There is only one ICE agent assigned to thousands of immigrants. The ICE cannot adequately achieve its goal of monitoring and keeping track of visitors without a system that monitors visa expirations and a method to track the location of foreign tourists.
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There are some four hundred thousand aliens still living and working within our nation’s borders even though they have been ordered deported. Some eighty thousand of these aliens have serious criminal histories. How can we expect so few agents to effectively deal with so vast a problem?
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America has an immigration lottery system available to people in every nation across the globe. Those who want to come here legally we welcome with open arms. They bring energy and excitement to our nation. They are the first-generation immigrants who come here and are willing to work and improve their lives and are a great asset to our nation. Those we gladly welcome.

Spying is essential to fighting the war on terrorism. We have satellites in space to obtain information about other countries, but there is nothing like good old human contact to acquire indispensable facts. How can you establish the trust of the locals who are essential for supplying information on the individual you’re spying on if you are a satellite traveling in space? It takes years for humans to gain the trust and confidence of different groups. We need to have our human intelligence embedded in every country around the world.

President Bush signed a secret order in 2002 sanctioning the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and foreigners, despite a current ban on domestic spying.
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Bush received a huge amount of criticism from the liberals on this matter. Why? Because we are spying on people talking with al Qaeda? Those Americans who actually have things to discuss with terrorist groups whose goal is to attack our country need to be watched and investigated. Do you think I have anything to hide from the FBI or CIA? They can listen to my conversations all they want. (They might get a few laughs.) If the FBI or CIA want to show up to search my home, I say: Be my guest. I have nothing to hide. The goal of the program is to quickly monitor phone calls and other modes of communication of individuals believed to be associated with al Qaeda. If the idealists get their way and keep blowing the cover on all our efforts to stop terrorism in the U.S., then the terrorists will get their way also.

When we experience another 9/11, and it’s only a matter of time, the same people who accuse the administration of tampering with their right to privacy will complain that the government wasn’t doing enough to stop potential terrorist attacks. But will there be anyone or any place to hold hearings as to who dropped the ball on security after the radiation levels drop in Washington, D.C.?

We are at war, and in times of war some freedoms may have to be infringed upon until the fight is over. We need to start implementing steps to find terrorists here, in America. That includes profiling. Almost every terrorist attack in the past three decades has been perpetrated by Muslim men between the ages of sixteen and forty. To keep in line with the usual newspaper reports about crime, where detailed eyewitness descriptions are given in the hopes that readers can help locate the perpetrators, let’s add more descriptive language: men with Middle Eastern features, some with beards, between the ages of sixteen and forty. If the press thinks it’s doing a good deed by telling us whom to look out for after a crime, why do editorial writers get so bent out of shape when authorities want to describe to the cops and airport screeners whom to look out for before there is an attack?

What we call profiling and security searches in America is a joke. I know what profiling is about. When I worked in Israel and traveled to Lebanon every weekend to check on my parents, I had to go through an intensive search every time I came back into Israel. And this was every week. Even though I was well known as a news anchor, that did not make any difference. Every Sunday afternoon when I entered Israel, a female soldier took me into a room and asked me to take my outer clothes off. I was then asked to empty my bag. The lady squeezed my toothpaste out, turned my hair dryer on, opened the wrapping of every tampon I had, and patted my half-naked body, including my breasts and between my legs. That’s what I call security. I gladly submitted to it every time. I knew the threats the Israelis faced and that they were protecting my security and well-being just as much as theirs. I was willing to give up five minutes of inconvenience and a somewhat uncomfortable procedure in exchange for safety and peace of mind. That’s what you do when you are really serious about protecting your fellow citizens.

There is nothing wrong with profiling and identifying suspicious behavior. Most Arab Americans, who happen to be Christians, have no problem being profiled, me included.
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I would much rather be inconvenienced for few minutes than risk losing my life and the lives of my loved ones because some fanatic is dying to kill.