Paris Terror

Like many of you I am sure, I spent much of last evening glued to the telly (and Twitter) watching coverage of the terror attacks in Paris, perpetrated almost certainly by one or another subsidiary of radical Islam. I grow weary of apologists who lecture me on the vast number of Mohammedans who are not actively involved in terror. Yes. I am bright enough to make a distinction. But I am also bright enough to realize that there is a vast heat sink of support that exists for radical Islam nestled snugly in the heart of "moderate" Islam. One simply does not exist without the oxygen supplied by the other. Not to mention the double standard applied to "moderate" Islam, one that rises when one considers the lunacy of a hypothetical. worldwide Catholic terror organization dedicated to the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire actively killing people in modern national capitals, who behead apostates for the sport of YouTube videos. "Moderate" Catholics would be pilloried daily and the entire religion would be smeared and rooted out by secular governments appalled by the anti-modernity and the violence.  Such a hypothetical (as you already know) is playing out before our eyes, while our leaders speak of  "the struggle against violent extremism" (Clinton, Hillary Rodham) without the courage to name its source.

We--the font of freedom and liberty in the modern world--have become content to diminish ourselves as agents of goodness and right, preferring instead to ponder what additional benefits we might receive from the sweat of the brows of others, while our ability to contend with horrors such as last night's continues to decline. The vermin who carried this out are hatched and succored from a known location, their supply lines and their means of funding are known, and their general movements are well-understood. We (the West) knew and know with certainty that evil-doers were sprinkled among the refugees, but our empathy prevented acting to stem the tide.  What is required is the will to challenge them, but we appear to be lacking it.  Were the will present, the ways are increasingly absent.  We look at our defense budget as that which is to be resourced after all else is well-stocked, rather than that which is first to be funded. We "lead from behind" while doing the absolute minimum to retain some semblance of world leadership, creating for ourselves seemingly insoluble situations through our weakness and then shrugging our shoulders at the lack of good options available.

Some see last night's violence as the path to the Presidency of a candidate without restraint, who makes them believe that he is all powerful, all knowing, and all capable. He provides us with this persona through his carefully managed irresponsibility aimed at whipping up the masses without so much as a plan for a plan nor a hint as to who would help him implement it, had he stumbled upon one. Perhaps, but I will prefer to continue to believe the American public will select a man or woman of balance, strength, resolve, and character as the reality of what we face further wakes us from our increasingly isolationist slumber.

It is high time that serious people began to run the show once again.  Let us hope that we are not too much damaged before they can grab an oar.