Why remembering Pearl Harbor remains important today

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The USS Maryland (L) survived the attack, the USS Oklahoma (R) did not

On December 7, 1941 the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service delivered a devastating blow to the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii.

This was a preemptive surprise attack by the Japanese, with the hope that they could decimate the U.S. Pacific Fleet. The Japanese believed that the United States was the greatest potential threat to their planned expansion of power in the Pacific region.

The early morning attack would launch in two waves from a half-dozen Japanese air craft carriers. Some 350 aircraft fighters and bombers would sink four American battleships and damage four more, sink eight other vessels, destroy 188 aircraft, and damage 159 more.

Over 2,400 Americans were killed with more than 1,100 injured. Japanese losses of life and equipment were minimal in comparison.

In response, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered one of the most famous and impassioned speeches in U.S. history to a joint session of the U.S. Congress the following day. It began as follows:

"Yesterday, December 7th, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. 

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific."

To that point, the United States had been able to stay out of active involvement in World War II. Meanwhile, the Japanese had become involved in an "Axis" powers agreement with Germany under Adolf Hitler and Italy under Benito Mussolini. Their aim was nothing less than global domination.

Roosevelt's speech called on the Congress to declare war against Japan, which it did within the hour. Germany and Italy would then declare war on the United States. Thus began U.S. involvement in World War II, the deadliest war in human history.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese Marshall Admiral of the Navy and leader of their combined fleet during the war, did not believe that Japan could win a lengthy war with America. 

Following the attack, Yamamoto is alleged to have written in his diary "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

American had been trying to stay out of World War II to that point. Formally declaring neutrality in the opening years of conflict, the U.S. gradually began to provide aid to Great Britain and others, and imposed economic sanctions on Japan.

The Japanese attack did indeed awaken America from its slumber. It forced us to realize that we could no longer ignore the expansionist aims of Hitler, Mussolini, and Japanese Emperor Hirohito. 

We were now forced to either allow these ideologies to overrun Europe and Asia, eventually becoming a major threat to our own security, or go to war to try and defeat them.

In the end, American military might and civilian industry proved the difference in winning the war. However, it would not be the last time that our nation was attacked on our own shores, or threatened by an ideology bent on world domination.

Flash forward nearly 60 years to September 11, 2001. Most Americans reading this require no reminder of what happened on that equally beautiful morning. Another sneak attack from the skies, this time from radical extremists bent on spreading the dominance of an Islamic worldwide caliphate.

That extremist ideology did not begin on 9/11, and it has not gone away today. The Islamists continue to spread their hope for a renewed global caliphate ruling under Sharia law in both aggressive and passive ways. 

Islamism Series: American Jihad in the second decade after 9/11

On July 23, 2008 here at my website, I introduced the "Islamism Series", which was inspired by a class on 'Radical Islam' that I was teaching at that time.

Over the next year and a half, I wrote 20 pieces in the series. The aim was to educate folks on the history of radical Islam, to comment on current Islamic terrorist attacks, and to keep Americans alert to the continuing threat.

As with other series that have resumed in recent days with the re-launch of this website, the "Islamism Series" returns as well. As with the others, it will continue into the future with periodic articles which will continue those original goals of education and commentary on what I believe to be that continuing threat.

Perhaps you've forgotten, or you haven't put the pieces together for yourself. With so much going on these days in the nation and world, who could blame you? But the fact is that radical Islamic attacks right here in America are continuing.

Since the historically devastating attacks of September 11, 2001 there have been at least 14 successful attacks by adherents to the tenets of radical Islam right here in the United States. There have been further countless planned attacks which have been thwarted by law enforcement.

Some would have you believe that this is a brand new phenomenon. Perhaps actual terror groups such as ISIS are just beginning to formally sanction attacks. However, individuals inspired by groups like ISIS have been committing terror attacks for some time.

Of the successful post-9/11 attacks, 13 have occurred since 2009. Nine have happened in just the last four and a half years. If anything, the pace seems to be picking up. This is a problem that is going to get worse, possibly much worse, before it ever gets better.

So in renewing this series, let's start by reviewing what has happened since the last piece was published in February 2010. Something to catch us up. A reminder that we need to continue to be vigilant.

That last piece in the "Islamism Series" came out in February 2010, just months after a pair of attacks on the United States military here in our homeland. 

In June of 2009, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad (born Carlos Bledsoe) committed a drive-by shooting outside of a military recruiting center in Little Rock, Arkansas. In the shooting, U.S. Army Private William Long was killed and another soldier was wounded.

Five months later, U.S Army Major Nidal Hasan, an army psychiatrist, committed the largest mass shooting on a United States military base in our nation's history. Hasan killed 13 and wounded some three dozen others. 

Since publication of that last piece in the series to this point, more blood has been shed on American soil by Islamic radicals. The first actually came on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

On September 11, 2011 in Waltham, Massachusetts, three men had their throats slashed and were nearly decapitated by Ibragim Todashev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Both of these men had Chechen family backgrounds, and had come under the influence of radical Islam.

If the name of that second killer in Waltham sounds familiar to you, that's because it should. A year and a half later, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed the Boston Marathon bombing. The brothers killed three, caused 16 others to lose limbs, and injured hundreds more.

In September of 2014, Alton Nolen was suspended from his job at Vaughan Foods in Moore, Oklahoma, just outside of Oklahoma City. Nolen went home, got a knife, and made his way to the company's main offices. There he attacked one female employee, slashing her throat and completely beheading her. He then slashed another female employee as well. 

As he attempted to behead that second woman, Nolen's attack was stopped when he was shot by the company C.O.O., who also happened to be a reserve sheriff deputy. An FBI investigation revealed that he had become radicalized, and used "Jah'Keem Yisrael" as his name on Facebook.

The following year, in July 2015, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez committed a pair of drive-by shootings at U.S. military facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He killed four U.S. Marines and a Navy sailor in the attack, injuring a police officer and a military recruiter.

Ex-Phil Schilling a Witch Hunt Victim

By now, most people are aware that former Phillies 1990's pitching ace Curt Schilling was recently suspended from his gig covering the Little League World Series for ESPN, and removed for a week from his Sunday Night Baseball broadcast on the network.

What most are unaware of is the true reason: a "witch hunt" mentality which saw his actual actions distorted completely by the numerous people who dislike his outspokenness and his politics.

Now the rest of this post is going to deal with difficult topics like "math" and "truth", so if you have a rough time with either of those, or prefer your "sports" in the tame realm of scores and trades and such, you might want to just move along.

But if you genuinely care about why it is important that you NOT blindly follow the anti-Schillites, not allow yourself to take part in this partisan witch hunt, then please, read on.

Let's first address what actually happened to cause the suspension. Schilling was accused of making, or more appropriately sharing, an "anti-Muslim" statement.

He was further charged by some with comparing Muslims to Nazis. Some never actually state what it is specifically that he said or shared, just that whatever it was, was "offensive" in some way.

Here is the specific post that caused all of the uproar, unfiltered:

The Most Dangerous Woman in the World

However you may personally think that the most dangerous woman in the world is supposed to look, it probably is nothing like this 29-year old Northern Irish white mother of three.

Samantha Lewthwaite, also notoriously known as the "White Widow", is arguably the holder of that 'Most Dangerous Woman in the World' title. The current internationally wanted fugitive has certainly earned a nomination for the title.

She was born in Banbridge, County Down, on December 5th, 1983 to parents who met when her father, a British Army soldier, was stationed in her mother's native Northern Ireland during the 1970's.

The family moved to Aylesbury, a town about 45 miles northwest of London, when she was a small girl, and it was there that she attended school. But it was not to remain a happy family life. At age 10, her parents separated. Friends say that she was greatly affected and disillusioned by the split, and gradually sought comfort in relationships with her Muslim neighbors, whom she felt had a stronger family ethic.

During her teenage years she seriously began to turn to Islam herself, and at about age 17 she officially converted, taking on the name 'Sherafiyah' in her new faith. She enrolled at the School of Oriental and African Studies near the British Museum, and began work towards a degree in Religion and Politics.

Sometime in 2001, she 'met' a man named Germaine Lindsay online in an Islamic internet chatroom. They soon met in person, and by October of 2002 the couple married using Islamic names, 'Asmantara' for her, and 'Jamal' for him. Though using an official Islamic ceremony, the wedding did not take place in a mosque or other licensed location, and so was never officially registered. Her parents, who never approved of her conversion, did not attend.

The pair would have two children together (she is now believed to have 3-4 kids altogether), but much as her childhood, her own family was not destined for a life of happy togetherness.

Birth Pains of the New Caliphate

It's been a couple of years since I've seriously broached this topic. The recent riotous uprising in Egypt, categorized by the usual American media suspects as attempts at "democracy", bring the topic clearly back to relevancy.

In actuality, the topic has always been relevant, but it always takes something major to wake up the American public.

For the great unwashed, and for those media talking heads who nearly lost their own heads this past week at the hands of these alleged democracy-loving demonstrators, let's do a quick refresher on just what exactly is the Islamic "caliphate", and why we all should be concerned about it.

A very long story begins in the first half of the 7th century A.D. with the birth of Islam under it's founder, Muhammad, a man believed by followers of that faith to be the greatest and final messenger of God. Muhammad first spread this new faith by peaceful preaching and teaching, but he and his followers eventually turned to violent and forcible means.

In the aftermath of Muhammad's death in 632, physical and spiritual battles arose for control of Islam by two groups who we continue that struggle today, 1,500 years later -  the Sunni and the Shiites. The Sunni were larger and stronger, and overall Islamic power was centralized under a leader who was known as the 'Caliph', the successor to Muhammad. The lands and peoples over which the Caliph held control became known as the Islamic Caliphate.

For centuries this Caliphate spread by conquest known as 'Jihad' throughout the lands of the Middle East, across northern Africa, and into both Spain and eastern Europe. By the end of the 17th century, just before the emergence of America as a nation and culture, the Caliphate controlled an area as large as the old Roman Empire.

Real American Hero: Brandon Darby

For the past couple of years I have written a semi-regular series of articles here titled "Real American Hero", all of the previous entries of which can be viewed by clicking on that 'label' at the bottom of this original post here at the http://www.mattveasey.com/ website.

Beginning with the very first article whose subject matter was Arizona Senator and former American POW John McCain, each of the entries has highlighted a hero from the American military. These were people who put their lives on the line, and in many instances laid down those lives, for their country. And except for McCain, every one of them was virtually anonymous outside of their own closest inner circle of family and friends.

But it is not just within the military that we can find individuals whose significant contributions have gone mostly unnoticed, and this article is going to begin the process of incorporating some of those civilian stories into the series as well. The story of Brandon Darby, a former radical leftist activist who openly called for the overthrow of the U.S. government turned Real American Hero, is a fitting one with which to begin.

Darby is a good ol' Texas boy who grew up to harbor and cultivate anti-government and anti-establishment feelings. He became an outspoken critic of fellow Texan George W. Bush during his presidency, in particular following Hurrican Katrina. It was in the relief response to the Katrina disaster in Louisiana that Darby began to come to some prominence.

As Matthew Vadum tells the story in Town Hall magazine, Darby used $50 of his own money to co-found the group 'Common Ground', a supposed relief agency that was in actuality a far-Left political activist organization that included a number of former Black Panther members. It was during and thanks to his experiences with this group that Darby's social and political viewpoint began to change and mature.

Islamism Series: What Are We Prepared to Do?

In the 1987 film 'The Untouchables', Kevin Costner plays famed lawman Elliot Ness, who is tasked to lead a fight against the violent empire of infamous crime boss Al Capone in Chicago during the Prohibition era.

In the beginning, Ness tries some of the usual law enforcement tactics of the day, but appears to be going nowhere in his efforts to defeat Capone.

Finally his right-hand man in the film, street cop 'Jim Malone' as played in an Oscar-winning performance by Sean Connery, turns to Ness and asks him a blunt question:

"What are you prepared to do?"

This is always the single most important question that needs to be asked, understood, and answered before committing to fight any war at any level.

Whether at the level of law enforcement fighting criminal groups to keep the public safe on the home front, or at the level of national armed forces fighting enemies from abroad with the same goal, this simple question cannot be avoided.

Decades ago a war was declared against the United States by the forces of radical Islam around the world. It was declared with public statements, and those statements were backed up with physical attacks against American troops, citizens, and interests abroad and eventually with attacks against the American homeland.

The Two Millenium Miracle

What do you believe about Christmas? At this time of year, billions of people on the planet are celebrating the birth of a baby that happened over two milleniums ago in a small town in what we know today as the Middle East.

Have you ever stopped to ask a simple question, one that would appear to be logical? That question would be, why?

Let's take a trip back in time. We'll make it a reality trip, one that journeys into the real world of those days and a few more over the ensuing centuries. Starting in first century Bethlehem in Judea, we find it dry and hot. No one exchanged Christmas cards. There were no trees being decorated. No one wore a crucifix around their neck.

Depending on whatever you choose to believe, on one mostly quiet night a teenage girl gave birth in a room, or a cave, or a barn, or a stable. Her child was a son, and she and her older carpenter fiancee would eventually take this child home with them to Nazareth and raise him through boyhood and adolescence into early manhood.

Islamism Series: Call a Spade a Spade

The man shouted "Allahu Akbar!" as he pulled out the FN Herstal tactical pistol which he had purchased back in the summer from a gun store in Texas.

He then proceeded to methodically assassinate 13 Americans and injure dozens more in what has been described as everything from a 'crazed attack' to a 'shooting rampage'.

In fact, last week's attacks at the Fort Hood, New Jersey army base have been called everything but what they were: a terrorist attack by a radical Islamist, the first on U.S. soil since 9/11/2001.

39-year old Nidal Malik Hasan is a psychiatrist by trade, a trade which he learned as an enlisted man in the United States Army.

How could an American soldier shoot fellow soldiers and others? Was he simply mad? The obvious answer to anyone looking with clear vision is that Hasan was not mad, at least not clinically insane. What Hasan wa,s and continues to be, is an Islamist terrorist.

Islamism Series: The Two Jihads

Back in April of this year, local Philadelphia Bulletin writer Herb Denenberg pointed out that the War on Terror (or the 'contingency operation' or whatever other soft-sounding name the Obama administration wants to rename it today) needed to be fought on two fronts.

Fail to fight battles aggressively on either front, and we are in danger of ultimately losing the entire war.

Denenberg opined that al Qaeda and other radical Islamist terror organizations and their sponsor states were fighting the war on those two fronts: the 'Explosive Jihad' being carried out by the terror organizations through bombings, beheadings, and other planned mass attacks and the 'Stealth Jihad' being carried out by the slow manipulation of populations, politicians, universities, and cultures.

That 'Explosive Jihad' has again blasted into the American news headlines in recent days with the FBI raids in the New York borough of Queens.

The Feds uncovered the first proven al Qaeda cell operating on U.S. soil since the 9/11 attacks, and moved quickly to take them down with raids in New York and Denver. Complete plot details have not been released, but as reported in the New York Daily News, this was "the real deal" and not some informant-based action.

These raids follow on the heels of the May foiling of a major plot to bomb a pair of New York synagogues and then shoot down an airliner with a Stinger missile. That plot was foiled when the New York-area Joint Terrorism Task Force uncovered and infiltrated the scheme.

The NYJTTF supplied the cell with phony plastic explosives. When the terrorists planted these fake bombs, the Feds moved in and made their arrests. The Daily News reported also that one of the suspects, Abdul Rahman, stated "I hate those motherfuckers, those fucking Jewish bastards. I would like to get a synagogue."

Where Were You?

I've already heard it asked in my office, on the radio, and in a couple of other venues this morning: Where were you when you first heard about the attacks on 9/11? The answers have been numerous, from people sitting in their cars in traffic, to folks working as police officers here in Philly, to folks who had the day off and were watching it all on television.

Being a police officer who has worked the 'Last Out' shift for a few years, meaning that I worked a steady shift of overnight hours from approximately 11pm until 7am, I have often speculated that there must have been at least some officers of the NYPD who worked overnight and had just gotten home and in bed by 8am or so on the morning of September 11th, 2001. I was usually in bed by that time after working that shift myself.

I can imagine such an officer sleeping away their day, perhaps with their cellphone off or on 'silent' and with their home phone ring turned off. Again, this was my habit after working overnight. The last thing that I wanted to have happen was for anyone to wake me up for anything, let alone for some random call from work to reach me. Who could ever imagine receiving the call that those officers may have missed and later found on their answering machines?

Imagine those officers working all night, getting home on a typical Tuesday morning, and then waking up at around 3pm before finally hearing from some source: a phone message, the news on television or radio, some friend or neighbor in person telling them what had happened. Of course your first call is going to be in to your work place, and then begins the likely process of getting ready to head in to work, possibly having to make some special travel arrangements to get there.

All of that is speculative, but it takes no stretch of the imagination to consider that there were probably hundreds of such officers in New York city on that fateful day. Where was I that morning? I would imagine it's pretty typical, and typically uninteresting. I was assigned as a Detective with the Northeast Detective Division of the Philadelphia Police Department at the time, but was on a scheduled day off.

At about 7:15am I had left our home in the Somerton section of Philadelphia to drive our daughter Melissa to school. She had just begun her sophomore year at Archbishop Ryan High School in the Far Northeast section of the city, and it took me about 35 minutes to get her over to the building and out of the car, and drive back to our house.

I had been logged on to my home PC before we left, checking my email while waiting for Melissa to finish getting herself ready, and was listening to Philly's local "smooth jazz" radio station. It was such a beautiful morning when we left, and the mood with the jazz music was so mellow, that I left it playing so that I could return to this same atmosphere.

I got back and things were just as I had hoped. The day was still blossoming in gorgeous style with mellow temperatures and a high, clear blue sky. The jazz music was keeping that atmosphere just as mellow inside my house, and I sat back down to the computer. Many mornings would find me turning on and following Fox News, but this morning the music was so perfect for the day that I just left it play and kept out the news of the world.

At about 9am, my home phone rang, and it was my wife Debbie calling. She had a bit of an excited tone to her voice as she quickly asked "Are you watching TV?" I told her that I wasn't, and she replied "Well turn it on, they just bombed our embassy!" I told her okay, and we quickly hung up the phone. But I didn't turn on the TV right away. She called back a couple minutes later and said "Do you have the TV on?" When I told her that I hadn't turned it on yet, she more insistently told me "Turn it on!"

So I grabbed the remote and clicked on the television, wondering what could be upsetting her so much about one of our embassies being bombed. Not that it wouldn't be a big story, but I just didn't understand why she would be calling from her work about it. As the screen came in to view there on Fox was a picture of the first Twin Tower in the minutes after it had been struck. I told her "That's not an embassy, it's the Twin Towers, and a plane hit it" She just told me to keep it on, that they were talking about a possible terrorist attack, and we again hung up.

As I sat back and watched those early confusing moments, something almost unreal happened on the screen. While they were talking about a plane hitting the tower, and speculating on the nature of that crash, suddenly there was another jet coming in to view in the picture. In the split second that it took for the mind to go from "What the heck is a plane doing flying that low when one already hit the tower" to "Oh my God!" the second plane struck the second Twin Tower.

At that immediate instant it became clear that this was no accident. There was no doubt that this was an attack. Now the question was, what next? I clearly remember stopping right there and saying a prayer.

The rest of my day was filled with following the developments on Fox News and the other news channels. My wife was let out early from her work, and on her way home she picked up our daughter from school. I found that my other two older daughters were safe, and closely followed things to see if Philadelphia would ever become involved or our officers mobilized. Neither ever happened.

That is forever how I will remember that day, that moment. The incredible peace and tranquility of that morning suddenly ended by the phone call, and then that incredible moment on television of the second plane as it hit the World Trade Center. Eight years later it still is as clear a memory as the sky was on that Tuesday morning. I imagine that it will forever remain that crystal clear, and I hope and pray that there is never another day like it, or worse, in our nations future.

9/11

"The British are Coming!" "Remember the Alamo!" "A Date Which Will Live in Infamy" "9/11"

All of these phrases are now burned by history into the collective American consciousness, automatically bringing us back to times when our nation was under attack right here on our own soil.

However, the first three are actually a bit misleading in that regard. Neither the British attacks in the Revolutionary War, the Mexican attack in Texas, or the Japanese attack in Hawaii happened in an official state of the Union.

In the first, the United States was not a fully formed, world recognized, independent nation, but instead was fighting for some type of independence from the British empire. It shouted a warning among the American colonists that British troops were approaching, and is usually specifically related to the midnight ride of Paul Revere.

It also hearkens us back to a time when British 'red coats' were firing on Americans, burning homes and businesses, and marching across the land that we now know as the United States of America.

The battle at the Alamo mission also was not fought on what was then technically United States soil, but was fought between the Republics of Mexico and Texas in the aftermath of the Mexican revolution. It was a decade before Texas would officially become a U.S. state.

The Texan forces fighting for their independence from the Mexican government where vastly outnumbered, yet fought off the Mexican troops valiantly before finally being overrun and massacred. The incident rallied Texans to eventual victory, and ultimately to statehood.

Where Will You Be When the Missiles Drop?

During his State of the Union address back in January of 2002, President George W. Bush famously called the nations of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea an "Axis of Evil", criticizing nations that sponsored terrorism and were seeking weapons of mass destruction.

Liberals everywhere, and especially their cheer leading media, called Bush a war monger and a liar, among other choice names.

Sitting here over seven years later, we understand far better that President Bush was in actuality simply a truth teller.

At the time of Bush's speech, former Iraqi leader Sadaam Hussein was still in power. He had already shown his propensity for evil and terror by using weapons of mass destruction on his own people.

He tortured political enemies, and his sons used 'rape rooms' to satisfy their own lusts and to further punish political enemies. Thankfully, the United States acted to rid the world of this evil power structure.

In Iran, a crazed President came to power under with the blessing of the Islamic religious leadership. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began to assail the United States with threats of destruction and domination by Islam and accelerated Iranian efforts to develop or otherwise obtain nuclear weapons. A nuclear weapon in the hands of a fundamentalist Islamic regime will mean devastating war at some point in the near future. They are simply that crazy.

Islamism Series: The Brotherhood

With the new kinder, gentler Obama administration becoming more and more entrenched by the week, their media apparatus and their own actions have thus far been successful in lulling us to sleep.

To ignore the presence and growth of radical Islam here in the United States, to sleep the sleep of the dreamers who believe that a simple regime change here in America has made any difference to those radicals whatsoever, places us all in greater danger.

On Monday, April 6th, 2009 the Hudson Institute, one of the most respected research think-tanks in the world, issued a report on 'The Muslim Brotherhood in the United States'. In short, the report states that "Leadership of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood has said that its goal was and is jihad aimed at destroying the U.S. from within." 

The report goes on to talk about the stated means of making this happen, by establishing Islamic organizations here in the U.S. that are under the control of The Brotherhood.

The organization has for more than four decades been building a wide-ranging and elaborate cadre of front groups while denying publicly that it has any desire to topple the American governmental structure.

The Hudson report, written by Steven Merley, says that the current operating goal has been in existence for at least two decades, and that is one of the concept of 'Settlement'. This benign-sounding term basically means the establishment, organization, and growth of Islam here in America.

The reality behind this soft-sounding term of 'settlement', as a 1991 document published by U.S. Brotherhood leader Mohammed Akram said, is quite simply "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within."

No Monkeying Around With Obama

To say that the world has gone overboard with political correctness is an understatement, and this is nowhere more visible than in the world of editorial cartoons.

You learned in recent years that you can't draw an editorial cartoon of the Islamic prophet Muhammed without risk of being shot dead, blown up or decapitated by some radical Islamic lunatic.

Having a sense of humor is an integral part of the human experience. And in democratic societies, freedom of speech including a free press is a vital piece of our civilization puzzle.

But it's not just the radical Islamic world that has lost its collective sense of humor, or at the very least its willingness to allow sarcastic expression. The more radical members of the black community here in America are at it again as well. Write or draw something that those people don't like, and they are all over you like white on rice.

Oops, did I call them 'those people'? Better be careful, they might find something to take as a personal affront in a few typewritten words. I might get a letter from the NAACP and some choice comments from Al Sharpton.

Last week a woman in Connecticut was severely mauled when her friend's pet chimpanzee got loose and attacked her. A frantic call went out to 9-1-1, and the responding police officers were faced with the chimpanzee attacking them. They had no choice but to shoot the animal dead. It was a major story all over the network news.

Another major story in the news recently has been the alleged 'stimulus' bill that the majority of Americans were against, but which President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party cohorts in Congress decided to ram down our throats anyway.

Into the fray stepped cartoonist Sean Delonis, a famed satirist who took the big monkey story and decided to merge it with the stimulus bill story.

Islamism Series: Soldiers of Allah

The debate rages around the country as to the balance between liberty and security. After the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001, it became clear that two oceans and allegedly friendly northern and southern borders would no longer be enough to insulate and protect Americans in our homeland.

Numerous security measures and programs were instituted by the Bush administration in an effort to thwart any further attacks and to root out terrorists living and operating here on our home soil.

Programs and policies including taking the fight to the terrorists in the Middle East, the enactment of the PATRIOT Act, loosened surveillance requirements, and the housing and interrogation of terrorists in the detainee camp at Guantanamo Bay successfully protected our nation in the seven years following those deadly attacks.

At this website the 'Islamism Series', each entry of which you can read by clicking the label at the bottom of this posting, has been an effort to better educate and inform readers on the very real threat that radical Islam continues to pose to America.

That effort grows more important now that the new Obama administration has taken office with a mandate from its followers to decrease if not dismantle those counter-terrorism efforts that have proven so successful.

Islamism Series: Fort Dix and Beyond

Two headlines blared across the tops of the front pages of Philadelphia's two major newspapers within the past four days.

The Bulletin was first when last Thursday their front page headline read "Islamic Terrorists Forming Cells in US", and the Inquirer followed suit on Sunday when in reference to the Fort Dix case the headline read "They were going to do it".

Here are the cold, hard facts for everyone who has not yet caught on to what this 'Islamism Series' is all about: organized Islamic forces with the full backing of some Arab nations and with the tacit support of others are at war with the West. They see the United States, Great Britain, and Israel as their main enemies in this war.

The war did not end with the election of Barack Obama, just as it did not begin with the election of George W. Bush. It will not end with the closing of Guantanamo Bay. It will not end with the withdrawal of American troops from the Middle East. It will not end with the death or capture of Osama bin Laden.

The leadership and forces of Islam have made it abundantly clear how this will end: with the end of our civilization, or theirs. Their dream is to reestablish what they call the Islamic Caliphate under Sharia Law, that Islamic rule by Muslim religious, legal, and cultural laws.

Islamism Series: al Qaeda's Black Death

When most people think of attacks or attempted attacks by Muslim radicals against the United States, Israel, England, and others who they perceive as their enemies we think of bombs and guns.

The radical Muslim group Hamas continues to bombard Israel with rockets from Gaza, prolonging a conflict that the Israelis tried to halt days ago.

But it is not just these 'conventional' weapons that we need to be concerned with when addressing the problems of Radical Islam.

The British tabloid 'The Sun' recently published a report that al Qaeda members in Algeria had been killed during experiments with a strain of the bubonic plague.

A report in the Washington Times stated that a U.S. intelligence official dismissed that claim, but did say that the terror group had to close a base of operations in the African nation after an experiment with 'unconventional weapons went awry' killing at least 40 al Qaeda operatives. The experiment was believed to likely be either biological or chemical in nature.

Intelligence officials estimate that Muslim terror groups have been pursuing biological and chemical weapons for at least a decade.

The Times article goes on to quote a 2005 U.S. commission report that the al Qaeda bio/chem weapons program "was extensive, well organized, and operated two years before" the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States.

Israel is Not the Problem

About a week or so ago we suddenly began hearing stories in the news about Israel bombing targets in Gaza, Israel attacking in the Gaza Strip, and so on.

The picture that was painted was one of the State of Israel suddenly waking up one morning and deciding to attack, attack, attack for no particular reason. This perception was foisted on the American people by what has become a decidedly anti-Israeli American media.

Think about it from any reasonable perspective. How would you feel if Mexico was lobbing bombs and missiles at targets in California or Nevada or Texas, destroying businesses and buildings, killing hundreds of Americans?

Then one day the U.S. decided enough was enough, and fought back by attacking strongholds in Mexico where those who were attacking us were operating. Suddenly the world press is all over their broadcast news and in their newspapers with stories that the U.S. was attacking Mexico. How would that make you feel?

Do you think that the Europeans and those in the Middle East, Asia, Africa who were reading these headlines and listening to the talking heads on the news broadcasts would get the full picture? Or would they simply be left with the impression that the Americans were being bullies with the poor, little Mexicans? That is exactly what is happening with Israel, and it is a dangerous game.

The 'Arab-Israeli conflict' as it has come to be known in modern times has no resolution.

Pearl Harbor Ignited Nation in Faith

I was trying to think of an appropriate way to blend my usual 'Sunday Sermon' article with a remembrance of Pearl Harbor Day.

I could have just went with two separate articles, but there had to be many connections between faith and the events of December 7th, 1941 when the Japanese attacked the U.S. Naval forces at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

This sneak attack, which directly ushered America into World War II, resulted in President Franklin D. Roosevelt calling that Sunday morning "A date which will live in infamy!"

Hawaii was a U.S. territory at the time, it would not become a full state until 1959, and it was a major American naval outpost in the South Pacific. The United States had never been attacked directly from an outside enemy, considering the Civil War as a purely internal struggle.

So as the 353 Japanese bombers continually descended over Pearl without warning on that peaceful, sunny Sunday morning and began their devastating bombing and strafing runs, the significant American forces stationed there were taken completely by surprise.