TERRORISM DENIERS

"We need to negotiate a settlement," a politician and "Terrorist Denier" said recently referring to the war between Israel and Hezbollah. Whose war is it anyway that ‘we’ can interfere? Such a politician and many common citizens refuse to "know their enemy," as Sun Tzu, the Chinese writer said centuries ago about war.

A specter is haunting the world - the specter of Terrorism, to paraphrase Karl Marx. It is a reality that cannot be ignored even though we see many around us who live in a dream world of denial and fantasy. Similar to "Holocaust Deniers," the "Terrorist Deniers" are blind to history’s evidence and they find "alternative reality" explanations for the wave of terrorism that has engulfed the planet.

Bombay India has smoldered from terrorist bombs, London is commemorating the one year anniversary of the terrorist attacks, Spain still searches for clues in the bombing of passenger trains and bomb plots against New York and Chicago were uncovered within the last few weeks. Yet, against this backdrop, the University of Wisconsin currently has a "Terrorist Denier" professor teaching a course that proclaims that the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were explosions executed by George W. Bush so that he could begin his war against Islam in Iraq. It was just announced by the University that they will have this ‘nut cake’ teach the course again in the fall semester. To think parents actually pay to send their children to such centers of indoctrination.

The first great wave of terrorism, the targeting of the innocent as a means of destabilizing a government, began in Russia at the turn of the last century. It culminated in the assassination of the Tsar Alexander II. At the assassins’ trial the prosecutor spoke of the innocent bystanders killed. The terrorist leader laughed. The prosecutor’s observation was true then and equally true now, "When people weep, they laugh". As we weep over a beheading in Iraq, mass slaughter of refugees in Darfur or civilian Israelis killed repeatedly by Palestinians, the terrorists laugh.

In much of the world, the easy solution is to fall back on the default bogeyman, the United States, as the cause of all evils. In psychology it is called "transference." For example, instead of facing the real problem, Terrorists who will hurt you, you blame the United States who won’t hurt you even if you speak out. This fantasy is extremely comforting to much of Europe trying to ignore the bombs going off in their midst.

Within the United States the "Terrorist Deniers" find comfort in blaming the United States for being the "root cause," a favorite term, of everything evil. Witness the deranged University of Colorado, professor Ward Churchill, who declared that the victims of 9/11 were all "little Eichmans", a statement that immediately won him the affection of liberals, progressives and other assorted looneys. But our homegrown deniers have an additional bogeyman to flail, President George W. Bush as the "root cause" of terrorism. In psychology a term has been coined to express this delusion, it is called "BDS", or Bush Derangement Syndrome. It is best expressed by the paroxysm of rage and irrationality that "BDS" sufferers experience upon hearing the name George W. Bush. Whatever problem is being discussed relating to terrorism, global warming, hurricanes, the economy or public education. it is immediately attributed to our President or his diabolical minion, Karl Rove.

Unfortunately Deniers in the grip of the delusion of "BDS" are millstones hanging from the necks of rational Americans. They contribute nothing to an analysis of terrorism and the means of preventing and then defeating it. "Terrorist Deniers" need to realize that we need a discussion of the means and techniques on winning the War on Terror and not juvenile carping and blame shifting. Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger coined a term for people such as the Deniers, " Girly Men." Since the United States is perceived to be the cause of terror, the solution of Deniers is appeasement, which calls for anxious overtures and undue concessions to satisfy an aggressor. Appeasement is a fundamental misreading of reality when pacifism is seen as the response to terrorists who declare that they wish to annihilate us. What part of "I want to kill you" do the Deniers not understand? Calling for conferences and dialog to share our "feelings and concerns" with the terrorists and hear their "legitimate grievances" is the utmost of narcissistic folly.

One major obstacle to our understanding of Islamist Jihad or North Korea’s or Iran’s nuclear fantasies is the fact that their mindsets are out of the world view of Western Civilization. The West prizes life whereas the terrorists prize death. There has been a paradigm shift of tectonic proportion in the concept and processing of war which we need to recognize and not indulge in romantic fantasies of the liberals, progressives and "Terrorist Deniers."

What can rational, concerned citizens do? Knowledge precedes power so we need to empower ourselves individually and collectively as a nation with the truth about our enemies. They exist and they want to ‘wipe out’ us infidels. Praying for them is fine if confined to the realm of their immortal souls, but accommodating them on earth is "Terrorist Denial." From a realistic perspective, truth should precede a plan of action. And the plan, as latet President Ronald Reagan said regarding the Soviet empire, "We win, they lose."