Re-Learning Old Lessons

America is under attack by Arab terrorists. The President wants to fight, but Congress, believing that fighting terrorists would embitter Muslims forever against America, votes to capitulate.

Life in the Year of our Lord 2007? Er, no, the late 1780's....

The meeting in London was doomed from the outset. The Arab strongman's envoy held all the cards - three craft had already been hijacked, their passengers and crew held hostage in an inhospitable and almost unreachable land. The American ambassador knew the ransom demand would be high, but even he could not have imagined just how exorbitant it would be. To meet it would require one-tenth of America's annual budget.

Lest the adventurous Yanks dare to contemplate a military attack to rescue their captured comrades, Abd al-Rahman al-Ajar provided a most unpleasant revelation: the Koran declares that any nation that does not bow to the authority of the Muslims is sinful, and it is the right and duty of Muslims to make war upon it and take prisoner any of its people they may find. Further, any Muslim slain in battle against such an enemy would be promised a place in Paradise.
"We ought not to fight them at all unless we determine to fight them forever," the furious but helpless ambassador relayed to his government. Congress would authorize no such fight, however, and voted instead to pay the ransom.

And that is how America first capitulated to Arab terrorism, some 220 years ago.....

Back when we actually had great Americans, they saw the truth, and spoke to it - from the J-Post:

As Virginia politician (and also eventual president) James Madison reasons during negotiations over the Constitution, "Weakness will invite insults. The best way to avoid danger is to be in capacity to withstand it."

Oooooh, Mr. Madison, Nancy Pelosi would have your head for such belligerent talk! Where's your sense of multiculturalism and multilateralism?

And speaking of which:

Before he revised it in the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key's "Star-Bangled Banner" - which would become the American national anthem - described "turbaned heads bowed" to the "brow of the brave."

Back to the future, to the convoluted world of 2007 - so it turns out that we've fought this war before, and we've won it before...but have we become so brainwashed by our PC culture that we cannot even contemplate a strategy for victory previously employed by some of the greatest minds ever to grace this continent?

History repeats itself - the Barbary Pirates have returned to the shores of Tripoli, the new Hitlers openly speak of another Holocaust, Europe is again smoldering with dark hatreds, both ancient and new, and what do we, the 'enlightened" 21st century citizens, do about it?

Why, absolutely nothing.

We refuse to even face it; even admit it is really happening; we prefer to bury our head in the sand and hope if we sing FA-LA-LA-LA loud enough and often enough, it will all go away and we'll wake up in a world of peace and love, all achieved by UN mandate....

Nice progress we are making.