Remembering September 11, 2001

This day may not pass before we pause to remember the victims of September 11, 2001. The photo on the left is one of those iconic images which brings back the horror of a viscous attack by adherents of radical Islam on the United States of America which presaged a greater war on the US and its friends and allies throughout the world.

On that day four years ago a new world war began. It is not yet finished. I sense it has barely begun. The last assault on the West from Islam lasted several centuries. They nearly won then.

In contemporary times, there were attacks by Arab Muslims before 9/11, going back to the PLO attack on El Al passengers at the Munich airport in February 1970. In that attack Nobel Peace Prize winner Yassar Arafat managed to kill one and wound 11. Small stuff indeed, but by the Olympic Games in Munich two year later the targets were more prominent and the numbers greater (nine athletes killed). The IRA that year was more efficient, killing 17 and injuring 130.

Arab Muslims were soon upping the ante, however, by blowing up a Pan Am airliner with grenades at Rome in 1973 killing 30. Persian Muslims attacked the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979, holding 53 US diplomats hostage for 14 months. A few diplomats were rescued by the combined efforts of US intelligence and the Canadian Embassy staff led by Ambassador Ken Taylor. A great story, illustrative of friends coming to the aide of friends in need.

In a remarkable display of Islamicist fervour Islamicist terrorists attacked the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979. By the time that one was dealt with there were 250 dead and 600 wounded. And so on and so on. Here are but a few of the attacks.

• 1983 (April) US Embassy in Beruit attacked by Islamic Jihad. The truck bomb left 63 dead and 120 injured
  
• 1983 (November) US Marine Barracks and French military compounds attacked by Islamic Jihad. The truck bombers killed 282 Americans and 58 French military
• 1986 Lybian terrorists murder two and wound 79 US servicemen in a Berlin Discotheque
  
• 1988 Islamic terrorists blow up Pan Am flight over Lockerbie Scotland killing 259
  
• 1993 Islamic terrorists bomb the World Trade Centre, killing 6 and injuring 1000
• 1996 Khobar Towers attack kill 19 US military, wounding 515 other in Dhaharan
• 1998 US Embassy bombings in East Africa by Al Qaida kill 300 and wound 5,000
• 2000 Al Qaida attacks USS Cole killing 17 sailors and injuring 79
• 2001 (June) HAMAS bombs a Tel-Aviv nightclub with 140 casualties
• 2001 (August) HAMAS bombs a Jerusalem pizzaria. 19 dead and 15 wounded
  
• 2001 (September) Al Qaida attacks New York and Washington leaving 3025 dead
  

Since then we have seen attacks on London, Madrid, Bali, Jerusalem/Israel and many other places. The October 2002 bombing in Bali killed 202 (mostly Australian tourists) and wounded 300.

The point of all this is to drive home the point that we are all vulnerable to attack from Islamic radicals who are intent on destroying our culture, religions and institutions and replacing it with Sharia law and Islamic institutions. We can pretend that it is not so, but we do so at our peril.

We shall remember those killed on 9/11 because we must. Say a prayer when you have a minute. (Hey. It can't hurt and it might help.)