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Making Sense of Fort Hood
no one stands as tall as an American; when an American is standing tall
Part I.
Thirteen people lay dead and many more were injured when the rampage at Fort Hood ended, or more precisely when the shootings ended; the rampage at Fort Hood will be with us for sometime.
The American public was soon to learn that the perpetrator, an Army Major of the Islamic faith, had had numerous contacts with a firebrand cleric who had also been a spiritual adviser to more than one of the 9/11 hijackers that flew into the twin World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon, and that crashed into a field without reaching their intended target.
Any discussion about Islamic terrorism must relate to Afghanistan. I went to Afghanistan on mission in the late Spring and early Summer of 2002.
In the upcoming trial of the suspected mastermind of 9/11 the public will learn that the 9/11 attacks were preceded by a series of hijackings in which the hijackers used knives to take over planes, one from India, Iraq, Nepal and Saudi Arabia, respectively. Each of these hijackings ended at Kandahar Airport in Afghanistan and was being directed by the masterminds of 9/11. Why the similarity of the methods in these hijackings did not raise alarm bells in American intelligence services is explicable and is related to the lack of concern by our intelligence services in the matter of the communications between a Army Major and a known cleric who vents openly his hatred for anything and everything American.
The reasons behind these oversights are not very comfortable information for some Americans to confront.
We are at war, we have been attacked at home and our interests abroad are under constant attack. No American Embassy is safe and increasingly no American is safe when traveling abroad. We are faced with an enemy that sees every American as a target, and does not recognize nor adhere to any polite notions of a prohibition against attacking civilians as enshrined in the Geneva Convention.
We are faced with an enemy that will put a bomb into the backpack of a child on its way to school to kill our allies, because they are our allies.
And this is where it becomes uncomfortable for some Americans.
Why is it that the exponents of Islamic terror think that they can defeat the United States of America? They think that they can bomb a train station in Spain and the Spanish will withdraw their forces from the battlefield, they think they can bomb the Underground in England and the English people will capitulate.
They think they can do this because they say we are a divided people.
When I spoke with one of the foreign fighters that had come to Afghanistan to support the Taliban and Al Qaeda; he said that the soil of Islamic Afghanistan was being desecrated with the blood of American soldiers.
I responded that the blood of fallen American soldiers does not desecrate; its consecrates.
A member of the Taliban regime told me that the American soldier was no match for the spirited and noble Islamic fighter; to which I retorted that no one stands as tall as an American, when an American is standing tall.
This same individual said that they would win this battle with the United States because there were people in the United States who were at war with some of the same people that they were. This showed the sworn enemies of the United States that some Americans were fighting the same enemy they were fighting.
What they don't understand is that we are all Americans, and lively discourse is a sign of the strength of republican liberty; it is the way we arrive at concensus. They might see it as disunity, only because they cannot tolerate disent in their own society.
I am running for the United States Senate because I hear the beat of a different drummer, I will work to build an America where all can take pride in their service to this country.
I am running to serve every citizen of this state and nation; not to run from the difficult problems; but to confront them and by doing so to take command of our destiny.
I am running for the United States Senate to leave for those who will follow a country of opportunity, where every citizen works for every other citizen to claim our rightful place as a nation that leads and inspires excellence.
E LaMont Gregory
Thirteen people lay dead and many more were injured when the rampage at Fort Hood ended, or more precisely when the shootings ended; the rampage at Fort Hood will be with us for sometime.
The American public was soon to learn that the perpetrator, an Army Major of the Islamic faith, had had numerous contacts with a firebrand cleric who had also been a spiritual adviser to more than one of the 9/11 hijackers that flew into the twin World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon, and that crashed into a field without reaching their intended target.
Any discussion about Islamic terrorism must relate to Afghanistan. I went to Afghanistan on mission in the late Spring and early Summer of 2002.
In the upcoming trial of the suspected mastermind of 9/11 the public will learn that the 9/11 attacks were preceded by a series of hijackings in which the hijackers used knives to take over planes, one from India, Iraq, Nepal and Saudi Arabia, respectively. Each of these hijackings ended at Kandahar Airport in Afghanistan and was being directed by the masterminds of 9/11. Why the similarity of the methods in these hijackings did not raise alarm bells in American intelligence services is explicable and is related to the lack of concern by our intelligence services in the matter of the communications between a Army Major and a known cleric who vents openly his hatred for anything and everything American.
The reasons behind these oversights are not very comfortable information for some Americans to confront.
We are at war, we have been attacked at home and our interests abroad are under constant attack. No American Embassy is safe and increasingly no American is safe when traveling abroad. We are faced with an enemy that sees every American as a target, and does not recognize nor adhere to any polite notions of a prohibition against attacking civilians as enshrined in the Geneva Convention.
We are faced with an enemy that will put a bomb into the backpack of a child on its way to school to kill our allies, because they are our allies.
And this is where it becomes uncomfortable for some Americans.
Why is it that the exponents of Islamic terror think that they can defeat the United States of America? They think that they can bomb a train station in Spain and the Spanish will withdraw their forces from the battlefield, they think they can bomb the Underground in England and the English people will capitulate.
They think they can do this because they say we are a divided people.
When I spoke with one of the foreign fighters that had come to Afghanistan to support the Taliban and Al Qaeda; he said that the soil of Islamic Afghanistan was being desecrated with the blood of American soldiers.
I responded that the blood of fallen American soldiers does not desecrate; its consecrates.
A member of the Taliban regime told me that the American soldier was no match for the spirited and noble Islamic fighter; to which I retorted that no one stands as tall as an American, when an American is standing tall.
This same individual said that they would win this battle with the United States because there were people in the United States who were at war with some of the same people that they were. This showed the sworn enemies of the United States that some Americans were fighting the same enemy they were fighting.
What they don't understand is that we are all Americans, and lively discourse is a sign of the strength of republican liberty; it is the way we arrive at concensus. They might see it as disunity, only because they cannot tolerate disent in their own society.
I am running for the United States Senate because I hear the beat of a different drummer, I will work to build an America where all can take pride in their service to this country.
I am running to serve every citizen of this state and nation; not to run from the difficult problems; but to confront them and by doing so to take command of our destiny.
I am running for the United States Senate to leave for those who will follow a country of opportunity, where every citizen works for every other citizen to claim our rightful place as a nation that leads and inspires excellence.
E LaMont Gregory
