What President Obama Should Have Said About 9/11

On the day before the anniversary of the September 11 attacks on America by Islamists from Al Queda, American President Barack Obama said some very necessary things. He talked about the need to continue the nation's tradition of tolerance. He spoke about staying focused on beating Al Queda. But the message seemed incomplete.

Those Americans who mocked George Bush Jr. for declaring a "war on terror" must now be wondering how it is possible that Obama has fallen into a similar trap, clarifying that America is actually in a "war on Al Queda". Bush's speech was about as useful as declaring a war on armoured personnel carriers. Obama's was like declaring war on the particular firm responsible for manufacturing said armoured personnel carriers. Better, but stll not quite good enough.

In fact, Obama's answer seemed scripted for a question that was never asked. He was replying to a question by a journalist that seemed almost to suggest that the American population's "increase in suspicion and outright resentment of Islam" was a mysterious phenomenon occurring in a vaccum. Obama should have confronted this wrong-headed question head-on.

Americans are not stupid. And they aren't bigoted. They are a people who not only believe intuitively in the idea that their fellow citizens and human beings around the world are engaged in a struggle for freedom and an objectively better life; they demand this from themselves and others, no matter where they come from.

They've been let down, time and time again. Now they're getting fed up.

Prior to 9/11, most Americans, like most non-Muslims around the world, knew very little about the Islamic world. Occasionally, violent flare-ups like the Arab-Israeli wars, terror attacks, plane hijackings, or Islamist takeovers in Iran and Afghanistan, would focus the world's attention. Occasionally, these episodes were sparked by particularly eggregious human rights violations. But like an awful car accident you see on the highway by the side of the road, these moments would pass. American focused on the road ahead. As far as they were concerned, those twisted wrecks they'd seen were behind them and had nothing much to do with their world. They turned up the radio and put the wheel on cruise control.

On September 11, 2001, Islamists coming from the opposite direction hurtled purposefully into America's lane and we had a head-on collision. It was no accident, we soon realized. These bastards were trying to kill us.

All of those "accidents" we'd seen along the highway before suddenly looked a lot more sinister. As it happened, these psychos had been wanting to kill us for a long time.

There was no option of driving off the highway and crashing into the ravine. America moved on. But from then on, Americans were going to pay very, very close attention to the Muslim world and Islamists who had started setting up shop in the USA decades ago.

Nearly a decade later, we've had over 16,000 documented killings and mass-murders worldwide by homicidal maniacs clutching Korans, and countless near-misses and foiled attacks -- not to mention the incessant and brazen incitement to violence in the public spaces throughought the "Muslim world".

Are Americans are suddenly suspicious and resentful of Islam? Of course. Well, they have a right to be.

When the "Arab street" and the billion-strong Muslim world rises up in fiery protest against the widespread repression and torture throughout the Muslim world; when they rally against the aggression and sponsorship of terrorism by Muslim states; when the silent accomplices rush to turn in their friends, cousins, uncles, brothers and sons who are plotting or building bombs to kill untold numbers of innocents; when they stand in solidarity with their fellow citizens in defense of free speech, with no exception made for "blasphemy" or "idolatry" -- and when they do these things willingly, with the same energy of spirit that they displayed when an obscure Florida pastor with a few dozen congregants said he was going to burn a Koran -- that is the day Americans will start becoming less "suspicious" and "resentful".

Jonathon Narvey is the Editor of The Propagandist.