Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
Muslims are usually determined to avenge humiliation, and they know how to be patient. Most non-Muslims have difficulty understanding why they are not
allowed to enter Mecca. Israeli journalist Gil Tamary certainly appears
to have lacked understanding when he secretly entered the city after
covering U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia,
causing a scandal with potentially important ramifications for
Israel-Saudi relations.
The legal prohibition on non-Muslims visiting Mecca is based on a
Koranic injunction (Surah 9, verse 28). Since Muslims believe that the
Koran is the word of God,
no human authority, whether religious or political, can change this
ruling. Non-Muslims who enter Mecca are therefore defiling Islam’s most
important holy place, as Tamary did.
To complicate matters, Islam has no pope-like central figure. So,
even if the Saudis decided to table the issue for the time being,
others—such as a “lone wolf” terrorist—perhaps opposed to the Saudi
regime, could take up the charge to defend the honor of Islam. Indeed,
throughout the history of Islam, individual Muslims and sects have
interpreted the Koran as they chose, resulting in insurrections and
assassinations that have often threatened Muslim regimes. This means
that extremists might try to take revenge against Tamary personally.
Further complicating this picture, most of the Muslim world has a
strong sense of honor and shame. Tamary, as well as the Saudi Muslim
taxi driver who brought him to Mecca, shamed the Saudi government, which
is responsible for protecting the sanctity of Mecca and Medina from
such desecrations. Any Muslim who besmirches the honor of another person
or group of people can often provoke blood feuds between two people,
their families, their clans, their tribes and their religious sects that
can last for generations. Muslims often brood for centuries until these
slights have been avenged.
How does this manifest itself? One example can be found in Osama bin
Laden’s post-9/11 speech. In that speech, he alluded to an event that
had happened 80 years earlier. Since Americans tend not to have a sense
of history, senior American government officials scrambled to find out
what bin Laden meant. To those familiar with Muslim history, however, it
was obvious what he was talking about. It was a reference to early 20th
century Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk’s then newly-established secular
Republic of Turkey, which abolished the Caliphate—that is, the
leadership of the entire Sunni Muslim world.
The title “Caliph” was one of the many titles held by the Ottoman
Sultan, and from a Sunni point of view, his most important one. Thus,
Muslim extremists still revile Ataturk and his comrades, whom they claim
were installed as Turkey’s leaders by the infidel West in order to
destroy Islam. The 9/11 attack on important Western symbols of power—the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon, as well as the unsuccessful
targeting of the U.S. Capitol—were an act of revenge against the center
of non-Muslim power, the United States, thus avenging the abolition of
the Caliphate.
Furthermore, bin Laden’s choice of Sept. 11 to carry out the attack
was of symbolic importance. On that date 318 years before, a Christian
army at Vienna defeated the Ottoman Muslims, who were on a march to
conquer all of Europe for Islam.
From then on, Islam was in retreat.
Over the ensuing centuries, non-Muslims recaptured almost all of
southeastern Europe. The humiliation of this defeat had to be avenged,
and the attacks on American symbols of power were that vengeance.
.jpg)
