How terrorism works
On one level, terrorism works by simply causing us so much pain, suffering and dread of future terror that we eventually weaken and give in to the terrorists’ demands. But the ultimate goal of terrorism is to capture our hearts and minds – to convert us.
What? How can terrorizing us transform our attitudes in favor of the terrorists’ viewpoint? Wouldn’t we recoil in horror and, if anything, move farther away from sympathy toward the perpetrators? Not necessarily.
Remember, militant Muslims “convert” individuals to Islam by threat of death. Why shouldn’t they try the same tactic on entire societies?
Stop and consider what happens when we’re intimidated and frightened by terrorism, or even the threat of it. Wonder of wonders, some of us start to sympathize with our enemy.
There’s a funny thing about appeasement. It’s hard to give in to evil without first agreeing with that evil, at least a little. We have to allow our minds to be bent, our previous values and perceptions altered, even slightly; we somehow have to see the terrorists as not quite totally evil. “Yes, they may be angry and even murderous, but after all, don’t they have legitimate grievances against us? Maybe we brought on this attack by our past actions. Maybe we’re at fault. Maybe their cause is just. Maybe we’re the real terrorists.“
Does that sound like an exaggeration? Do you remember Cindy Sheehan, so lionized by America’s “mainstream press” as the courageous public face of the antiwar movement? She referred to Islamic terrorists flocking to Iraq to kill American soldiers as “freedom fighters.” Meanwhile she calls the president of the United States a “lying bastard,” a “jerk,” an “evil maniac,” a “gangster,” a “war criminal,” a “murderous thug” and – of course – a “terrorist.”
To become an appeaser, you have to sympathize with the enemy, either overtly like Sheehan, or secretly. How else can you look at yourself in the mirror and justify giving in to evil?
The question is, how do we come to side with those who are intent on destroying us?
Excerpt from David Kupelian November 21, 2005
