Wake Up to the Radical Islamist Threat

From a speech by Brigitte Brigitte Gabriel, an Arab Christian who lived in Lebanon and an
expert on the Middle East conflict who lectures nationally and internationally on the subject. She is the former news anchor of World News for Middle East television. This is from a speech she gave at the Intelligence Summit in Washington DC, on Feb. 18, 2006.

"...This intentional, indiscriminate and wholesale murder of innocent American citizens is justified and glorified in the name of Islam. America cannot effectively defend itself in this war unless and until the American people understand the nature of the enemy that we face.

Even after 9/11 there are those who say that we must "engage" our terrorist enemies, that we must address their grievances. Their grievance is our freedom of religion. Their grievance is our freedom of speech. Their grievance is our democratic process where the rule of law comes from the voices of many not that of just one prophet. It is the respect we instill in our children towards all religions. It is the equality we grant each other as human beings sharing a planet and striving to make the world a better place for all humanity. Their grievance is the kindness and respect a man shows a woman, the justice we practice as equals under the law, and the mercy we grant our enemy. Their grievance cannot be answered by an apology for who or what we are.

Our mediocre attitude of not having confronted Islamic forces of bigotry and hatred wherever they raised their ugly heads in the last 30 years has empowered and strengthened our enemy to launch a full scale attack on the very freedoms we cherish in their effort to impose their values and way of life on our civilization.

If we don't wake up and challenge our Muslim community to take action against the terrorists within it, if we don't believe in ourselves as Americans and in the standards we should hold every patriotic American to, we are going to pay a price for our delusion. For the sake of our children and our country, we must wake up and take action in the face of a torrent of hateful
invective and terrorist murder..."