AWAKEN!

The raging controversy in the U.S. over the proposed building of a Muslim center, including a mosque prayer facility, within steps of Ground Zero, have centered on freedom of religion (supporters) and on insensitivity to families of World Trade Center casualties (opponents). Both arguments miss the critical point.

WE ARE AT WAR. President Obama repeatedly uses the word "war", but refuses to acknowledge whom we are at war with. Strange. We are fighting a war against no one in particular! He refuses to have Congress declare war, as the Constitution requires, presumably because he would have to identify whom we are at war with. He insists on having our troops unnecessarily risk their lives and fight with one hand tied behind their backs, and refuses to use our full military power in our defense.

WE ARE AT WAR with Muslim jihadists, fanatics, who preach the "destruction of Western civilization from within". During the past 12 years, they have attacked us in New York City. Oklahoma City, Ft. Hood, Riyadh. Dhahran, Amman, Damascus, Athens, Algeria, Yemen, Karachi, India and on the seas (USS Cole)...in addition to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan.

Bang! Bang!...you're dead.

Those who call for, encourage, incite, violence against us, who give financial and other support to our enemy, are our enemy. If what is said about Sharia, the fanatic Islamic law, is true...that it serves as the basis for Islamic fanaticism and violence against our country...then those who preach it are our enemy...every bit as much as the Taliban and Al Qaeda soldiers and suicide bombers trying to kill us.

Bang! Bang!..your family is dead.

Freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of anything, does not include the right to initiate force against others. And the reasoning for that is simple: force initiated against others denies to them their freedoms, their political rights. You cannot logically claim the right to freedom for yourself while denying it to others. Sorry, you are not free to start or support a war against us. Not near Ground Zero nor anywhere else in our country.

Bang! Bang!...we'll bury your daughter up to her shoulders, cut off her ears and nose, and, together with her husband and children, we'll stone her to death.

Yes, by all means, it is certainly insensitive to build a Muslim center, often put on the site of a military victory, at Ground Zero. But in a free country, sensitivities do not as a rule generate legal rights or restraints.

Bang! Bang!...down come your buildings, your government offices, your consulates, your schools, your shopping malls, your hospitals, your country.

WAKE UP. WE ARE AT WAR.