Principles in Practice: The Blog of the Objective Standard

Thursday, May 11, 2006

'Flight 93'

Posted by John David Lewis at 7:08 PM

On May 1, writer Tom Miller reviewed the film "Flight 93" for Military.com.

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,95869,00.html?ESRC=dod.nl

Miller is a novelist, and a former history professor, Army officer, and Vietnam veteran. His review is less of the film than of the need to remember why it needed to be made:

[I]f people need to be reminded, maybe it's already too late. We have been at war with these Islamo-fascist thugs since long before 9/11. They have told us—repeatedly and clearly—what their intentions are. Why can't we accept them at their word? Especially after 9/11?

Osama bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri, the Iranian ayatollahs, among others, have echoed Muhammad's words from his farewell address in 632: "I was ordered to fight all men until they say 'There is no god but Allah.'" The ultimate goal of these hateful tyrants is a universal Islamic empire governed not by secular law but by divine law. That leaves no place for freedom.

Miller is right about all of this, especially his forceful identification of the Islamic empire as the enemy's goal, and its connection back to the founder of Islam. This is what needs to be remembered.

Miller is also right not to name Saddam Hussein as one of those advocating the Islamic empire—Hussein was just a tyrant of the non-religious type and an enemy of Iran. If only our government had empowered our soldiers—the guys being shot at—to take out the Islamic totalitarians, instead of digressing into Iraq…

Labels: Foreign Policy and War, History