Imagine that you’re a Christian high school student participating in a mock terrorist exercise in your school and you’re told that the faux terrorists belonged to a group called “the New Crusaders” and that they were holding everyone hostage because the daughter of a group member was expelled for “praying before class.”

They were “seeking justice” so you’re told.

While Burlington Township High denied that the mock attack was aimed at making Christian students feel uncomfortable, and that they weren’t referring to Christians as terrorists, let’s be real here. No Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Shinto’s, Hindus, Wiccans or any other world religion has ever been referred to as “Crusaders.” And for the most part, it’s been Christian kids who have had to deal with the 11^th Commandment of the United States: thou shalt not pray openly in school.

It seems some Americans are clueless as to who the enemy is these days. Maybe if Burlington Township had consulted Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, president of Killology Research Group (an anti-terrorism consultancy that trains FBI and other law enforcement) they would have selected a different group for their protagonists:

“Floor plans for schools in Virginia, Texas and New Jersey have been recovered from terrorist hands in Iraq…Islamic terrorists are already in place in the United States and yes, that includes [school] bus drivers, cafeteria workers…”

According to Grossman, videotapes were also confiscated in Afghanistan showing Al-Qaida terrorists practicing for the take-over of a school.

But instead the wicked ones were called “New Crusaders.”

Blurring the lines between what is and is not a terrorist group has become the favorite pass time of liberal ideologues. For years there’s been an attempt to point the finger at Christians and declare us a dangerous group of radicals. Supposedly we wanted to stone adulterous women, among other things. Oddly enough, the one book that defines the faith of genuine Christians has Christ forgiving an adulterous woman. Go figure.

Since the attacks of 9-11, and in particular the re-election of George Bush, who is a born-again Christian (though not necessarily a conservative one) it’s been the mantra of the irreligious left to refer to our President as a “terrorist” and Christians as terrorists as well.

Tossed into the mix of “Christian terrorists” are the likes of Timothy McVeigh (Oklahoma City bombing); various anti-abortion bombers/shooters; the KKK; Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph; etc.

Representatives of the irreligious left are quick to use the above incidents as a means to criticize our national security programs:

“We may hear quite a lot about the government’s fight against Muslim terrorists, but what about Christian terrorists? There was a time that three of the FBI’s top ten most wanted criminals were anti-abortion terrorists- Christians one and all, committing acts of terrorism in an effort to promote their religious beliefs. Why have they dropped off the radar?”

Why indeed. Answer: most are in prison or have had the death penalty enacted on them.

Sure, they have their groupies. The Army of God is still hanging out but is “underground” according to the MIPT anti-terrorism website. Michael Bray, who is considered the “Pastor” of the group, served prison time for clinic bombings. He’s also written some “how to” commit violence against abortion clinic books, which appeal NOT to the New Testament, but to Old Testament passages. The eye-for-an-eye stuff. Not the “love your enemies” stuff.

Army of God has a few boys in detention: Richard Rudolph, James Kopp, and Clayton Waagner are all doing time for their crimes. The last attack attributed to them was 1998, which could explain why they’re not on the terrorist watch list: they’ve been mouthing off, but as any good liberal will tell you, free speech means you can say some pretty distasteful things, even make threats, so long as said threats fall within the law, like, oh, I don’t know…. DEATH TO AMERICA?

KNOW YOUR ENEMY
The United States didn’t just come under attack from Islamists on September 11, 2001. We have been the target of Islamists for decades. It merely solidified, with a huge bang, on that beautiful September morning.

Unfortunately, in trying to blur the lines, liberals would rather point in the wrong direction than deal with an uncomfortable truth: we are being judged by the Islamic world, not because we’re a super power with a military and bombs, but for “moral” reasons. The Islamists have been judging America since the visit of Sayyed Qutb in the 1940’s. And the war, they’ve said, has been our representative super power waging war on pious Islam. We, the Americans, they reason, have been trying to destroy moral Islam bit by bit by bit.

It’s a shame that liberals cannot see this. If they did, the anti-abortion radicals would pale in comparison and the ACLU and People for the American Way wouldn’t be so distressed by Mel Gibson as they should be by an Ahmadinejad.

Instead, liberals (and in particular atheists) point to vignettes and try to scare the bee-jeebers out of people with stories that aren’t exactly accurate.

Like the story about a library that had to cancel a summer program for kids which involved occult teachings: “LUNATIC BAPTISTS SHUT DOWN SUMMER LIBRARY PROGRAM” the header reads. Supposedly there were “threats of violence” and the bunny trail led back to a Baptist Church and included emails and a single phone call.

But an article at the American Library Association website revealed the facts. “Going to get you” was a threat to PICKET THE LIBRARY. Not bomb it. And the library decided to cancel because they didn’t want to ask children to cross a picket line. “Having children walk through pickets was just horrible, so from that perspective, we decided we would just cancel…”

Before you go ballistic about how unfair that is to children, remember: public libraries are paid for with public dollars. Tax payer bucks. Any tax paying citizen has the right to peaceful protest of a public facility. Period.

In a speech he delivered at Yale in 1962, President John F. Kennedy said:

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”

The myth that Christians are a danger to people’s lives in this country, in particular pro-life Christians or those who oppose things like gay marriage, etc., is not only unrealistic, it’s also dangerous. If the same criteria is applied to the loopy left it makes for an interesting collective.

THE DANGEROUS LOOPY LEFTISTS

It seems the liberal criteria for what does and does not constitute a terrorist group involves whether or not it’s their pet group. Anti-abortion people are obviously terrorists, not because they’re trying to attack America, but because they’re opposing (in a bad way) the loopy leftist love of abortion.

Suppose that same criteria were applied to leftist groups? Below is my list of possible terrorist groups the FBI should add to the list.

ELF. No, not the cute little guy in a green suit! This is the Earth Liberation Front. They’re not on the terrorist watch list, are they? Nope. But they have had some problems here in the U.S. and abroad. In 2006, there were 11 indictments handed down against ELF (Earth Liberation Front) and ALF (Animal Liberation Front) members.

Jerry Vlasak, has been arrested several times for his pro-critter activities. One would think a man who favors treating animals ethically and kindly would likewise do so with the human animal, right? Not so:

In 2003 Vlasak had this to say concerning doctors who use animal research in their practice:

Did I mention that Vlasak was a member of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine? Um yeah. That’s responsible medicine, doc.

And did I mention that most eco-animal rights groups try not to harm humans? Kind of like most pro-life groups don’t endorse shooting abortion doctors?

ADL. Yes, the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL was founded and formed to “protect Jewish people by whatever means possible” and on the JDL website, there’s an admission that it’s founder, Rabbi Kahane, was um, well, a little off his matzos. In any case, the 2001 attempt by ADL chief, Irving David, makes it plain that the ADL still has some violent roots, right? After all, they were planning to blow up a mosque and the offices of U.S. Representative (a American from Lebanon) Darrell Issa. Some of the phrases picked up in the wire-tapping were things like: “blow up the entire building” and “Arabs need a wake-up call.”

And the ADL worried about Mel Gibson?

ATHEISTS & AGNOSTICS. Come on guys. If you can point to the Crusades, can’t we point to atheism and agnosticism as possible problems, too? Stalin, Lenin, Castro. Tung and Marx were all atheist. We also have Jeffrey Dahmer who was an ATHEIST at the time he dined on unsuspecting gays. Later he would convert to Christianity.

And while we’re at it, what about Timothy McVeigh? Atheist Dan Barker tried to claim that McVeigh was a Christian in his article: Christian Terrorism in Oklahoma City.

According to an article in the Guardian, UK, McVeigh’s own words deny any link to Christianity:

“In his letter, McVeigh said he was an agnostic but that he would ‘improvise, adapt and overcome‘, if it turned out there was an afterlife. ‘If I'm going to hell,’ he wrote, ‘I'm gonna have a lot of company.’ His body is to be cremated and his ashes scattered in a secret location.”

In his book, American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing, Lou Michael records hours of interview with McVeigh. In a CNN interview, Michael recounts:

McVeigh explained, in his own letter, why he bombed the Murrah building. And it had nothing to do with Christ, Christianity, or any moral stance involving issues near and dear to Christians.

"I chose to bomb a federal building because such an action served more purposes than other options. Foremost the bombing was a retaliatory strike; a counter attack for the cumulative raids (and subsequent violence and damage) that federal agents had participated in over the preceding years (including, but not limited to, Waco). From the formation of such units as the FBI's Hostage Rescue and other assault teams amongst federal agencies during the 80s, culminating in the Waco incident, federal actions grew increasingly militaristic and violent, to the point where at Waco, our government - like the Chinese - was deploying tanks against its own citizens.”

In an event that killed men, women and children, committed by the first American terrorist of the 21^st century, it’s interesting that this would be an agnostic. McVeigh claimed, as do many agnostic, that science is his religion.

RECENT CHRISTIAN FAUX PAS

Christians don’t make very good bombers and such. Not like McVeigh and definitely not like the 19 Islamic terrorists of 9-11 fame. Recent “terrorist” actions by Christians include David Robert McMenemy’s messed up attempt at ramming his car into an abortion clinic (2006).

As the bungler sits in prison (where he should be) on charges of second degree arson (he soaked his car in gas and rammed it into the clinic). Not only was it NOT an abortion clinic (seems McMenemy wasn’t the brightest bulb in the pack for more reasons than one), the clinic was empty and McMenemy walked out of the mess, admitting he did it. The sprinkler system prevented the health clinic from being completely destroyed and no lives were lost.

Is this any different from an animal rights activist group blowing up a research lab?

Yet we have classic liberal hyperbole applied here:

Huh? A ten year old car slamming into an empty building by a man with a known history of mental instability, a man who obviously had the planning skills of an apricot, is being compared to the 9-11 hijackers?

Not that his actions weren’t wrong. Just as it’s wrong when animal rights and eco-activists do their stunts. But let’s be real here, this just simply is NOT the same as 9-11 and while I would never suggest that police write off these incidents as being unimportant, I certainly have much more concern about people who plan to blow up airports and military bases than a guy who can’t even manage to off himself.

And then there’s Max Blumenthal’s article about the Falwell funeral at the Huffington Post. Blumenthal points to Mark Uhl, a Liberty University student who toted what amounted to a useless puff bomb in his car. Apparently Uhl told someone about it, and that someone alerted authorities. He mentions that a group had planned to protest the Falwell funeral and that Uhl made the bomb to deter the protestors. Reading from Uhl’s (now closed off) blog, Blumenthal quotes:

"Christians, we have been given life after death and we should help others receive it and not sit here in our big buildings and sing to ourselves so we can go home and feel good about ourselves…Christians, fear of death, fear of death. The fear of death shows you don't believe…

God needs soldiers to fight so his children may live free. Are you afraid??? I'm not. SEND ME!!! "

Blumenthal draws a parallel between this and Osama bin Laden:

If a belief in life after death, heaven, Svarga, Paradise, Nirvana, whatever you want to call it, and no fear of the reaper qualifies one for the nuthouse or, at least, a terrorist list, then shoot, even orthodox Jews qualify, Mr. Blumenthal.

Blumenthal also got the motive wrong:

“Uhl was an a devout evangelical Christian who advocated religious violence in the name of American nationalism.”

I will about bet that as time passes, if the media cares to cover it, we’ll find out this was a case of a young man who was given a scholarship to Liberty University and felt some personal allegiance to the memory of a man he admired, even if he didn’t handle the problem in a manner consistent with Falwell’s teachings.

Blumenthal also left out that while the bomb would have done some damage, it was a slowburn bomb which, according to authorities, would not have been very destructive. The 19-year-old now sits in prison, where he belongs of course. In the meantime, there are Islamic terrorist cells here in the United States and abroad which are planning attacks on us.

But then, we have those who cannot tell the enemy from the anomaly. On tompaine.com, an article about the Falwell funeral states:

“Stop it. Stop it right now. Stop pretending Islamists- or environmentalists or animal right activists are the only immanent terrorist threats to our nation. We now know that the students at Liberty University were ready to use homemade bombs against protestors at Jerry Falwell’s funeral.”

Blumenthal was at least honest enough to point out that the protestors were members of the Westboro Baptist Church of “God Hates Fags” fame. Why were they going there? They didn’t like some of the things Falwell said, did not say, things he did, did not do, well just about everything. Below are snippets from their website:

“Falwell cut a deal with his f a g preacher bud, Mel White On Oct. 24, 1999, at his Thomas Road Church, Lynchburg, Va., Jerry Fraudwell denounced WBC Pastor Fred Phelps for preaching truth to f a g s, to the delight of f a g preacher Mel White…”

“God Hates F a gs! And F a g-Enablers! Ergo God hates Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, and all sick Armenian heretic preachers…”

Are you getting the impression that these people are wrapped a little too tight?

Again, nobody approves of using violence to inhibit protest. On the other side, the kid bungled it and the bomb wouldn’t have even caused any real damage other than to maybe make the people from WBB think they’d had a collective fart.

THE ENEMY MAY BE LIBERALISM?

“Fascist, racist, anti-abortion groups are responsible for really all the terrorist attacks in the United States- with the exception of September 11, 2001- over the past two decades.”

                                                                                                                 -Patrick Martin

                                                                                        World Socialist Website, 2005

Martin’s words ring hollow as they ignore the past 20 years of activism by environmentalists, animal rights groups, and other religious groups who have done things in the name of their belief or cause. He also seems to forget that an attack IN the United States need not be the criteria for a threat against the American people. Attacks ON the American people- or the people of America- by Islamists have spanned decades, beginning with the assassination of Robert Kennedy- a hero of the left- by Sirhan Sirhan in 1968.

The list of attacks against Americans by Islamists clearly shows who the real enemy terrorists are:

1983- Bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon (twice that year.)

1984- Kuwait Airlines hijacking, Americans murdered.

1985- Madrid restaurant bombed, American servicemen killed.

1985- TWA flight hijacked, Navy sailor murdered and his body dumped on the tarmac.

1988- Lockerbie, Scotland. Pan Am 747 hijacked and passengers killed including 189 Americans.

1988- Berlin Disco bombing- disco was full of American military on R&R.

1992- hotel housing U.S. servicemen bombed.

1993- Attempted assassination of President George Bush, Sr.

1993- First World Trade Center bombing attempt, 7 killed, over 1,000 injured.

1995- Attack on U.S. Diplomats in Pakistan.

1995- Attack on U.S. military installation in Saudi Arabia.

1996- Khobar Towers attack, 19 U.S. military killed, over 200 injured.

1997- Palestinian gunman fires on tourists on top of the Empire State Building.

1998- Peruvian Embassy bombing.

1998- U.S. Embassy in Kenya blown up- hundreds murdered- terrorists also hit 
           Embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania. Americans injured and killed.

2000- Americans kidnapped in Uzbekistan.

2000- Attack on the U.S.S Cole, 17 killed, 39 injured.

2001- WTC, Pentagon come under attack; over 3000 Americans murdered.

2002- Teenager flies his plane into a building, he left behind a suicide note proclaiming his

           admiration for Osama bin Laden.

2002- D.C. Sniper- Nation of Islam convert kills multiple persons in different places around

          the metro area and on the east coast.

2002- Two American women killed in a grenade attack on a church in Pakistan.

2002- LAX attack.

2002- Marines attacked and murdered in Kuwait.

2002- Jordan. American diplomat shot while in his car by Al-Qaida.

2002- Yemen. Islamic gunman poses as a father carrying his child, kills three American

           humanitarian workers at a missionary hospital.

The list piles longer and longer. And with the recent attempts aimed at Kennedy International Airport and Fort Dix, to say that Christians or any other anomaly group poses a danger more than - or equal to that - of Islamists is to deny reality.

Liberals seem bent on retaining their Cleopatra Syndrome and remaining the “Queens of Denial.” But at what expense? While they (and I include ardent atheists in the mix) want to point to Christians as the enemy, they’re missing the real enemy in their midst.

Someone once said “he that's liberal to all alike, may do a good by chance, but never out of judgment.”

It’s time liberals, regardless of party affiliation, religion, irreligion, race or gender, need to stop trying to do good by chance and exercise better judgment. Not for the Christian’s sake, but for the sake of our nation. Blurring the lines so as to hide who is the real enemy puts all at risk.