Not a day goes by that people like Pastorius and Always On Watch and Epaminondas and WC and Avi Green And Pam Geller and Robert Spencer and Geert Wilders and myself and so many others don't think about these images

And thousands of others like them

They are not just seared into our mind

We've allowed ourselves to be branded with them

It wasn't fanatics that did this

It wasn't radicals that did this

ISLAM did this

And so many other stories and images we read and see every day these last 14 years

My God it doesn't seem that long

Not to us

To us it seems like yesterday

Like just yesterday when we thought there'd be no tomorrow

Images of beheadings and immolations and acid attacks and genital mutilations

Women and children sold into slavery

Sexual and otherwise

It isn't fanatics that do this

It isn't radicals that do this

ISLAM does this

Images we see and stories we read so often that, I'm almost ashamed to say, at times we seem almost inured to them

But we then write about them and bring you the stories and the pictures and the videos

Even though so many say not to.

There is no reason to.

I beg to differ  No, I DEMAND to differ

Too many people still don't believe. Still don't understand. Still don't get it.

ISLAM DOES THIS

We spend long hours writing and researching and screaming and preaching

Often neglecting our family and friends because we are caught up in the latest atrocities. Attacks. Threats. In trying to explain to people, until we're blue and out of breath. Driving loved ones crazy with our rants

If that sounds like me trumpeting myself and my counter jihadists, playing a martyr enslaved to the counter jihad

too bad

tough shit

SOMEONE has to do it.

Because too many have forgotten the final desperation and utter despair of a falling man

How they felt when they first heard two planes struck the towers

an explosion at the Pentagon

a plane was headed for Camp David

another to The Capitol

the sinking in their stomachs waiting for news of a missing loved one

the constricting of their throats with each new suspected threat

the dry mouth nervous twitch

trying to explain it to their kids

the long hours and days and weeks glued to the news for any and all information they could get

about what had happened

or what the pundits and pols and talking heads thought would happen next

about a possible attack on a bridge

or maybe a nuke or dirty bomb smuggled into a city

any day now

the sheer horror and terror they felt that day when confronted face to face by pure unadulterated unfettered black hearted evil

the pride they felt when a handful of people, 40 strangers to each other, chose to confront that pure unadulterated unfettered black hearted evil not face to face, but hand to hand

knowing nearly

to a certainty

that they would probably die

but in doing so others would live

SOMEONE has to do it because too many have chosen not to

have chosen to make apologies for it

have chosen to think it was an anomaly and get back to their busy little lives of soccer and little league and lattes and macchiatos and keeping up with the Caitlyn Kardashians

have chosen willful ignorance

have forgotten what it was like that day to all rally as Americans

forgotten

the astounding surprise that we were caught off guard

the anger that they dared do this TO US

the pain of 3,000 lost souls

the sorrow of their loved ones

the absolute fire for

not revenge

no, not mere revenge

but a reckoning

have forgotten that it was 14 years ago

or maybe just yesterday

when we all thought there would be no tomorrow

fanatics didn't bring us to this

radicals didn't bring us to this

ISLAM brought us to this

SOMEONE has to do it because no one else wants to

And so this post is a memorial to those who died that day

a tribute and thank you to the REAL WARRIORS in uniform who confront it hand to hand every day in faraway places

like Kabul and Kandahar and Maziri Sharif and Tora Bora

and the London or New York or Madrid subways

and to my brothers and sisters who sit alone in their family rooms and living rooms writing and researching and seeing absolutely the worst humanity has to offer

to make sure no one, no matter how willfully ignorant, ever again has to feel like there will be no tomorrow

I am proud of you

stand in awe of all of you

and am humbled to be counted among you

reminding people every day

of what happened yesterday

or maybe it was just 14 years ago

I returned,

and saw under the sun,

that the race is not to the swift,

nor the battle to the strong,

neither yet bread to the wise,

nor yet riches to men of understanding,

nor yet favour to men of skill;

but time and chance happeneth

to them all.

For man also knoweth not his time:

as the fishes that are taken in an evil net,
and as the birds that are caught in the snare;
so are the sons of men snared in an evil time,

when it falleth suddenly upon them.