By State Representative Dave Belton (R-Buckhead)
I normally don’t comment on national issues, as I am a state legislator. However, I find I must make an exception in this case, partly because I was recently named the Chairman of the Base Realignment and Closure Committee, whose mission is to protect our military installations in Georgia. The other is that I spent the vast majority of my military career fighting the same sort of savages who perpetrated the attack in Orlando, and it angers me that the President has thrown away the hard work that the men and women whom I served with did to make our nation safe.
The violence is unspeakable but sadly…familiar. It happened in San Bernardino, and at the Boston Marathon. It happened in Paris, Belgium, Spain and in England. The difference in Orlando is that this terrorist attack is the worst on U.S. shores since 9/11.
As you recall, 9/11 was caused by a group of Radical Islamic Terrorists who did not employ guns, yet killed thousands of people. For a very short time our nation rallied together, denouncing those thugs for the barbarians they were. Democrats and Republicans voted together to authorize a war both on Afghanistan and then Iraq. We hunted down Al Qaeda in a military campaign that kept the U.S. terror-free until President Obama pulled our troops out of Iraq. That act, a retreat that our military advisors warned against, was the birth of ISIS, the “JV Team” that has brought Radical Islamic Terror to America again.
Two days after the President claimed that ISIS was contained, terrorists gunned down scores in Paris. Days after the attack in Orlando, the President claimed that we were winning the war against ISIS. Yet just days later, the CIA Chief directly refuted him, saying that ISIS was better poised to attack us now than ever before.
To deflect their failure, many blame the NRA. That is absurd. The Orlando killer yelled, “Allah Akbar!” and posted on Facebook dozens of times during the massacre to make sure everyone on the planet understood that he was committing his atrocities on behalf of Islam. We pledged we would “never forget” 9/11, yet the White House forcibly requires that we forget that the Terrorists who killed those Americans did so on behalf of Radical Islam.
Gun-control advocates believe we could stop this violence by making guns illegal. Yet France, Spain, Belgium and England have far stricter gun laws than we do, and it didn’t stop those attacks. And our own tragedies in Boston and 9/11 didn’t involve guns at all.
Nearly all mass shooting events happen in “safe zones” where guns are prohibited. Why? Because the criminal – who doesn’t have a problem getting guns illegally – knows he is “safe” from being shot by law-abiding citizens. The “safe zone” creates a “safe” environment for the shooter. Many want us to put our trust in the government, yet that same government clearly failed when they mistakenly took the murderer off the terror list and ignored the gun shop owner who warned the FBI against this exact killer. It is because the government is so inept that law-abiding citizens must arm themselves.
Radical Islamic jihadists have been waging wars against “infidels” for almost 1,500 years. They conquered the Holy Lands, all of northern Africa, all of the Middle East, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and much of India, forcibly “converting” the conquered or killing them instead. They overran Portugal, Spain, and parts of Italy. Even more disturbing, they conquered four of the five centers of Christianity: Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople. In short, Western Civilization was under assault, and losing badly, to Radical Islamic Terrorists when the invaders crossed the Pyrenees Mountains in 732 to conquer France. The vastly out-numbered French monarch, Charles Martel, defeated the Islamic army at Tours in a conflict that is called the most important battle in history.
Radical Islamic Terrorists have been waging war against America for more than 200 years. Trying to figure out a way to negotiate with the Barbary Pirates, President Thomas Jefferson read the entire Koran to help understand their motivations. He wrote, “It was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority are to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners.” He eventually ordered the Marines to storm Tripoli in a battle that is famously memorialized by the Marine’s Hymn, “From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli.”
The high-water mark of Islamic expansion occurred in 1683. Islamic invaders were about to conquer the crown jewel of Europe – Vienna. The antagonists bombed out a part of the wall and were ready to storm the city when a Polish king came to the rescue, smashing the invaders in the largest cavalry charge in history. The defeat of the Islamic army – just when they were on the verge of a glorious success – has been a source of angst for Radical Islamic Terrorists for many centuries.
The date of the battle? September 11.
Patrick Henry once said, “Gentlemen cry, peace, peace: but there is no peace. The war is actually begun.” Like it or not, Radical Islamic Terrorists are waging a war against us and have been for years. If we don’t fight to win, we can expect decades of withering losses. The difference? Our children may be counted amongst the dead.
Representative Dave Belton represents the citizens of District 112, which includes all of Morgan County and the eastern side of Newton County. He was elected into the House of Representatives in 2014, and currently serves as a member of the Economic Development & Tourism, Education, and Interstate Cooperation committees.
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