Of Shoe Bombers and Unseen Worlds

Mr. Curmudgeon

Despite the herculean efforts of the Obama administration to put the war on terror behind us, jihadists haven’t yet gotten the word. Farouk Abdulmutallab, a passenger aboard Northwest Flight 253 to Detroit, attempted to set off an explosive device taped to his leg. Passengers reported hearing several popping sounds, followed by panicked screams of nearby passages. Jasper Shuringa, an Amsterdam filmmaker sitting across the aisle from the would-be bomber, hurled himself across the aisle and grappled with Abjulmatallab. Flight attendants aided Shuringa in subduing the terrorist.

When Scotland Yard announced that Farouk Abdulmutallab studied mechanical engineering at University College, London, this triggered the usual response from the nation’s great disseminator of nihilism, the New York Times:

“What led a worldly young man, who had studied at an elite British university, to choose suicidal violence?”

Materialists reading the Times will no doubt shake their heads, disappointed that the “worldly” Abdulmutallab threw away a promising future in a high-paying career to pursue jihad’s literal dead end. The materialist will never understand that Abdulmutallab believes there is something greater than a university education and a fat paycheck. Possessing that stylish BMW or the newest iPod aren’t ends in themselves. A deep, unseen metaphysical reality is what motivates him – not money. The question then arises: does Abdulmutallab’s unseen reality represent good or evil? The editorial board and staff writers at the New York Times won't answer that question. They can’t get past the BMWs and the iPods. The moral confusion  engendered by their materialism also explains the nihilist’s contempt for our military. Our military men and women are also motivated by an unseen reality.

One case in point surrounds the late U.S. Army Ranger Pat Tillman, tragically killed in a friendly fire incident while serving in Afghanistan. As you may recall, Tillman walked away from a lucrative NFL career to serve in the U.S. military shortly after America was attacked on 9/11. In a piece written for the left-wing Aztlan Communications Network, Rene Gonzalez fleshed out the nihilist’s inability to see the world beyond the paycheck:

“Tillman got himself killed in a country other than his own without having been forced to go over to that country…After all, whether we like them or not, the Taliban is more Afghani than we are. Their resistance is more legitimate than our invasion, regardless of the fact that our social values are probably more enlightened than theirs….he should be used as a poster boy for the dangerous consequences of too much ‘America is #1,’ frat boy, propaganda bull. It might just make a regular man irrationally drop $3.6 million to go fight in a conflict that was anything but ‘self-defense.’”

Gonzalez and the reporters at the New York Times will never understand shoe-bomber Abdulmutallab or Army Ranger Tillman. Abdulmutallab attempted to kill, not for money, but to advance the evil totalitarian aims of his Islamic faith. Tillman killed to fight that totalitarian evil as his duty of love – to family and country. The materialist simply sees both men as nonprofit killers, but grant Islamic fanatics a dispensation due to their home field advantage. For them, Abdulmutallab does not work for evil. He is merely a misguided university student who foolishly walked away from a bright future as a mechanical engineer. They see Tillman’s sacrifice as misguided because he walked away from a $3.6 million football career to trespass on hell’s little acre in Afghanistan.

Gonzalez and the typists at the New York Times take the coward’s way out. They refuse to take a stand for good against evil because they see no financial gain in it. A key strategy of President Obama’s “surge” in Afghanistan is to funnel U.S. dollars into that country’s educational system. A fine university education certainly increased shoe-bomber Abdulmutallab’s future job prospects and earning potential, but did little to assuage the unseen reality of evil within him. This is something the educated moral idiot will never understand.