Emerson Radio Address: Homegrown Terrorism

EMERSON RADIO ADDRESS: Homegrown Terrorism

"How quickly have we forgotten the foiled plot on JFK airport. It seems that, just as soon as this attempt at devastating terrorism was announced on the weekend news two weeks ago, it has been forgotten.

Four men hatched a plot to detonate explosives that would ignite the massive jet fuel storage tanks near the New York airport as well as pipelines leading to the airport terminals. They could have killed hundreds, even thousands, of airport workers and travelers in addition to disrupting air travel across the country for weeks. Their plot would have been the first successful terrorist attack on American soil since September 11th, 2001.

While it is reassuring to learn that the terrorists were stopped and the disaster was averted, this incident contains a disturbing detail: Three of the four men involved were American citizens.

It is difficult to imagine an American raising his hand against his own country, but it has happened. In a world where extremists have set their sights on the freedoms and liberties inherent in the American way of life, however, this event marks a sad reality that has arrived upon our shores.

America is not the first nation to discover homegrown terrorism. The homicide bombings in the London public transit system last year were particularly shocking for the fact that the bombers were all British-born. They chillingly attacked innocent citizens of their own nation without prejudice or mercy.

The JFK plot tells us that the potential for the same thing to happen in the United States exists right now.

It is particularly unsettling that, in our land of opportunity, some Americans would strike at the heart of the principles which make our country great: our openness, our rights, and our patriotism.

What should we do when attacks on our nation come from within? The first priority of our daily role in protecting our nation must be vigilance. Hotlines are set up to report suspicious or dangerous activity, whether to local authorities or to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Secondly, we have to instill the strength in our country that comes from participating fully in our civic obligations to vote and to be active members of our community volunteer efforts.

Finally, we have an obligation to not indulge the terrorists in the results they desire. As terrible as it is to blow up an airport or crash airplanes into buildings full of innocent Americans, this is not their ultimate aim.

They hope to accomplish anarchy and paranoia that causes our freedoms to become meaningless. They wish to turn neighbor against neighbor with suspicion and fear. They want to create negative American attitudes toward Islam and Muslims, so they may fulfill their prophecies that America is a land of intolerance toward the young men and women they wish to recruit to their cause.

They cannot take our liberties from us, so they work to make us take our freedoms from ourselves.

We must not let them succeed in this effort or the cliche will become an incontrovertible truth - the terrorists will have won."

Source