    Today marks the fifth anniversary of a day that changed the course of American and world history for decades, perhaps centuries, to come. The radio, TV, print, and internet media will be full of retellings of the tragic events that took place in New York City, Washington DC, and over Eastern Pennsylvania, and rightly they should be. We cannot forget what happened to American on the 11th of September 2001 because that was the day a certain innocence was forever taken away from our great nation.
    In the remembrance of that day, however, Americans need to look beyond the immediacy of the attacks that took place, of who carried them out, and of who ordered them. American needs to look beyond how it responded both domestically and internationally to such a grievous attack on its own soil. American needs to look beyond those things to the heart of what those attacks reveal to us and to the world, and that is the reality of a growing enemy and threat from fundamentalist Islam.
    The point the enemies of the United States sought to drive home on 9-11 was that they can strike into the heart of what they consider to be the center of everything they hate in the world- free market capitalism, republican democracy, and personal liberty- and that they are a worldwide force to be reckoned with. That day, the forces of fundamentalist Islam announced their intention to bring the rest of the world under the subjugation of tyranny, totalitarianism, fanaticism, and fear in the name of Islam.
    Indeed, that point has been reinforced since the tragic day of 9-11, in Madrid, in London, and in Bali. That point has been battled over in nations like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. It has been announced more subtly in Sudan, Pakistan, and Indonesia. It has been repeated through websites, videos, and newscasts all over the Muslim world. Each time the point is the same: to bring the rest of the world under the subjugation of tyranny, totalitarianism, fanaticism, and fear in the name of Islam.
    It really makes no difference whether one particular fundamentalist Muslim or another commanded the terrorists on the planes that day. If it was not bin Laden, it could have been Ayatollah Ali Khomeini or Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. Those attacks could have just as easily been launched from Iran or Syria as Afghanistan. The point of those attacks are the important thing to remember, and that point is that fundamentalist Muslims want to bring the rest of the world under the subjugation of tyranny, totalitarianism, fanaticism, and fear in the name of Islam.
    Therefore, while we remember the tragedy of 9-11 and remember those who were so brutally taken away that day, we cannot allow our loss to cloud what we must really remember about 9-11, and that is the reality of a powerful, global enemy who is bent on destroying us in the name of its religion. What we must take into our hearts and burn into our heads is that 9-11 represents the day that fundamentalist Islam took its war against everything we hold dear global.
    The best way we can remember those who died that day is to remember that 9-11 brought to us the reality that we are at war with a pernicious enemy. The best way we can heal our nation from the wounds of 9-11 is to dedicate ourselves and our nation to defeating those who want to bring the rest of the world under the subjugation of tyranny, totalitarianism, fanaticism, and fear in the name of Islam.
    We can no longer tolerate the existence of despotic totalitarian states that pursue deadly weapons, threaten entire regions, murder their own citizens, and hold the world hostage to their tyrannical wills, whatever such nations political or religious ideologies might be. We can no longer accept the existence of organizations, wherever they might be, that condone the attack and slaughter of civilians as their primary means of delivering their message of vitriol and hate.
    We must stand, as Americans and as citizens of the free world, as a bastion of personal liberty, republican democracy, and free market capitalism for all the nations of the world. We must dedicate ourselves to spreading these ideals by whatever means necessary, even if those means require us to endure unpopularity and loss in order for those ideals to be spread.
    We most solemnly vow to remember that the 11th of September 2001, like so many events in the past, reminded us that our freedom is not free. We must remember that the world is full of villains who seek to take that freedom from us, and that freedom is worth fighting for. The ideals that make America great are ideals that must be defended with vigilance, with honor, with action, and when necessary, with blood so that those ideals are not lost to the passage of history.
    I vow to remember that lesson and to do something with it, and I pray that each of you vow to do the same.
Dennis L Hitzeman
11 September 2006
