Never Forget

We don't yet know the identities of those individuals killed in the 7/7 attack. We don't yet know who they were, what they were passionate about, who they loved, who loved them. We don't know where they worked, we don't know what route they took to the tube station, or to the bus stop. Eventually, we will.

In the past four years... Has it really been so long ago? And such a short time, as well... In the past four years, it has become increasingly easy to push the identities of our own victims to the back of our minds, and simply remember that some nebulous attrocity occurred on that Tuesday in 2001. Some people have pushed it back far enough that they've allowed themselves to forget that we face an enemy who declared war on us decades ago, and whose hatred of us exists in spite of our involvement in Iraq, or our exportation of VH1 and Pepsi and Burger King to their holy, peaceful, perfect Islamic wonderlands. Some people have forgotten.

That anyone would need another wake up call, another reminder, is a travesty. Even so, anyone reading this post had better be prepared for a reminder of just what we lost that day.

Meet Joanne.

Joanne Ahladiotis, an American woman of Greek ancestry, was twenty-seven years old. Her sister remembers her as a woman who never did half a job. Every Christmas, she decorated her flat like it was a Macy's department store display. Her attire was always perfect, and her nails were maintained weekly.

She was constantly giving. Every time she went shopping, if she saw something that would make a good gift for a friend or family member, she bought it. According to her sister, if Joanne found something she liked that wasn't available in her size, she bought it in her sister's size.

Joanne was fluent in Greek, and visited her grandmother in Crete every two years. She came home laden with gifts for relatives and friends: icons, jewelry, books, cookies, and the like. She was always giving of herself.

And then, on a Tuesday in September, nearly four years ago, she was brutally murdered by human vermin who would have stoned her to death if they could have, just for wearing the attire you see in the simple head shot above. She was murdered by savages, by barbarians who would target an innocent woman or child for no better reason than their residence in a nation that believes that people should be able to make their own decisions. She was murdered by brutes who have no comprehension of a person entering Paradise through their own choices, and not through a harsh, merciless enforcement of their misguided interpretation of God's will.

Those vermin thought, and their Islamofascist brethren continue to believe, that they will be rewarded, that they are servants of Allah. Well, folks, I've read the Quran, and as much as I disagree with it, as much as I disbelieve that Allah and my own God are the same entity, I did learn that the God of Muhammad and Jesus have one thing in common. As far as I can tell, it's the most commonly repeated phrase in the Quran, and it bears mention here:

Allah is compassionate, merciful, and oft-forgiving.

Therefore, if we are to be servants of God, be it the Trinitarian God of Christianity, or Allah, should not our duty break down ultimately into emulating God, and being more like God? And because of that, should not our goal be to become compassionate and merciful?

These savages killed Joanne Ahladiotis. They murdered her. They murdered three thousand people like her on the eleventh day of September, 2001.

In Bali, they murdered two hundred two people in Bali, Indonesia, many of them Australians, on the twelfth day of October, 2002.

In Istanbul, they murdered more than sixty people, many of these being their fellow Muslims, in November, 2003

In Madrid, they murdered one hundred ninety-one people on the eleventh day of March, in the year of our Lord 2004.

They've been murdering the innocent citizens of Iraq since Spring of 2003, most of them their fellow Muslims.

They've murdered more than fifty people in London this week. Somewhere in London, there's a family mourning a woman not so different than Joanne Ahladiotis. There's a brother, or a sister who will never be able to make a cup of tea for their sister again. There's a friend who will never be able to take such a woman to a kebab shop, or a pub, or the British Museum again.

All because some thugs can't stomach the thought of people perceiving and reacting to the world differently than they do.

You read about Joanne Ahladiotis. If you want to, you can plug her name into Google and read more.

What's the point I'm trying to make? It's simple: anyone who would brutally murder a woman who takes her parents on holiday, and visits her grandmother in Greece every other year, and buys clothing that doesn't fit her just to pass it on to her sister, can not be negotiated with. There will be no appeasing these terrorist barbarians. The only solution is to kill them. Kill their leaders, kill their thugs and operatives, confiscate their supplies and assets, and hold accountable any government that so much as looks the other way when they try to carry out their business. That's what we did in Afghanistan, that's what we did in Iraq, and one way or another, that's what we must continue to do until the message gets across that we are unwilling to pay their demanded ransom with our freedom, our culture, and our love of life.

Any person who is primal enough to murder a Joanne Ahladiotis can not be reasoned, negotiated, or bartered with. Any person who is stupid, or perhaps wilfully ignorant, enough to ignore the most repetitive message of the book that they allege to be the sacred word of their god can not be reasoned, negotiated, or bartered with.

The price of forgetting is too high, so we must always remember. We must never, ever, ever forget.