Distinguish between enemy and victim

In a recent posting to her website, Michelle Malkin calls attention to the travesty of the planned memorial for Flight 93 that crashed on September 11 after its passengers heroically thwarted the designs of Islamofascist hijackers by driving the plane into an empty Pennsylvania field, saving the lives of potentially thousands of their fellow citizens on that terrible day.

The memorial’s design, unveiled last week, is that of a red crescent wrapped around the site of the crash. Despite denials by its architects, the religious overtones of the memorial are unmistakable (the crescent, of course, is a symbol of the Islamic faith). At best, we can hope that this was chosen to symbolically convey peaceful Islam’s solidarity with those slaughtered by jihadists. Even this, however, is offensive to the spirit of those who, just over four years ago, fired the opening shots in the Nation’s counteroffensive against its Islamofascist enemies. A tribute should be made to their determination and sacrifice – not to convince others of a religion’s peaceful nature.

Across the pond, meanwhile, it appears Islamism has landed on its feet in Britain after initially meeting opposition following the July 7 terrorist bombings in London. In the wake of those attacks, Tony Blair vowed to create a Home Office task force of committees to "tackle extremism."

Unfortunately, reports Andrew C. McCarthy in a column for National Review Online, the Prime Minister continues to suffer from an inability to distinguish moderates from extremists. McCarthy details how Blair has stocked these committees with known Islamists who have referred to Osama bin Laden as a "freedom fighter" and who have praised jihadists for attacking Americans and Israelis.

In one of its first steps, this group of advisors is urging Blair to scrap the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day – calling it offensive to Muslims – and replace it with a Genocide Day that would recognize, in the words of the Times of London, "the mass murder of Muslims in Palestine, Chechnya and Bosnia as well as people of other faiths." In an equally noxious move, these advisors will object to Blair’s proposal to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir – an Islamist organization whose proclaimed goal is jihad against America and the overthrow of existing political regimes and their replacement with a Caliphate.

If we are to triumph over Islamofascism, we must do a better job of distinguishing between our enemy and our enemy’s past and intended victims.