'Flight 93'

On May 1, writer Tom Miller reviewed the film "Flight 93" for Military.com.

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,95869,00.html?ESRC=dod.nl

Miller is a novelist, and a former history professor, Army officer, and Vietnam veteran. His review is less of the film than of the need to remember why it needed to be made:

[I]f people need to be reminded, maybe it's already too late. We have been at war with these Islamo-fascist thugs since long before 9/11. They have told us—repeatedly and clearly—what their intentions are. Why can't we accept them at their word? Especially after 9/11?

Osama bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri, the Iranian ayatollahs, among others, have echoed Muhammad's words from his farewell address in 632: "I was ordered to fight all men until they say 'There is no god but Allah.'" The ultimate goal of these hateful tyrants is a universal Islamic empire governed not by secular law but by divine law. That leaves no place for freedom.

Miller is right about all of this, especially his forceful identification of the Islamic empire as the enemy's goal, and its connection back to the founder of Islam. This is what needs to be remembered.

Miller is also right not to name Saddam Hussein as one of those advocating the Islamic empire—Hussein was just a tyrant of the non-religious type and an enemy of Iran. If only our government had empowered our soldiers—the guys being shot at—to take out the Islamic totalitarians, instead of digressing into Iraq…

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Related:

• “No Substitute for Victory” The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism
• William Tecumseh Sherman and the Moral Impetus for Victory

Image: Wikimedia Commons

About John David Lewis

John David Lewis was a contributing editor to TOS from the journal’s second issue, in 2006, until his death, on January 3, 2012. He was a visiting associate professor in the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Program at Duke University. He held a PhD in classics from the University of Cambridge and taught at the University of London. He had also been a senior research scholar in history and classics at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University, and a fellow of the Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship. He published in journals such as Journal of Business Ethics, Social Philosophy and Policy, Polis, Dike, and Bryn Mawr Classical Review, and lectured on classics, military history, and contemporary political issues at numerous universities and for private groups. His research interests were in ancient Greek and Roman thought, military history, and their connections to the modern day. His books are Solon the Thinker: Political Thought in Archaic Athens (Duckworth, 2006), Early Greek Lawgivers (Bristol Classical Press, August, 2007), and Nothing Less than Victory: Decisive Wars and the Lessons of History (Princeton,2010). Dr. Lewis also wrote for Capitalism Magazine. His website is www.JohnDavidLewis.com.

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