Threats come and threats go. We have seen this many times in our post 9/11 world. Al Qaeda or some affiliated group says that another attack is imminent. So too reports that something called “chatter” is high. You keep in the back of your mind, just in case, but we don’t think much about these things anymore.
But every once in a while, we know that the threat was not idle and that the results can change the world. Threats before 9/11 came and went with nothing, until it didn’t. It goes without saying that that attack changed the US and consequently the world. So too in Spain days before the election in 2004. Al Qaeda attacked the rail system and days later Spain elected a Socialist vowing to pull them out of Iraq.
The US went one way after an attack, Spain the other. How might the next attack change the world? If some reports out of Israel are to be believed, we soon may find out. If so, there is no telling how the world might be transformed.
(IsraelNN.com) Jihadists close to al-Qaeda explicitly warned in new communications that Germany will be the target of the next 9/11-scale terrorist attack. The timing of the strike, they say, will be within the next few weeks.
According to analysts with the Institute of Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR), a recently intercepted jihadist communication declares that “everyone knows” that the “next strike is very near, a strike that will surprise everyone in its effect, which will be much more shocking than that of 9/11/2001.” The writer of the chilling message notes that this is the Muslim month of Ramadan and that “we pray that it will indeed be in this month.”
After referring to a previous boast by Osama Bin-Laden, that the enemy is afraid and unable to prevent the next attack, the communication says:
“And the Germans, grandchildren of the Nazis, know more than everyone else that they will be the first ones to taste [the nightmare]. It is just a matter of time – that is, days or weeks – and God willing you’ll see things that you’ve never heard of before.”
It should be remembered that Germany has a national election at the end of this month. How might such an attack change the landscape? It also must be remembered that however Germany goes, so goes Europe. It is impossible and terrifying to imagine the consequences of something like this. I pray we never have to find out.
So like the other threats, I put it in the back of my mind and move on. But before I do I choose to share this with you so that if some weeks from now I find myself standing next you at a candlelight vigil saying with all in solidarity “Ich bin ein Deutscher” you will know that the world has changed, again.
September 14, 2009 at 6:39 am
September 11th was the anniversary of the Battle of Vienna. Is October 7th outside the realm of possibility given it is the anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto?
September 14, 2009 at 7:24 am
Hopefully we will never have to use this phrase at candle light vigil, but the grammatically correct form would be "Ich bin ein Deutscher" not "Ich bin ein Deutsch".
September 14, 2009 at 9:35 am
While your concerns are valid, I can't help feeling we're playing their game by getting worked up about their mad threats. Yes we should be vigilant, and yes the intelligence services even more so, but let's not spread fear, or show fear, in facing up to these utter scumbags.
September 14, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Mike P–
Yes the intelligence services should be vigilant, but I can't help but worry that since our own intelligence services seem to be under attack from within these days, that they won't be much help to the Germans or anyone else.
September 14, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Not to be pedantic, but technically the correct grammar is "Ich bin Deutscher." When Kennedy said "Ich bin ein Berliner," he said "I am a donut." Of course, I share the hope that we never have to use the phrase.
September 14, 2009 at 6:10 pm
It also must be remembered that however Germany goes, so goes Europe.
A ludicrous and moronic statement. Germany has the highest GDP, but their government and economy is completely independent from most member states, notably UK, France and Italy (the next highest GDP's respctively). Merkel has nothing to say to Berlusconi and barely gets along with Sarkozy. I really don't know how you arrived at that conclusion, but it is wrong.
September 14, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Apropos of the missing suggestion in your blog entry and subsequent comments, a Trappist monk friend of mine told me this story-
Near his monastery in Iowa several years ago an industrial-sized hog farm was being set up, much to the consternation of the monks and the neighbors. The monks and the neighbors made up signs, organized a protest, called the media and marched over there one Saturday morning. It was, all in all, a wonderful protest.
When they were coming back and walking up the driveway, one of the neighbor ladies sighed deeply, turned to Fr. Daniel and said, "Father, no one prays about anything anymore!"
Didn't Our Lady say, "Pray and make sacrifices?" What's the point of having a Catholic commentary on the news, if at critical junctures the thought does not even cross our minds, apparently, to suggest that we pray about this sort of thing. I wonder if what is really happening underneath it all is almost worse than whatever Al Qaida may do in Germany. As we watch the secular news are we being secularized?
Shouldn't we pray about this plot, that nothing come of it?
In the Baltimore catechism was a question that the nuns would pose to us sixty years ago: "Can God do all things?"
Back came the singsong reply from fifty first-grade voices: "Yes, God can do all things and nothing is hard or impossible to Him."
Let us pray about this situation…
September 14, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Well said Lee Gilbert – the same thought occurred to me just after I posted my earlier comment. We shouldn't just pray for the atrocity not to happen, but for the souls of these terrorists whom the devil has got round his little finger.
September 14, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Chances are that if/when an attack on Germany took place, were it to be on any sort of massive scale (say Frankfurt airport) the Infidels would no doubt take a large number of their coreligionists with them, since Germany has the second highest infidel population in Europe (second only to France).
September 15, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Don't forget Oktoberfest begins later this month- that would be a tempting target, God forbid.
September 15, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Hog farm?
September 16, 2009 at 8:48 am
David Hasselhoff memorabilia shop?