Mayor Bloomberg's statement also reflects a naivete about why bin Laden and al-Qaida sent those terrorists to wound our country and kill as many of us as they could in the most dramatic way they could.
Al-Qaida did not attack us because we have a free press and freedom of assembly. They sent terrorists to smash and burn the symbols of U.S. power -- the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the Capitol -- because they hate our policies and, above all, our presence in the Dar al-Islam, the House of Islam. They wish to purify their region of the infidel, establish a caliphate and live under sharia.
To them, we are the new Crusaders, the new Romans, and by wounding and enraging us, they sucked us into a war on their terrain.
And those firemen, police and rescue workers did not run into those burning buildings to defend constitutional rights, but, acting out of bravery and love, to save their fellow men.
And as our God, the one true God, said, "Greater love than this hath no man, than that he lay down his life for his friend."
