Terrorism Victims and American Amnesia

Americans are famous for exhibiting what I call a bad case of acute collective amnesia. How quickly we forget events that catapult us to the brink of disaster, only to return to our cozy womb of collective amnesia shortly after the crisis passes.

From a psycho-social point of view, this may be perfectly understandable and easy to explain. The self-protective mechanism of forgetfulness and/or denial is a coping mechanism, a means of survival. The human brain is infinitely capable of relegating traumatic events and their emotional aftermath to the realm of the unconscious, thus allowing us to carry on with life with a minimum amount of disruption.

However, there are some things that are dangerous to forget.

The Holocaust. 7 million Jews and political dissenters murdered.

Joseph Stalin's purge of Russian dissidents which resulted in over 20 million deaths in the first half of the 20th century under Communist rule.

The aftermath of our cutting and running in Viet Nam, which led to a barbaric bloodbath that has rarely been seen in human history, conducted by the Khomere Rouge.

These things must be remembered. The adage is that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

Americans must maintain the ability to snap out of their amnesia on occasion long enough to remember what happened to us as a nation on September 11, 2001. We were bombarded with the stark reality that terrorism is real and it had come to our shores.

We must also remember who did it and who is part of their worldwide push to destroy Western society and its values. And we must never forget the barbaric deeds done by those who fight in the army of the Islamic Jihadists.

The images below are a reminder. America's collective amnesia must not be allowed to lead us to erase from our memories the lives of those forever marred by the acts of barbarism by extremist Muslims. We must continue to do all within our power to honor their memory by fighting terrorism with all our might, as long as it takes to destroy this world-wide scourge.

The following image is of American Paul Johnson, who went to Iraq to work as a civilian in the attempt to rebuild the country. This photo shows Paul and his wife. Paul was beheaded by Islamic Jihadists in Iraq.


Groups of Islamic thugs await the perfect opportunities to spread carnage all over the world.


When the Pope dared to mention in a lecture before a group of Roman Catholic theologians in Germany that Islam has a history of being a violent religion, here was the reaction of the supposed cool, rational members of the Muslim militants.


Kim-Sun-il was an evangelical Christian kidnapped by Muslim extremists and later beheaded despite his pleas for mercy and the cries for the help of his government.


Another hideous scene of a beheading about to happen.


The Armstrong beheading.


My hope is that these sobering reminders will serve as a wake-up call to Americans who tend to be lured to sleep or to cynicism by opportunistic politicians who apparently suffer from their own form of amnesia.

May we NEVER forget!