What Kind of People Are They?

Thomas Sowell says what needs to be said (hat tip Rebecca):

It is hard to think of a time when a nation -- and a whole civilization -- has drifted more futilely toward a bigger catastrophe than that looming over the United States and western civilization today. Nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran and North Korea mean that it is only a matter of time before there are nuclear weapons in the hands of international terrorist organizations. …

What kind of people provide a market for videotaped beheadings of innocent hostages? What kind of people would throw an old man in a wheelchair off a cruise liner into the sea, simply because he was Jewish? What kind of people would fly planes into buildings to vent their hate at the cost of their own lives? These are the kinds of people we are talking about getting nuclear weapons.

I should add, what kind of people would kill over a cartoon? What kind of people would sentence a man to death for changing his religion? Or sentence to death a woman for being an “adulterer” because she was raped with too few witnesses? What kind of people pound into their children the dream of being a human bomb, as is common in the Arab school system in the West Bank? Or kill their daughter for wanting to be a woman? Shall I go on? Let’s return to Mr. Sowell:

Do we understand that the world will never be the same after hate-filled fanatics gain the ability to wipe whole American cities off the face of the earth? Do we still imagine that they can be bought off, as Israel was urged to buy them off with "land for peace" -- a peace that has proved to be wholly illusory? … We are fast approaching the point of no return.

Update: Read Jaime's post below where he reminds us that "Iran is at war with us, whether we want to accept it or not. Just as Hitler was at war with Civilization long before 1939." Also, read Robert Tracinski where he sees signs that we've "begun to wake up to the fact that "Iran is the new Nazi Germany" and to realize that it needs to be confronted. ... But it is very late."