In sports, when our teams lose a big game, we often refer to it as a “wake-up call” in the hopes that losing will somehow inspire the team to play better. Of course, the idea that a professional sports team requires a significant loss to decide that it is time to take things seriously is a little disturbing, especially to us paying customers.

When you get outside the world of sports, the American notion of a “wake-up call” takes on a more significant meaning. I am a peaceful person at heart. I complain a lot and, on occasion, I tend to throw venom in one direction or another. But my ultimate goal is to see the entire world live in peace and harmony. But it seems that as long as there are radicals in this world, peace is impossible.

Throughout this discussion, I will avoid referencing any particular religion because I do not believe for one moment that these radicals actually work on behalf of their various faiths. If I wanted to, I could take bits and pieces of the Bible out of context to show that the Good Lord requires a blood sacrifice to be happy. But I, like many other rational people, don’t operate like that. Unfortunately, the irrational people are armed and they are looking for blood.

A few days ago, excrement operating under the Taliban moniker attacked a public school in Pakistan. This excrement, who should be categorized several levels below human beings, killed 145 people. Of those that were killed, 132 were children. It took Pakistani troops to enter the school and kill all seven of these pieces of excrement to prevent any further loss of life. To me, this is a new low, even for the excrement known as terrorists.

Moments after it happened, the chief piece of excrement not only claimed “credit” for this unbelievably cowardly act, but he went on to outline in great detail exactly how it was done. Just writing that sentence made me sick.

When the attack first started, the excrement went running through the halls shouting “God is great,” as if this sort of thing would be condoned by any Higher Entity who is supposed to have the utmost compassion and mercy. But it did not take long for the shouts of “God is great” to change to “A lot of the children are under benches. Kill them.”

Sorry, I just got sick again. Hang on a second.

This MUST be the wake-up call that brings the decent people of the Middle East to action. No matter what you believe or how educated you are, there can be no way that you condone the cowardly act of randomly shooting children. The people of the Middle East must rise up against groups like ISIS and the Taliban and flush every last piece of excrement off the face of the Earth, and they must do it now. This needs to be the act that galvanizes the people of the Middle East and prompts them to do whatever it takes to rid the planet of groups like this.

The time for the people of the Middle East to stop relying on other countries to save them has come. There is only so much the United States and anyone else can do to put a stop to these groups. The people that live in those areas must be the ones that stand up and destroy the groups that would try to destroy the people. This is no longer about establishing any kind of unified state – this is a war waged by terrorists on the human race and the entire human race has to start fighting back.

The United States was founded through war. As a people, we fought against what we saw as oppression and took control of our own future. What the people in the Middle East need is not American bombs or troops. They need the attitude that prompts them to decide their own fate and not to have their fate twisted by some militant group.

I wish the people of the Middle East the very best. The vast majority of those people are good, honest people who just want to live their lives. But if they don’t dedicate their lives for just a little while to putting a stop to rampant terrorism, then there won’t be much to save when it is all said and done.

Nick Oliver is a fan of the human race and finds nothing redeeming about terrorism in any form. His column appears every Wednesday and he hopes it acts as a wake-up call to those being oppressed.

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