OUR IMPOSSIBLE WAR AGAINST TERROR
By Robert Klein Engler (09/05/06)
CHICAGO (5 September '06)--The latest video message from al-Qaida shows Ayman al-Zawahiri urging Americans to convert to Islam. The video also features an American, Adam Gadahn, who supposedly is a convert. Gadahn tells the viewer, "We invite all Americans and believers to Islam, whatever their role and status in Bush and Blair's world order...decide today, because today could be your last day."
Our enemies often tell us what they plan to do. This was the case with Karl Marx, Valdimir Lenin and Mao. Hitler laid out his plans in Mein Kempf. Why, then, do we not admit these days that we are in a religious war with Islam? Al-Zawahiri says that's the case. Many in the so-called Muslim street know it, too. In spite of this, the powers that be in the West want to call the war we are waging against Hamas, Hezbullah and al-Qaida is a "war on terror."
Look how they struggle for the right word. Today, the word is "Islamo-fascists." President Bush says it's, "Islamic fascism." Yesterday it was "insurgents." Or was that the day before? Is it the "war on terror" or the "war on terrorism?" Once it was the war against the "jihadists." Then, there was "militant Islamacists." We waited to hear the "moderate Muslims" denounce them. Finally, there is "radical Islam," spoken by those who use an adjective to mask the truth, when just one word will do.
If the truth is spoken, then we have to say that the West is fighting a war against Islam. This is an on again, off again war that is 1,500 years old. The truth is that Islam is a carrier of terrorism, similar to Peter L. Berger's suggestion that capitalism in the West is a carrier of secularization. The origin of these ideas is found in the work of the sociologist Max Weber, when he wrote that the main carrier of early Islamic values was a warrior class. The so-called war on terror is really the liberal West's way of not saying what ought to be said about Islam--it is an aggressive religion that converts through violence.
Serge Trifkovic has no qualms about exposing the often violent aspects of Islam. Reviewing his book, The Sword of the Prophet, Michael Carl claims, "In a flash of truth, the author also confronts the...politically correct crowd who spin...disinformation when they tell us that Islam is a religion of peace. This is a lie, for the Qur'an in Sura 2:216 tells Muslims that war is good. The Qur'an says in Sura 9:5 to slay those who will not believe in Islam and in Sura 5:33 to execute those who resist Islam."
These Suras present a problem for those who want to interpret the Qur'an in a politically correct way--as a peaceful religion no different from Buddhism. Those interpreters say that verses in the Qur'an encouraging violence should not be generalized, but are understood to apply only in a specific time and place, and not to the modern world of globalization and nuclear bombs. These verses reveal a "localized" truth, not a general one.
Because this localized interpretation ends up destroying Islam in an attempt to save it, such an interpretation cannot survive the teaching of the Muslim clerics. If one part of the Qur'an may be interpreted to apply to a past time and place and not for all time, then why can't we say the same about the entire book and even Mohammed? The enterprise that is Islam could then be dismissed. It is obvious the mullahs and experts in Islamic law would not stand for that. This being the case, we are left with the realization that Islam is a carrier of violence after all, and because of this, it is incompatible with Western Civilization.
And then there is the undigested lump they call the Jews, or sometimes "The People of the Book." Each day the Jews and Israel exist proves Islam wrong. The desire of Iran's President Ahmadinejad to wipe Israel off the map is no different a motive than the one that saw the Jews massacred at Medina (Yathrib) in 627 A. D.
The threads of history and grace the Jews tease out runs through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; not Abraham, Ishmael and Mohammed. This history is a cause of wonder, but also a cause of resentment. That's why many Muslim clerics and others hate the Jews so much. It is the same hatred the Nazis and Communists had in their hearts. It is because of the Jews, too, that the West is hated, especially the U. S., the one nation that guarantees the existence of the state of Israel.
If Islam has to abolish the Jews to prove itself right, then just the opposite holds for Christianity. Christians believe that salvation comes through the Jews, so, it is the very existence of the Jews that proves Christianity. To abolish the Jews would be for the Christians to commit fratricide. In one sense, both Christianity and Islam fight over the Jews. In this fight, secularism will never defeat religious terrorism.
Faced with the incompatibility of an aggressive Islam, the West has three policies it can adopt vis-Ã -vis Muslims These three policies are: Containment, Conversion, or Conquest. The Bush administration has chosen the path of containment. All things being equal, this may be the prudent course of action and why we are fighting in Iraq. Sadam Hussein's rule was a secular one, not an Islamic one. If any society in the Muslim world could be Westernized to further Islamic containment, then it most likely would be Iraq. Many are holding their breath to see what happens there.
So far, the Bush administration's policy of containing Islam has worked. Signs, however, show this policy may not continue to be successful. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan continue to export Muslim agents to the West. Furthermore, Americans are uneasy with a seemingly endless war on terror.
Add to this uneasiness the realization that elites in the Western media and academy have lost confidence in our civilization, and we will hear a growing call to withdraw our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. All together, many may prefer the miasma of Democratic policies than a policy of Islamic containment. Most importantly, however, is that Islam itself will not be contained. Like Mexico, it wants to get back what it lost and more. Iran is the best example of that.
When faced with the prospects of converting Islam or conquering the nations that further it in a conventional war, Americans grow cautious. Islam itself enforces the death penalty to any Muslim who converts. There are also too many fortunes at stake, especially those fortunes dependent on middle-eastern oil, for a costly and prolonged, conventional war against Islam. The wealthy cannot imagine that well to their riches going dry. Likewise, American executives prefer short term profits over long term values. You can hear them at the country club say, "Please, a religious war is bad for business!" They will continue to go in many directions while our enemies will go in only one.
Our enemies know our weaknesses, too. They know we do not want to impose practical limits on the ideology of liberalism that prevails in the West. They know we do not have the political will to deport Muslims, let alone deport masses of illegal immigrants or profile Muslim young men at our airports. They know that secularism and political correctness prevent us from saying the words or effecting policies that will give us victory. Our enemies are happy to see the Euphrates polluting the Mississippi.
Long term success seems unlikely in Iraq because we have not called the enemy by its right name. Unfortunately, we cannot count on the Democrats to say this name, either. John Kerry seems to prefer a constant, low level of terrorist attacks to be prosecuted as criminal offenses instead of admitting the war declared on the West by Islam. Furthermore, the Democrats have trouble with talking about many problems accurately. Remember, they prefer to say "undocumented workers," instead of illegal aliens.
The failure of the Bush administration to say Islam is a carrier of terrorism and then to speak the truth about the war in Iraq is one of the two fatal errors that will shape the future of the U. S. The other fatal error made by this administration is related to the first one. That error is keeping our border with Mexico open in the belief that our two cultures and economies will harmoniously mix.
This mix will not happen. Economies and cultures do not mix like water and salt. The West has been trading with China since the time of Marco Polo, yet the Chinese have not stopped being Chinese--money changes hands faster than it changes minds.
Ten million illegal Mexican wage slaves living in the U. S. only sets the example for more lawlessness to happen in our cities and opens up a channel for terrorists and drug traffickers. Certainly, there are those in al-Qaida who see our problems with illegal immigration as a fifth column working to create social unrest in the U. S. Militant Islam would be foolish not to take advantage of this social unrest.
In spite of these threats, the generation behind us, brain washed by secularism, couldn't care less about Islam or Mexico. So what if they get the podcast call to prayer from minarets where smokestacks used to be? They may simply bow down and move on. Regrettably, the prospect of an endless war on terror along with amnesty and voting rights for illegal immigrants may mean that the United States will overthrow its constitution by ballots instead of bullets.
Even after a nuclear bomb goes off in an American city, as it most likely will if things continue to progress the way they are, many will not be able to name the enemy. The digital brokers of our next generation will ignore that radioactive inconvenience and shift their attention to other markets. Sipping their cocktails in a high-rise bar, they will look out to see a crescent moon rise in the night sky and wonder at the cold shimmer it sends across the Delaware.
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