THINK-ISRAEL

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A CONFLUENCE OF FOLLY

by D. L. Adams

  

Part 1

The barely prevented horror that was the recent Christmas Day jihad terror attack on an inbound flight to Detroit from Amsterdam seems to have affected people in our country in a way that other recent terror attacks have not. Only eight years since 9/11 and only weeks from the atrocity at Fort Hood, it is now clear that we continue to be unsafe and profoundly vulnerable; the commonalities of our daily lives put us at risk in ways that we never thought could be possible in our country.

There is loaded symbolism also in Abdulmutallab's terror attack of Christmas Day; an inbound flight to perhaps America's most devastated city (Detroit) was almost destroyed by an ideologically driven[1] sadist and would-be mass murderer. The image of a blown up (with all its attendant casualties) American aircraft at the aerial doorway of Detroit is horrific; a revolting unity of destruction and failure in the air and on the ground. The just-prevented terror attack is a symbol that every American city could one day become just like Detroit through acts of jihad war and hate.

The economic failure of Detroit is complex and occurred over many decades; the devastating cultural bankruptcy that now impedes the legitimate defense of every American city will likely result in future catastrophic disasters that will take only seconds to transpire, not decades. The failure of Detroit is not an illustration of the failure of Americanism, or democracy but rather a failure of attention paid; we have an obligation to do our best for the city of Detroit (or any American city) just as we have an obligation to secure our people, borders, cities, and the infrastructure of our country.

After the Christmas Day attack on the Detroit flight we stand at a crossroads; a crossroads where denial [2] and ignorance meet rationality and common sense. We enter the New Year observing a disturbing confluence of errors, mistakes, malfeasance and incompetence.[3] that puts every American and all of our friends across the world at increased risk. The last minute prevention of the "crotch bomber's"[4] attack is a rare bright spot for us; there are few silver clouds to be found in these dark linings.

We continue to send our best and brightest men and women to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. The president[5] said recently in a speech at West Point that U.S. troop levels would be increased by 30,000 in the Afghanistan theater of operations — a new surge. The president[6] did say during the campaign that Afghanistan was the most important fight[7] and Iraq was not; why this was so was never explained other than with derisive accusations of the previous president's "errors." The comparison dismissed by the current resident[8] of the White House is an important one and should not be so readily minimized; Iraq and Afghanistan are the same battle in a much wider war.

Afghanistan and Iraq — War for the Enemy's Ideology

While his "progressive" supporters were almost universally condemnatory[9] of this new surge, those on the political right were almost universally supportive.[10] But they are all wrong because the foundations of both conflicts are built upon concepts that are contrary to American ideas of freedom, tolerance, equality of the sexes, and justice.

This "mission" in Iraq and Afghanistan appears to be "nation building" with ideals of democracy given lip service but no substantive backing. This is because the constitutional foundation of both beneficiary "states" is Islam and Sharia law.

There can be no doubt that Sharia law is anti-women, anti-tolerance, anti-homosexual, and anti-democratic and contrary to our concepts of justice and human rights. American support for such a brutal and anti-human system in two countries with the blood of our best and a great part of our national treasure derived from all citizens through taxation defies explanation.

If the foundation of both "states" is the law of Islam (Sharia) and the law of Islam is contrary to American concepts of freedom, justice, equality, and tolerance why then do we support these "states"?

When questions of ideology are presented to the planners of the wars and our leadership, the questioner is excoriated for his/her intolerance and impropriety and lack of consideration for another "culture;" but the questions themselves are never answered. We are experts at blowing things up, but we seem ill prepared for the ideological component of this massive conflict of which Iraq and Afghanistan are but a part.

The indefensible fact that no answers are forthcoming and, that the questions themselves cannot be asked, is a national tragedy upon which future tragedies will be constructed and for which our leadership must be held accountable.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are deeply flawed because we are fighting for Sharia law (Islamic Law) in both countries. We are, in effect, fighting for anti-democracy and monoculture (Islam), hatred, intolerance, and jihad. Astoundingly, we are fighting for the same ideology then for which our existential jihadist enemies fight — the creation of an Islamic state and the rule of Sharia law.

In Afghanistan, does it make sense to support a Sharia law country (Karzai's government) that is fighting a Sharia law former government (Taliban) when Sharia law itself is fundamentally opposed to everything for which the United States stands? Can there be a national foreign policy anywhere based upon greater moral, ethical, and intellectual confusions, ignorance, and foolishness than this?

The idea that American soldiers fight and die, and that America would stretch its economy to the breaking point, for a totalitarian system of brutality and cruelty (Sharia) would have been unthinkable only a generation ago. We have surely passed some kind of red line.

Afghanistan[11]

Afghanistan Constitution: Article One
Ch. 1. Art. 1
Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic, independent, unitary and indivisible state.

Iraq[12]

Iraq Constitution: Article 2 —
First: Islam is the official religion of the State and it is a fundamental source of legislation:
A. No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established.

 

If establishing Sharia Law[13] with all its cruelty, misogyny, brutalities, anti-homosexuality, anti-religious freedom, denial of individual rights, and the inculcation of Islamic supremacism and obligatory jihad is not the purpose of the United States government in supporting Iraq and Afghanistan it is certainly going to be the result. The purpose of jihad is to actively oppose the existence of systems of government, cultures, and religions that are not Islamic and bring the entire world under Islam and jihad.

Participation in jihad is an obligation for all adherents of Islam. In Koran this "fighting in Allah's cause" and is mentioned over 100 times; it is a central if not the central them of Islam itself.

The question must be asked: What is our purpose in supporting the creation and growth of societies and governments that are fundamentally opposed to our existence (as delineated in their founding documents and in Islamic doctrine) and the concepts of liberty and freedom, tolerance and openness, for which the United States has always, until recently apparently, so steadfastly stood?

Wars of Self-Destruction — Abandoning our Heritage

What, then, do our American ideas of freedom and justice mean when we encourage the existence and growth (with both blood and treasure) of societies that are opposed to such ideas? These wars are a disaster whose purposes must be understood. American support of Sharia law anywhere is evidence of an American cultural failure and an abandonment of the foundational concepts that form our national character and the foundations of our country. Support of Sharia law anywhere by the United States here at home or abroad is a foundational failure of understanding the doctrine of Islam.

Alexis De Tocqueville in Democracy in America compared the importance of the concepts of religion and American civilization in the early 19th century. His observations are as valid today as they were in 1840.

Mohammed professed to derive from Heaven, and has inserted in the Koran, not only religious doctrines, but political maxims, civil and criminal laws, and theories of science. The Gospel, on the contrary, only speaks of the general relations of men to God and to each other, beyond which it inculcates and imposes no point of faith. This alone, besides a thousand other reasons, would suffice to prove that the former of these religions will never long predominate in a cultivated and democratic age, whilst the latter is destined to retain its sway at these as at all other periods. — Democracy in America, Vol 2, Cambridge: Sever and Francis, 1840; reprint, 1863); p.26.

The conceptual foundations of America as understood by early historians of the republic and of later analysts is in the Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman tradition. De Tocqueville's assessment is essentially correct in analysis but mistaken in its prediction; how could he have known that we ourselves would finance the resurgence of Islam through the greatest transfer of wealth in human history through our purchases of Arab/Islamist oil?[14]

Over time it appears that we have been our worst enemy — forgetting those profound concepts of freedom and justice upon which the republic was fashioned with the intention that, like the Union itself, these concepts would be perpetual through our protection of them.

In our forgetting, we have created an intellectual environment of radical tolerance for other ideologies and cultures — even to the existential detriment of our own.

Islamic justice, peace, war, tolerance, and civilization itself are profoundly opposed to American understanding of the same concepts. The failure of American leadership in acknowledging the fundamental oppositional relationship between Islam and American democracy is at the core of our failure post 9/11, to Fort Hood and the skies over Detroit.

Because the Taliban is entirely ideologically motivated (by the Islamic doctrine), and since their purpose is the implementation of Sharia Law wherever they hold power, what is the difference between the Taliban and the Karzai government? The Afghan Karzai constitution states in its first article that Afghanistan is an "Islamic Republic" and in the 3rd article that

"In Afghanistan, no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam."

What can be the difference between the Taliban and Karzai's government except the cooperation that the Karzai government provides to the kaffir[15] Americans? The two forces are unified by Islamic ideology after all; the Taliban fights the Karzai government because the American -supported government isn't Islamic[16] "enough"; that is, most importantly, they cooperate with the kaffir (non-Muslim).

Why are we fighting a war in which the purpose of both sides is the implementation of Sharia law?

In plain terms, what is the difference if Karzai and his kleptocrats[17] implement Sharia or the Taliban does? Either way, American support of Sharia law and its savagery is a humanitarian and philosophical failure.

In such a conflict how is "victory" defined — through self-negation? Everyone will accept American funds and all sides will continue to fight for the success of Islam.

Prior to 9/11, our foreign policy was founded upon both national defense and support for those who wanted freedom if it was within our power to support them. Now, we ignore the freedom fighters on the streets of Iran and fight for Sharia law states in two countries; our foreign policy is overturned.

The "progressives" who opposed the surge in Afghanistan are correct but for the wrong reasons; the surge in Afghanistan is a mistake because the mission itself is confused and based upon a total ignorance of Islamic doctrine and purposes; goals in which both local sides in these conflicts (Iraq and Afghanistan) share.

If the conflict in ideologies between American society and the Taliban/Karzai administration weren't enough, there are the lessons of the Vietnam War that must be acknowledged but thus far have been ignored or too derisively dismissed.

Denial of History

Ngo Dinh Diem[18] was the corrupt ruler of Vietnam from 1955 to 1963. Unwilling to check corruption and unwilling to follow the American line, Diem was overthrown with American help (and John F. Kennedy's personal approval) in 1963 only a month before Kennedy's assassination. The parallels between the Obama Afghan surge and Johnson "surge" in 1965 in Vietnam (despite Johnson's promise to continue President Kennedy's policies[19] of slow disengagement) are mistakenly ignored.[20] It should be our policy universally to avoid the errors of our past.

There is no question whatever that our support of the implementation of Sharia law in Afghanistan by either the corrupt Karzai government[21] or the abysmal Taliban[22] is morally and ethically untenable. These facts put our entire effort in both Afghanistan and Iraq[23] into serious question.

If the leadership in Kabul which we support is corrupt, and if the people there know it, and if we know it, and if the purposes of the supported government there and the opposing party (Taliban) are essentially the same (implementation of Sharia law and creation of an Islamic state), we have neither provided the people of the country with a viable alternative to the ideology of the forces we oppose or the conflict itself has been couched in terms that are false.

If Islam and its draconian and savage "legal system" of Sharia law is itself a form of slavery and barbarism and totalitarianism we have failed to provide an alternative to the people of either Iraq or Afghanistan; this is a failure on our part.

If we had created a secular state in either country in which religion was subordinate to the state (as in the American system) then we would have provided a beneficial alternative to Sharia and Islam to the people of both countries. However, in Islam there is no separation between religion and state; Islam is both a religion and a political ideology.

Even in Afghanistan in 2006 years after the Karzai government had been installed, leaving Islam (apostasy) was a crime punishable by death; this is Sharia law.

Regardless of the self-destructive extreme radical tolerance[24] now in vogue in the United States support of a culture and ideology whose adherents are literally hostages to the ideology of the state itself (Islam is the state in both Afghanistan and Iraq) is clearly contrary to American concepts of justice, and individual rights.

If the people of Afghanistan wish to continue living in an Islamic society then we have no cause in which to be involved in what is essentially an internal conflict between adherents of Islam. What kind of "nation building" is possible when the only result can be a Sharia law "state"?

There has been no discussion of freeing the people of Afghanistan from the tyranny of Islam, as they appear to have no such interest; nor is it within our capabilities at this time to do so if we were to embrace such a concept. (Because of the totalitarian nature of Islam the people of Afghanistan, or any Islamic state, do not have the means of communicating such a desire.) Of course, such an approach would be condemned by those who know nothing of Islam, jihad or the doctrine of cruelty, hatred, and war upon which[25] Islam is constructed; such an approach would be condemned as "intolerant" or simply "not nice."

Afghanistan and Iraq — The Victory of Islam with American Aid

The people of Afghanistan with or without American help will continue to live under Islam because this is the only option that they have. The victory of Islam in Afghanistan which will occur with either a Karzai or Taliban victory is a negative result for Americans and lovers of freedom everywhere.

What is the difference between the brutality of the Taliban implementing Sharia and Karzai's corrupt government implementing Sharia? Even after years of American military and financial support the Karzai government had plans to kill an Afghani who had converted to Christianity in 2006.[26]

Abdul Rahman, 41 years, is separated from his wife; he was arrested last month after his family — fighting with him over the custody of his children — denounced him for being a convert. The man, who was found carrying a Bible, was accused of having rejected Islam.
The "rejection of Islam" is a crime under Islamic/Sharia law. The penalty for this crime is death under Sharia law.[27] There is no religious freedom in any state under Islamic law; leaving Islam is a matter of both religious and state authority; it is the gravest of crimes in Islam, it is considered worse than murder.
But any of you who renounce your faith and die an unbeliever, will have your works count for nothing in this world and the world to come. These people will be prisoners of the fire, where they will live forever. (Koran 2:216)

The Karzai government rejected the death sentence for the Christian convert only because of American outrage; biting the hand that feeds has never been a great strategy in international relations. The Afghan authorities conveniently however found though that the convert was suffering a mental illness which is one of only several ways in which a convert is spared the death sentence.

The minister said: "We released him last night because the prosecutors told us to.
"His family were there when he was freed, but I don't know where he was taken."
Deputy Attorney General Mohammed Eshak Aloko said prosecutors issued a letter calling for Mr Rahman's release because "he was mentally unfit to stand trial".
Mr Aloko added Mr Rahman may be sent overseas for medical treatment.
Critics said Mr Rahman should be free to follow the religion of his choice but under Afghanistan's deeply conservative Sharia law, he had committed a capital crime.
Hundreds of clerics and students chanted "Death to Christians" at a protest against dropping the charge. SkyNews[28]
Ibn Warraq, the celebrated scholar of Islamic doctrine (and former Muslim),[29] explains the exceptions as follows.
Under Muslim law, the male apostate must be put to death, as long as he is an adult, and in full possession of his faculties. If a pubescent boy apostatizes, he is imprisoned until he comes of age, when if he persists in rejecting Islam he must be put to death. Drunkards and the mentally disturbed are not held responsible for their apostasy. — Apostasy and Human Rights, International Humanist Ethical Union[30]

The critically important differences between the Afghan government that we support and our own society could not have been more starkly on display. The differences remain but we as a culture mainly pretend that they do not exist. Our denial[31] of the totalitarian nature of Islam is folly.

The purpose of jihad is the advance of Islam and the destruction[32] of all non-Islamic religions, political systems and cultures. The holding of great wealth (the jihadist on the Detroit flight lived in a £2 million apartment in London) is irrelevant to those who adhere to and embrace the doctrine of Islam and its warfare against the kaffirs (unbelievers). Jihad war is not about the frustrations of poverty.[33]

Abdulmutallab, 23, had lived a gilded life, and, for the three years he studied in London, he stayed in a £2m flat. — Independent-UK[34]

Our failures to prevent crimes of doctrinally motivated Islamic killers (even when we are warned by their parents) is further evidence that we do not take the threat doctrine of Islam-motivated haters seriously enough.

You are commanded to fight although you may dislike it. You may hate something that is good for you, and love something that is bad for you. Allah knows and you do not. (Koran 2:216)

Part 2: Denial and Ignorance — No "Systems" Work

There is little cause for rejoicing in this new decade; we are in an existential conflict thrust upon us by reactionary and extreme forces whose existence precedes us by more than a millennium. We are not a doctrinaire people and we seem to have difficulty acknowledging that in others. Our inability to accept the truth of the doctrine of those who want to destroy our people and our society is a staggering failure of epic proportions.

O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness; and know that Allah is with those who guard (against evil). (Koran, 9:123)[35]

Northwest flight 253 landed safely in Detroit not because any system worked[36] but because private citizens took action for their own safety and that of their fellow passengers. The passengers who defeated their would-be killer on the flight to Detroit are heroes much like Todd Beamer and the heroes of Flight 93[37] were on 9/11.

We rely on technology for fake security that destroys our privacy[38] and undermines ease of interstate and international travel. In fact, the invasive "solutions" now being pushed by American security officials are considered by some to violate child pornography[39] laws. We seek technological solutions because we will not profile; we will not profile because so many of us are silly multiculturalists, politically correct, post modernist ignorant fools. We should do behavioral profiling, racial, national — all of it. Profiling must be a weapon of defense, not to use weapons of defense when attacked is folly.

El Al airlines has never been hijacked specifically because they actively profile. They profile because profiling is the most successful method[40] of preventing hostiles on aircraft. The legitimacy of Israeli profiling is validated because it is effective. In fact, just after 9/11 Logan airport in Boston hired Rafi Ron,[41] a former director of Ben Gurion airport to advise on security at that airport.

What has happened to this rationalist approach? It has been subsumed by our culture of silliness and multicultural political correctness and the absolute ridiculous need in all sectors to avoid "offense" to minorities. If we deployed the Israeli model of rational security the Christmas "undie" bomber would never have gotten on any America-bound aircraft in Amsterdam (or anywhere else). Our failure to deploy effective security across our society is a profound moral and operational failure whose origin is political correctness — the ridiculous childish fear of causing "offense."

If we must offend someone to secure our people, so be it. It is alright to inconvenience the entire travelling public to avoid causing offense to somebody who may well have reason to avoid security checks in the first place?

We are clearly more concerned with avoiding "offense" to a minority, and causing severe inconvenience, intrusiveness, and creating an obvious security theater[42] than actually ensuring the security of our people and our friends than in actually securing our people and aircraft. This is utterly stupid. Certainly our society has reached the final stage in the Peter Principle[43] process; we've advanced to the point of collective denial and incompetence.

But more than one-third of all terrorist plots since 9/11 transpired in 2009 — despite loud chest-thumping about rejecting the idea of a war on terror, reaching out to the Muslim world, and apologizing for purported American sins. A non-impoverished Major Hasan or Mr. Mutallab (or Mr. Atta or KSM) does not fit with the notion that our enemies act out of poverty or oppression or want. (Victor Davis Hanson)

The idea that Islamic terrorism, violence and hate against Americans is poverty-driven, or a response to some particular American foreign policy (cf. support of Israel, another frontline state in the jihad war) is now clearly debunked after the most recent attack by a wealthy, privileged Islamic terrorist.[44] Islamic terror is motivated by Islamic doctrine; we are the target because we exist.

The adherents of Islamic doctrine attack us because they hate us; they hate us simply because we exist. El Al takes security very seriously, we Americans do not; Israel is very successful with airline security because they ask questions and are not concerned with ridiculous politically correct self-censorship. Relying entirely on technology and ignoring the human component of a potential attacker has already failed.

There have been no hijackings of Israeli planes in recent years, he (Mordechai Rachamim) says, "because they saw it is impossible to make (a) hijacking."

And Shlomo Dror says that, while there are sky marshals on every flight, they are the last line of defense. If they have to spring into action, it means the security system has failed.

[...]

Until recently, Rafi Ron was director of security at the Tel Aviv airport. He knows how sophisticated terrorists have become.

"We believe that profiling is a very important concept in aviation security," he says. "Finding a bomb is not such an easy thing. Bombs don't look any more like a black, round thing with a smoking fuse coming out of them. They take...almost every possible shape. They are created out of so many type of materials that it has become extremely difficult to find the bomb."

That's why it's so important to find the terrorist before he gets on the plane. And the Israelis say they cannot do that without profiling, or selecting, passengers who match certain profiles. (CBSNews — The Safest Airline)[45]

National sovereignty and its security are the essential purposes of government. The wannabe Detroit "crotch bomber" - Nigerian-jihad-killer demonstrated to us all that we must do better.

It has often been said that if we alter our daily activities, if we don't fly the "friendly skies" then the terrorists have "won." We must understand what victory means to the jihadists. For them, blasted cities such as Detroit and the total failure of American society and government to rebuild them is what they are fighting for. They fight for the failure of American ingenuity, security, and prosperity. The would-be killer of the Detroit-bound flight would have preferred a devastated aircraft over a failed city; we were lucky on Christmas Day, 2009. As long as America is not Islamic the model for all American cities to the jihadists is Detroit. The purpose of jihad against us is the destruction of the United States and the implementation of Sharia law.

Conglomeration of Failure

We live in a time of the confluence of dangerous cultural, intellectual, ethical, moral, and political failures. At a time when American exceptionalism and importance should be encouraged and understood across the country and the world, it is diminished[46] instead. When American jobs and livelihoods should be protected and made safe, they are undermined by open porous borders and an immigration policy that is neither a proper national policy nor of benefit to newcomers or citizens.

We live in a time when security considerations are built upon absurd concepts of extreme tolerance and a total aversion to cause offense to anyone most particularly those who may be threats. We live in a time of rampaging folly.

We live in a time shaped by definitive concepts of good and evil and right and wrong; there are those who do not share our concepts and hate us for the ideals that we embrace. We are hated because we are not Islamic and we are hated because we help Islam, but never enough. There is no unifying this contradiction as we always remain kaffirs to the Islamic umma. No matter how much we help, no matter how "good" we are, the adherents of Islam fight us as they are commanded to do so by Allah and Mohammed.

So obey not the disbelievers, but strive against them herewith with a great endeavour. (Koran, 25:52)[47]

Despite the experiences and lessons of our founders who experienced jihad themselves during the "Barbary Pirate"[48] conflicts we have chosen to live in a world as we would prefer it to be rather than what it actually is. We suffer from a national delusion that results in the denial of reality; we have placed a matrix[49] of utopian dreams over our eyes to the delight of our detractors and enemies.

We cannot effectively defend our homeland and our people for fear of offending those who attack us; we fight wars for those who hate our existence and what we stand for; our president apologizes[50] for our past greatness, condemning our friends and embracing/appeasing our enemies across the world. It has been said by arrogant and ignorant people that we only need to simply "reset"[51] our approach to the world and it will magically spin in the direction of our choosing; they are mistaken.

This is a great fraud that the deluded would have us all believe. The denial of history and humanity itself in the concepts of radical tolerance and the bizarre fake "resetting" of human and international relations is at the core of our inability to respond to existential threats. We live within a vortex of the confluence of errors all compounded again and again as we fail to accept the hard truths, and fail to take steps to make our country safe and support our friends once again.

An Undeniable Historical Vortex

During the Clinton administration, the philosopher and historian Francis Fukuyama famously stated that with the fall of the Soviet Union we had reached the "end of history."[52] This notion is absurd because it suggests that history is finite.

While history has cycles and lines that may themselves come to an end, the existence of humanity necessarily means that history never ends; it is both ignorant and arrogant to suggest that we live outside of the flow of history. The horror for those who accepted Fukuyama's ridiculous assertion (including Bill Clinton) is that the truth of our situation today is more particularly difficult to accept. We are caught up in a brutal historical cycle that was created in the Arabian desert over 1,400 years ago. This is very difficult for many to accept. Much worse than the "end of history" is that we now see a violent re-emergence of history.

To our great detriment, we in the West ourselves in large part facilitated the resurgence of Islam with trillions of dollars in oil purchases. Fully financed and resurgent because they (the adherents of Islam/umma) see the retreat and moral and ethical confusion[53]/surrender of the West, Islam has rarely been as emboldened as it is today. Soon, Iran may acquire a nuclear weapon[54] and a horrific new historical phase of the world will begin.

It is difficult for many to accept a world in which a particular ideology or concept, especially one so profoundly opposed to us as is Islam, may so influence the foreseeable future. As lovers of freedom and justice there are now new warnings that history is not at all an end but is in fact brutally influencing our lives.

Multiculturalism and post-modernism are the anti-reality tools that are used by those who oppose our existence. If we embrace multiculturalism, and post-modernism; a world-view of radical equivalence and the abandonment of meaning in the embrace of universal subjectivity — the outcome of this existential conflict must then be of little moment because all outcomes, as they are founded upon the opposition of equivalent cultures, must be ... acceptable.

We must take a renewed interest in the preservation of our way of life which must reside upon a foundation of understanding and appreciation of its value. If we do not value our country,[55] if we accept universal equivalence, if we concur that we must never "offend" anyone with criticisms or judgments based upon a comparison of essential values, we will fail in our defense. The idea of "good" and "evil" must be re-embraced across the country just as it was during the cold war against Communism and the war against Nazism. And once we identify the evil, it must be decisively opposed.

The importance of history has long been doubted by many in our anti-intellectual society. The answers we require are all available in our own history and in the founding documents[56] of our country.

Forgotten History Illustrates the Present

What does our history teach us of Islam? Regardless of ridiculous, ignorant academics and iconoclasts who deny that history can be known[57] or that its lessons have no meaning anymore — the struggle of today is not new.

Ambassadors Thomas Jefferson and John Adams' 1785 report delivered after their meeting with the head of one of the Barbary Coast states (a jihadist) is instructive; what was true then is true now.

When they inquired by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American shipping, enslaving both crews and passengers, America's two foremost envoys were informed that "it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise."[58]

We are in the center of a vortex of historical forces, a confluence of error, ignorance, and folly.[59] The key to our security and stability is in our past and our foundational documents, Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence; the key to opposing those who want to blow up our aircraft and destroy our country is found in their foundational documents, Koran, Sira, Hadith.[60]

Multiculturalists and post modernists supported by the inanity of political correctness support the forces of monoculture and totalitarianism (Islam), though they may not fully know it; if they do know it, they often do not care. A radical amoral view of the world and of humanity, post modernism and multiculturalism, results in a national lack of will. Why should there be sufficient will either to oppose or to defend anything if everything is equivalent — this is the essence of post modernism. For the sake of the survival of our nation and to reinvigorate the intellectual life of our culture post modernism, multiculturalism, and political correctness all must be delegitimized, abandoned, and destroyed.

We have created two nations Afghanistan and Iraq and helped them write their new constitutions. These documents identify Islam as the state religion and law of the land, the law of Islam is Sharia law. Jihad is an obligation for all adherents of Islam, this is specifically delineated in Koran and reiterated in Sira and Hadith. Jihad is justified and "legalized" in Sharia law. We fight against jihad at the same time we create states that will mandate it and support it — we will always be its victims; this is folly.

Acknowledging Existential Conflict

If we acknowledge that our heritage is worthy of preserving for future generations in as close to the manner in which it was given us by our Founders then there is great and difficult work that must be done. The idea of existential defense is not new nor is it unrecognized in history, literature, and culture; it is the central theme of the history of civilizations. Most recently, a scene in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy captured this concept succinctly.

Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought. Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring[61]

It is not for us to deny the unpleasant rhythms of history; it is not for us to flee from our responsibilities. We must accept the world in which we live and the challenges that we face. We must understand that we are engaged in a military and ideological war that is global. It is existential because if we are not successful in defending ourselves we will cease to exist as a people and a nation.

Something happened[62] that prevents us from accepting the unpleasant truth of the world in which we live. Americans are experimenters and innovators; we search for "better ways." We have created new ways of openness and tolerance, new ways of viewing others and their ideologies so that they feel welcome in our society. We did not understand the high cost of these new "ways" until 9/11; the hard lesson is unfortunately slow to penetrate.

Our "better way" of radical "niceness" and extreme, anti-judgment tolerance and an acceptance of the ridiculous disproven concept that if only we are nice then those who wish to destroy us will be nice in return; the world and humanity have never functioned in this Utopian manner.

Allan Bloom, the insightful author of Closing of the American Mind[63] in his 1989 response to Fukuyama wrote that since the Soviet Union and Communism had been defeated Liberalism was victorious, but the victory "may be decisively unsatisfactory." The meaning and purpose that our national opposition to the evils of Communism provided to us are now gone, a new ideology of emptiness, deconstruction and inverted morality/amorality (post-modernism) has taken root. Bloom's predictions for the future do not mirror De Tocqueville's.

I would suggest that fascism has a future, if not the future. (Allan Bloom, Response to Fukuyama,[64] "The National Interest", Summer, 1989)

The timing of this catastrophic jihad war against us is not coincidental; our enemies see weakness in our confusion and anti-intellectual silliness. We no longer have the anti-Communist idea that unified the country for decades rather we now have an advancing deconstruction of Americanism itself.

Our desire (in some circles) to be accepted by the entire world translates into a failed world view of our collective guilt and averageness which cannot but elicit grave concern[65] from our friends and derision and rejoicing from our adversaries.

The ideas of "right/wrong" and "good/evil" must be re-embraced as the world of reality is far removed from our fantasies of philosophical conundrums, mental gymnastics, and meaningless academic debates. We are now in an existential struggle founded upon the diametrically opposed concepts of freedom and civilization that we have always considered the core of our culture versus the anti-individual, brutal totalitarianism of Islam and its savage "legal code" of Sharia law. It would appear that we in the West have forgotten the complexities of civilizational conflict, with some in positions of importance denying even that such a conflict exists.

There is bliss across the world at our American failures to acknowledge the truth and tears of frustration here at home at our continuing failure to speak the truth and to fight the enemy and his totalitarian ideology. We fought a devastating civil war over a century ago to end slavery; let us not overturn the results of that struggle by denying that slavery is our future if we do not once again unite in the concepts that have given us the finest country, the light unto the world, so far seen on this planet.

Footnotes

[1] [http://article.nationalreview.com/?q= NmI2ZDlhZWIyM2U0ZDRhMjUwYTY4NGQzZjczNjE5Nzg=

[2]  http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/52227/ sec_id/52227

[3]  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/29/ obama-denies-crotch-bomber-conspiracy/

[4] http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/scary_new_ technology_in_fiend_panty_5W0xxJdDQRdkzLfF22lFRN

[5]  http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-spine/rio-1-chicago-0-the- politics-narcissism-and-general-mcchrystal

[6]  htp://www.faithfreedom.org/obama.html

[7]  http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/07/ obama_afghanist.html

[8]  http://www.voicesofunreason.com/essays/ barackobama%20narcissistormerelynarcissistic

[9] http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikes-letter/ open-letter-president-obama-michael-moore

[10]  http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/12/02/politics/ politicalhotsheet/entry5863327.shtml

[11]  http://www.afghan-web.com/politics/ current_constitution.html#chapterone

[12]  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/ 2005/10/12/AR2005101201450.html

[13]  http://www.stopshariahnow.org/

[14] http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/ frm/52705/sec_id/52705

[15]  http://www.politicalislam.com/blog/kafir/

[16] http://www.islam-watch.org/Others/ Honour-and-Shame-in-Islam.htm

[17]  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId= 121536680

[18]  http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/VNngo.htm

[19]  http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsam-jfk/nsam-263.htm

[20]  http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action= Article&id=1508

[21]  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/6577546/ Hillary-Clinton-calls-for-Hamid-Karzai-to-halt-Afghan-corruption.html

[22] http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id= 3&art_id=ct20010503181006230A125544

[23]  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/aug/06/gayrights.iraq

[24]  http://sioanetwork.com/?p=594

[25]  http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=3790

[26]  http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=5681

[27] http://sioanetwork.com/?p=438

[28]  http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Sky-News-Archive/ Article/200806413516075?f=rss

[29] http://formermuslimsunited.americancommunityexchange.org/

[30] http://www.iheu.org/node/1541

[31] http://www.iheu.org/node/1541

[32] http://www.politicalislam.com/tears/pages/tears-of-jihad/

[33]  http://article.nationalreview.com/?q= NTk4ZmJkYWU5MjljY2VhOGNlNDYxYzdlYzNlNzgwYmM=

[34] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ wealthy-quiet-unassuming-the-christmas-day-bomb-suspect-1851090.html

[35]  http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/koran/koran-idx?type= simple&q1=9:123&size=First+100

[36] http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q= YTY0Y2E2NWQ3Nzc2MjYzMWMwOGJlNzE2NDVlMGUwZjM=

[37] http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/ 20011028flt93mainstoryp7.asp

[38] http://despardes.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ airport_xray_scanner23.jpg

[39]  http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jan/04/ new-scanners-child-porn-laws

[40] http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2001/10/01/ elal-usat.htm

[41]  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo= 206153&contrassID=3&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=0

[42] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid= 1262339404286&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

[43]  http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_15/ b4126067338870.htm?chan=careers_managing+your+team+page_top+stories

[44] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2009/12/27/ 2009-12-27_untitled__2london27m.html

[45]  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/15/60II/ main324476.shtml

[46]  http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/04/ obama_bows_down_to_saudi_king.html

[47] http://en.quran.nu/

[48] http://www.politicalislam.com/blog/ those-who-ignore-history-are-condemned/

[49]  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/

[50] http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/ 2009-04-08/why-is-obama-apologizing-for-america/full/

[51]  http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id= CNG.9ca28ad2530b0d0029e1304762eca18f.8c1&show_article=1

[52] http://www.archive.org/details/ AllanBloomResponseToFukuyamasendOfHistoryAndTheLastMan

[53]  http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/ 53923/sec_id/53923]

[54] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580147,00.html

[55] http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/templates/ localnews_story.asp?z=12&a=431847

[56] http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

[57] http://www.amazon.com/Killing-History-Literary-Theorists-Murdering/ dp/1893554120/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262838301&sr=1-1

[58] http://www.city-journal.org/html/ 17_2_urbanities-thomas_jefferson.html

[59] http://www.amazon.com/March-Folly-Troy-Vietnam/dp/ 0345308239/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262744205&sr=1-1

[60]  http://www.politicalislam.com/store/

[61] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120737/quotes

[62] http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/ our_second_civil_war.html

[63] http://www.amazon.com/Closing-American-Mind-Allan-Bloom/ dp/0671657151/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262995871&sr=8-1

[64] http://www.archive.org/details/ AllanBloomResponseToFukuyamasendOfHistoryAndTheLastMan

[65]  http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2009/11/
 

D.L. Adams is an analyst and historian, and a co-founder of SIOA — Stop Islamization of America. This article appeared in Family Security Matters posted in two parts, part 1 on January 11, 2010 and part 2 on January 12, 2010 Part 1 is archived at
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.5226/pub_detail.asp and part 2 at
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.5232/pub_detail.asp

 

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