Mike Scruggs
Retired U.S. Army General Tommy Franks, who defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan and led the spectacularly successful invasion of Iraq in 2003, commented in his best-selling 2004 book, American Soldier, that it would be difficult to win a war in which we dare not name the enemy.
Sun Tsu (544-497 BC), the renowned Chinese military philosopher-general and author of The Art of War, made a famous statement that for victory in war it is essential to know your enemy and yourself.
America and the West are engaged in a war in which the brain-anathematizing doctrines of multiculturalism, now eating away the vitality of Western Civilization, blind us to the nature of a dedicated mortal enemy. Rigidly enforced political correctness inhibits any discussion of the enemy’s name and real nature. Hence our leaders and media constantly refer to “the War on Terror,” or “the War on Radical Islam.” These names deny an essential truth. We may not be at war with Islam, but so far as Islam is faithful to its doctrines, Islam is at war with us. Terror is only their best-developed tactic. The term “Radical Islam” falsely implies that a small minority of radicals has, as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair suggested, “hijacked a wonderful and peaceful religion.”
We need to avoid terms that minimize the very serious danger that Islam now poses to Western civilization. We need to remember that this threat is rooted in the fundamentals of the Koran and the teachings of Muhammad.
In March of 2004, the Pew Global Attitudes Project released a poll taken in Morocco, one of the North African pillars of Arab-Islam. That poll revealed that fully 60 percent of Moroccans approve of suicide attacks against American and British troops and other Westerners in Iraq. Osama bin Laden was highly regarded by 45 percent of Moroccans. Christians are regarded unfavorably by 73 percent. Only 2 percent of Moroccans have a favorable opinion of Christians, and only 1 percent have a favorable view of Jews.
The vast majority of Moroccans, 92 percent, harbor strong negative feelings towards Jews.
These alarming poll statistics are not the result of public relations or diplomatic failures by American, Israeli, and European political leaders. The attitudes represented in the poll are taught in the doctrinal standards of Islam: the Koran, of the sayings and example of Muhammad, and a few key biographies recognized as authoritative by Muslim scholars.
Western leaders are frequently misled on the nature of Islam when they are shown or encounter seemingly peaceful verses of the Koran revealed to Muhammad during the early days of his prophetic career in Mecca. But the Koran is inconsistent, and Sura (chapter) 2:106 gives the convenient rule of abrogation in its interpretation. Roughly paraphrased, whenever a verse is contradicted by a later one, the doctrinal influence of the earlier verse is cancelled. Allah can do all things, including changing his mind. Unfortunately, the later chapters of the Koran, written in Medina, are filled with exhortations to violence against all unbelievers and the promotion of an aggressive and despotic ideology, thus abrogating the peace and tolerance verses of Allah’s early revelations to Muhammad.
Many American and European politicians are shockingly ill advised and dangerously misinformed on Islam. One of the most appalling examples of this is President George W. Bush’s quotation of Sura 5:32a in at least two speeches. Attempting to portray Islam in a very favorable and peaceful light, he read:
“We ordained for the Children of Israel that if anyone killed a person not in retaliation of murder or spreading mischief in the land—it would be as if he killed all mankind, and if anyone saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of all mankind. The President neglected to read the next verse, Sura 5:33:
“The recompense of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and do mischief in the land is only that they shall be killed or crucified or their hands and their feet be cut off on the opposite sides, or be exiled from the land. That is their disgrace in this world, and a great torment is theirs in the Hereafter.”
How different the impression when quoting the latter verse! There is also the problem of the meaning of mischief. Resisting Allah is the worst kind of “mischief.” Woe to the Christians, Jews, and secularists who stand in the way of Islam!
One of former President Bill Clinton’s 1998 speeches on Islam was so filled with exalted praise for the religion that Serge Trifkovic, the foreign affairs editor of the scholarly journal, Chronicles, noted that Clinton made Islam seem “as American as apple pie.”
President Obama has even forbidden FBI, CIA, and other national intelligence and security organization reports to link Islam and terrorism. Combinations such as “Muslim terrorists” are being blacked over in older reports.
What about “moderate Islam?” There are “moderate Muslims,” but there is no moderate Islam faithful to the Koran and teachings of Muhammad. So-called moderate Muslims are really secular Muslims. Just as many nominal Christians do not take the Bible or Christianity seriously, many Muslims do not take the Koran and Islam seriously. In Islam, however, the penalty for criticizing the Koran, Muhammad, or Islam is death. So there is little room for open dissent. Serge Trifkovic has said:
“Genuine moderate Islam is like the unicorn. It can be visualized, but who can find one.”
Meanwhile, the West continues to disarm itself spiritually and intellectually by embracing mindless multiculturalism and suppressing any criticism of Islam.
