Every day throughout the world, there are reports of Christians, Jews, Hindus, other non-Muslims and even many Muslims being murdered by Radical Islamic fundamentalists. Radical Islamic fundamentalists are attacking innocent people from Somalia to the Balkans, from Israel to India, from Russia to Indonesia, and right into the heart of Europe with Muslim violence in France, the terrorist train bombing in Spain, the subway bombings in London and of course the 9-11 attacks in America that killed 3,000 innocent people. Radical Islam, an ultra-conservative and violent political version of Islam, is once again on the attack worldwide. Radical Islam is the totalitarian root of the problem; terrorism is only a symptom, an instrument of war used by Radical Islamists to achieve their objectives. Once these facts are understood, it becomes clear that the struggle is one of imposing political ideas through violence rather than being just about religion.
Americans must understand that the current goal of Radical Islam is the same as it was in the 8th and 15th Centuries when Muslim armies invaded Europe; the conquest and conversion of non-Muslims and the establishment of fundamentalist Islamic rule worldwide. The leaders of 8th and 15th Century Europe understood the threat of Radical Islam and jihad better than some of our political leaders do today. They stopped the armies of Radical Islam by the overwhelming use of military force that has guaranteed the survival of western civilization, at least up until the 21st century.
Since the end of the Cold War, Radical Islamic fundamentalism has once again emerged onto the world stage taking the form of stateless terrorism supported to varying degrees by totalitarian Islamic states in the Middle East, and by Radical Islamic fundamentalist groups located around the world and even in our own country. Radical Islamic terrorists and their supporters are not just at war with America, they are at war with the entire civilized world, including moderate Muslim nations. Their goal is to convert us or kill us. Radical Islamic fundamentalists believe that there is no such thing as noncombatants. We are all considered military targets and enemies in their eyes. For Radical Islam, there is no peaceful coexistence with those who do not subscribe to their distorted and violent view of the world. They accept no dissent, tolerate no alternative points of view and their goals and objectives are non-negotiable.
The vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists and most people professing Islam are compassionate and generous. Yet too many Western politicians are unwilling to speak plainly about the small percentage of Muslims that make up the Radical Islamic fundamentalist movement, always being careful never to say anything that might be deemed insensitive. As painful as it may be to the politically correct politicians, we cannot ignore those who refuse to assimilate and who plot our overthrow and destruction. Just as the Nazis shrewdly recruited from among the alienated young Germans in the 1930s, so today’s Radical Islamic leaders are recruiting and teaching young Muslims that the West today, led by the United States, imposes corrupt regimes on Islamic nations, aids Israel in persecuting the Palestinians, steals Arab oil, defiles the Holy Land, crushes heroic peoples who resist and poisons the souls of the Islamic young with its decadent culture. Like the young Nazis who were raised to hate, these young Muslims are taught in the fundamentalist mosques that a heroic life, noble death and paradise are to be found by killing non-believers and emulating Muhammad Atta and other “martyrs.”
Although it is called the War on Terrorism, there is no denying that America and the rest of the civilized world are fighting a war against Radical Islam. America has been battling Radical Islamists since 1979 when Iranian students seized 66 American hostages at the American Embassy in Tehran.
We in the civilized world have two choices:
- Our first and easiest choice is to do nothing. We can make believe that we are not at war with Radical Islam, that our Radical Islamic enemies want only peace, that we can reason with Radical Islamic terrorists who fly loaded airplanes into buildings, and that this is all somehow our fault.
- Our second choice is a little harder. We can stand up and fight to protect our freedoms and way of life. Once we recognize that we need to fight Radical Islam, we must then be prepared take the battle to the enemy and its allies, both at home and abroad. We have as great a responsibility to win our struggle against Radical Islamic aggression as our parents and grandparents had to win World War II.
In order to win this war, America needs to strengthen our immigration laws, border security and visitor policies to prevent suspected Radical Islamists from either entering or staying in our country for any reason. We should create a freedom broadcast network, similar to the Radio Free Europe network that was used during the Cold War, to ensure that the Arab world gets a different view of America and the West than what it currently gets from Al Jazeera. We must create a broad worldwide alliance of countries willing to defend peace and freedom at any cost. We must continue to build and strengthen national, global and regional networks of law enforcement, military and intelligence officials designed to identify, confront and defeat Radical Islamists wherever they are.
