The ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 was, as it should always be, a highly political day. Because the terrorists' act and motivation were political, so must be our response. But our leaders -- Obama and Bush before him -- have chosen not to speak candidly about the nexus among terrorism, politics, and Islam.
Our Malaisean president's statement at the Pentagon on 9-11 is redundant proof. Speaking of terrorists, Obama said, "They may seek to spark conflict between different faiths, but as Americans, we are not -- and never will be -- at war with Islam." Barry added, "It was not a religion that attacked us that September day; it was al Qaeda -- a sorry band of men which perverts religion. Just as we condemn intolerance and extremism abroad, so will we stay true to our traditions at home as a diverse and tolerant nation."
What Obama and Bush have refused to understand is that terrorism is a political act. It can be an act of war between Westphalian states, as when Iran, Syria and others sponsor terrorism, or it can be a smaller but nevertheless political act of a single person. And because it is a political act, and because those who sponsor it do so in pursuit of their political goals, it is essential that we treat it as such.
The hijackers who crashed four airliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on 9-11 committed a political act of suicide driven by a religion that intentionally combines politics with religion.
Islam is not only a religion, but an integrated system of beliefs that requires the imposition of a particular theocracy. And Islam is based on intolerance. The Koran is replete with statements such as, "O believers, take not for your intimates outside yourselves; such men spare nothing to ruin you; they yearn for you to suffer." It is a religiously required paranoia that creates an unyielding intolerance of those who are not adherents to Islam.
When Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey reacted to the Fort Hood massacre by saying, "What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here," he betrayed the soldiers under his command, and surrendered to Islam's most potent weapon against the West: our fear of intolerance within ourselves.
Feisal Rauf, the imam of the proposed Ground Zero mosque, plays on that fear relentlessly, and our president and the liberal media have so thoroughly surrendered to his agitprop that they repeat it consistently as disinformation. (A former communist intelligence chief explained this crucial distinction: when someone spouts propaganda, it is less effective than when the propagandist persuades the adversary to repeat it as though it were his own thought. The latter is disinformation.) The New York Times, ever eager to publish disinformation, wrote in July of Rauf's new mosque, "The Cordoba House was supposed to be a monument to religious tolerance, an homage to the city in Spain where Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together centuries ago in the midst of religious foment."
Cordoba, the capital of Islamic Spain, was nothing of the sort. According to Philip Hitti's indispensable History of the Arabs (1937), the conquest of Spain began in July 710 and was completed only after warring Arabs settled their differences and established Spain as part of the Umayyad caliphate. All across Spain, Hitti writes, "From the beginning the policy followed by the Arab conquerors in the treatment of their subjects in Spain was not fundamentally different from that pursued in other conquered lands." Christians and Jews were required to pay a poll tax relieved only by their conversion to Islam. Territories acquired by conquest -- from the church and fleeing nobles -- were confiscated, landowners made into sharecroppers. Under these oppressions many Christians and Jews converted to Islam, some secretly worshipping their own faiths, fearful of the penalty of death for Islamic apostates. That was the reality of idyllic, tolerant Cordoba.
Ever-tolerant Rauf insists that the chosen site for the Ground Zero mosque must not be changed. His motivation is political and so is the weapon he chooses to achieve his goal. He preys on our fear of intolerance. Last week, he told CNN, "If we move from that location, the story will be the radicals have taken over the discourse. The headlines in the Muslim world will be that Islam is under attack." On Sunday he told Christiane Amanpour that if we make the wrong move it will expand and strengthen the radicals and that his proposed mosque is intended to build inter-faith understanding. Nonsense. If it were, it would be not a mosque but a non-denominational chapel.
It is always thus: those who use political actions to oppose Islamic political aggression are threatened with the reaction that liberals fear so much. But Rauf -- and the useful idiots who agree, such as Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama -- have a political goal that is as bad, or worse, than the construction of "Cordoba House": they want to make any protest against Islamic political action illegitimate. It is a tactic in political warfare that aims to limit free speech and end debate by rendering opposing positions beyond the pale.
Former British PM Tony Blair gets it right. In the postscript to his memoir, Blair writes that the terrorist threat has to be fought politically, its ideology attacked and defeated: "[The threat] doesn't begin on the battlefield, it begins in the school. It starts not with talk of military weapons but with talk of religion. You have to take on the clerics who foment extremism, not just the people who engage actively in terrorism"¦The ideology is not born of a desire for military domination; it is born of a world view based on belief in God's will. Not only its narrative but also its ideology has to be systematically dismantled, just as it has been systematically constructed." Just so.
A week after 9-11, President Bush said, ""¦the face of terror is not the true faith of Islam." Perhaps. But the face of Islam is a political face, and by fearing to oppose even the most aggressive Islamic political action -- on the battlefield or in New York City's mosque controversy -- we surrender our political rights.
Obama's 9-11 statement reveals his belief that -- like George Casey -- he believes that tolerance and diversity are more important than defending the nation. George Bush didn't have the courage to fight the ideological war and Obama is pre-emptively surrendering.
9-11 isn't a day to worship the gods of tolerance and diversity. It's a day of remembrance, resolve and rededication to defeat the enemy decisively wherever he appears with every weapon at our disposal.
Letter to the Editor
Jed Babbin served as a Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush. He is the author of several bestselling books including Inside the Asylum and In the Words of Our Enemies.
When I heard Zero at the Pentagon addressing the survivors and the families of those who did not survive, urging the building of the GZM, I realized I could well be watching and hearing the Abomination of Desolation standing in the holy place.
Many people believe this man is merely stupid. I think he is sinister masquerading as stupid.
PORNOCRACY: I think the DisUnited Mistakes of Amerika is the greatest Pornocracy on Earth.
We just can't get enough of your Porn; keep it cummin'!
You know, when I read the "Left Behind" series some years ago, I thought I was reading fiction. Religious beliefs and the Book of Revelation aside, how The Won differs from the anti-Christ in those fiction books is truly hard to discern.
All these lamestream conservatives labeling Obama merely stupid or incompetent re the economy are displaying their own ignorance and pacifist tendencies. The man is truly malevolent and those who refuse to recognize the strategy behind his machinations deserve the catastrophic results that are now unavoidable. Keep walking West on on Eastbound ship, guys. Decline and fall.
I will agree with your last statement Appleby, not only is he very cunning of his words least we forget actions speak louder. He calls his brethren "a sorry brand of men", not in the least, these are not men, but cowards who hide behind their woman, children, their places of supposed worship and behind a deceiving political veil. I curse all who have ever spouted the words "peaceful religion" for they are the true cowards and deceivers of men, G.W. among them. I was appalled with his torments, thinking somehow We the People are as stupid and cowardly as he, we are not. We are their betters, we hide not from the truth. He (obamas Bin Ly'n) would not know the truth even if the teleprompter told him so. He daily insults us, belittles everyone except his fellow Muslim's, talks to the world from the mouth of an appeaser, arrogant little flea that is biting at one's ass refusing to let go. And he has the nerve to lecture We the People of items his teleprompter know little of, as in what is means to be an American who loves his fellow countrymen/ladies, their children, our God given rights, our Constitution, ( no it is not a entitlement of what the government can do to individuals but in fact the restriction of what the gubmint is entitled) our customs, values, principles and love for a peaceful world. He is a shame and a sham, a Flin-flam Coward pretending to be the leader of the free world. Gawd, this punk makes me sick and angry all at the same time. IMPEACH THE PUNK ALREADY.
Well said!
There is no will in existence to impeach the abomination named Obama, sadly.
The God of the Bible is not the god of the Koran and their false god is just an excuse to commit terror upon Americans.
The only way to get rid of the scourge named Obama, the enemy of our country, is at the voting booths. Unless we come out in droves and vote Republican he WILL be re elected.
Obummer's mocking of Christians who agreed with the burning of the Koran was a slap in the face intentionally. I couldn't care less if it burned. The issue was his statement of trying to charge Christians with "seeking to spark conflict between different faiths"~ is a lie from a lying man. It is Islam that causes all the conflict. And its "believers" are the ones committing their murderous acts in the name of their false god.
As I heard a lady remark, last week, "I learned all I need to know about Islam, on 9-11"!. I remember the tens of thousands of Muslims, dancing in the streets around the world. As far as the POS goes, I will give credence to what he says on the mosque issue, when he produces ALL of his university records, showing his declared faith, as something other than Islam.
I think it is important that Bush not get off the hook on his stands on terrorism in general and 9/11 in particular. Of course BHO's policies go without saying are extraordinarily dangerous. But Bush led the way. Perhaps this is out there, but I would like to see some deal investigative reporting on the reasons why these two presidents chose to appease. The American people deserve to know why. The real reasons I mean.
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