This is not a time for delicacy. For tiptoeing. It is not a time to parse words nor worry about offending someone with unfiltered vocabulary. Time is no longer a luxury we possess. Distance, no longer provides protection. We are being threatened like no time before, by an enemy obsessed with an apocalyptic end game that will bring only disaster. An enemy that worships savagery. An enemy that celebrates depravity. An enemy that glorifies the death of the young.
There has been a seismic shift in our world. We feel it. We see it. We know it. We dare not deny it. Pick up any newspaper on any day, the first page, the second page, the third page, the fourth page and beyond - - most of the articles are about radical Muslims, not just ISIS, immersed in a vicious culture of blood and slaughter. Skip to the sports page or the crossword puzzle if you wish but that doesn't make the uncomfortable news go away.
In fact, it brings joy to the jihadists who hope for our indifference. If we deny evil then we need not fight it. It doesn't exist - just a few lunatics, thousands of miles away, pounding sand, blowing each other up and occasionally beheading an unlucky journalist. Not so bad.
There are one billion Muslims in the world and authorities agree that 5% are committed Islamists who embrace terror and wish to see, by any means possible, the Muslim flag fly over every capital, on every continent. I was relieved when I heard only 5%. Thank God it's only 5%. Now I could sleep soundly. But wait, let me figure this out, 5% of a billion is… 50 million Koran waving, Allah Akbar howling Muslim murderers out there planning to slit our throats, blow us up or forcibly convert us.
It only took 19 of Osama bin Laden’s disciples to bring down the Twin Towers, plow into the Pentagon and crash a plane into Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Over 3,000 dead. Over $10 billion in damages on that sad day. 19 Al Qaeda. 50 million Islamists. Do the math.
But what disturbs me is where are the other 950 million Muslims who are not terrorists? Who are not bomb blasting, acid throwing, zealots? Where are the other 950 million Muslims who tuck their children in at night with a lullaby, who are okay with Christians and Jews, crave a peaceful world and wish nothing more than a tasty bowl of hummus and a friendly game of Shesh Besh with a neighbor?
I want to believe they are out there for their sake and for ours. I want to believe they weep in pain over the desecration of their faith. I want to believe that we have partners who dream the dreams we do and wish upon the same star.
I want to believe - - but where are they?
A silent partnership is no partnership. Sin is not just in the act of commission - it is also in the act of omission. Most Germans were not Nazis - but it did not matter.
Most Russians were not Stalinists - but it did not matter.
Most Muslims are not terrorists - but it does not matter.
Stand up righteously or get out of the way. Perhaps in every mosque, in every midrassah, in every Muslim neighborhood, Edmund Burke's powerful warning should be chiseled on a wall in Arabic, in Farsi, in Pashto, in Urdu, for all to read and heed. “All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.”
In today's Middle East, lexicon; restraint means suicide. Terrorists have become militants. Self-defense is a war crime. Democracy is apartheid. Israelis and Jews have become Nazis. Warning civilians to get out of harm's way has become genocide. 38 Muslim countries - 22 Arab countries and Israel, the only Jewish nation, must constantly defend her right to exist.
Russia invades. Nigeria enslaves. China oppresses. Pakistan rapes. Iraq slaughters. North Korea starves. Iran nuclearizes. Syria massacres. Venezuela plunders. Afghanistan tortures. Sudan annihilates. ISIS beheads and Israel is the pariah state, put under the microscope by the morally noxious.
Let’s leave the Middle East and head to Europe. For those who have not been recently, it has changed. It has changed dramatically. The sights. The sounds. The crowds. The streets are much different than when we backpacked with our Eurorail passes – strolling down the Champs-Elysees, chasing pigeons at Trafalgar Square, wandering the backstreets of Amsterdam after dark. The continent that gave birth to Western civilization, the continent that defined high culture is crumbling before our very eyes. Because of well-intentioned tolerance and an undisciplined pluralism, Europe is returning to the dark ages. By most estimates, Europe will be unrecognizable by the middle of this century – crushed by a demographic tsunami. The birthrate of the Brits, the French, the Dutch and the rest of the EU is well below zero population growth. The Muslim community’s birthrate is increasing exponentially. The danger, however, is that Europe has not been a melting pot, assimilating new Muslims. And these new Muslims, for the most part, are not interested in respecting the great democracies of Europe. They want Sharia law and Islamic culture to be ascendant and with their birthrate, the ballot box and their disdain for the West, in time, they will get it.
The element that is surging and redefining Europe are not the democracy respecting Muslims but those who are rampaging in nearly every capital. They are preaching hate for Jews, for Christians, for Israel, for America, for the entire Western world. It is not our grandfather’s Europe and it will not be a Europe our grandchildren will recognize.
For the record, Europe is being flooded not by freedom loving, tolerant, assimilating Muslims who wish to share in Western freedom, in Western tolerance, in Western culture but rather by violent Islamists, extremists who reject every value we treasure. We love ethnic communities – they are vibrant, exciting, magical faraway places only a walk away. Chinatown, Little Odessa, Greek town, Little Havana, Lower Eastside, Little Italy, but what is spreading across Europe are not charming, quaint neighborhoods enjoyed by locals and camera toting tourists in search of a charming restaurant. These are beachheads for invasion.
Want to stare down a guard at Buckingham Palace? Do it soon.
Want to see the Follies-Bergere dance the Can Can? Do it soon.
Want to sip wine at the vineyards of Tuscany? Do it soon.
Want to sunbathe on the beaches of San Trope? Do it soon.
The sun never set on the British Empire but now there is a cold darkness settling on Europe. A Nihilism. A corruption. A perversion in the name of Allah. Don’t listen to me. Listen to what the Islamists preach. Don’t listen to me. Look at what the Islamists do. It is not a leap into fantasy to perceive a future that is irretrievably ugly and inconceivably vile.
I must assume there are skeptics out there – folks who disbelieve my warnings and might label me an alarmist – a Paul Revere wannabe – galloping across the Pyrenees through the European heartland in the shadow of the Alps crying out “The Muslims are coming. The Muslims are coming.” I weighed each and every word carefully. Repeatedly. Was I treading into bigotry? … into melodrama?
This ever-growing tragedy doesn’t end neatly in Europe, in the Middle East, in Mumbai or the Philippines. Most of us have never tasted the bitterness of war. Witnessed its horror. Clawed our way out from beneath tons of rubble. But we dare not be complacent and cry out confidently – “we have 2 oceans and the TSA to protect us.” We live in a shrunken world. In a porous country. In an open society. We have become perilously naïve. Recklessly evenhanded. Unacceptably tolerant. Dangerously comfortable. The greatest generation has spawned the clueless generation. I say it again loudly, slowly and clearly – we are at war, here in America as well, with radical Islamists. We have been attacked repeatedly and yet we continue to turn away. We euphemize the enemy. Disguising his identity and his intent. There will not be armadas chanting “Allah Akbar” landing on the beaches of Malibu and Boca. No vast battalions chanting “Allah Akbar” while crossing the Rio Grande or the 45th Parallel – but make no mistake – we are at war, right now, this very minute. The tactics have changed. The battlefield is different. The rules of engagement have been redefined but we dare not make the mistake that all is well and that Islamic terrorists are simply violent criminals. That Islamic terrorists are just a bunch of unemployed losers, no part of a vast network hell bent on destroying our country. Their disunity in numbers but their unity in purpose is their power. The Lone Wolf is deadly and we are the prey.
Ask the man or woman on the street when did this all start and most would reply: “On 9/11.” That was a catastrophic day, but not the start. For us here in America, the war began in Teheran in 1979 when our embassy was taken over. It has continued ruthlessly and without pause ever since. Lockerbie and Scotland, TWA Flight 840, the USS Cole, embassies and American interests bombed and Americans killed in Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, Spain, Kenya, Germany, Egypt, Kuwait, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.
Connect the dots.
Here on American soil, before 9/11, the Twin Towers were attacked in 1993. The Times Square bomber. The Tsarnev brothers in the Boston Marathon bombing. The Fort Hood massacre was not work place violence but the calculated, cold blooded murder of 13 American soldiers by a Muslim Jihadist yelling “Allah Akbar.” The shooting up in Little Rock, Arkansas of an army recruiting station. The murder of 2 CIA agents outside Langley by a Pakistani whose final words before meeting his maker were “There is no God but Allah.” The indignant, impious, arrogant claim By CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic relations-that anyone who commits an act of violence is by definition, not a Muslim. Therefore, a Muslim terrorist, a Muslim killer, a Muslim suicide bomber, is a misleading term of bigotry and Islamophobia. The slick, masterful ISIS recruitment in Minneapolis. New York. Colorado. On Facebook. On Twitter and across the country.
I am concerned, as we all should be, of the alarming surge in Islamist rhetoric, violence and influence. I am equally concerned, as we all should be, of the alarming silence and inaction of mainstream Muslims.
I fear political correctness run amuck. I fear the worship of multiculturalism. I fear progressive voices of repression. I fear a distorted media tolerant of intolerance. I fear politicians who prefer the easy, still of the night to the noble, necessary struggle of the day. I fear we are not so far away from where we thought we would never be.
Three thoughts to ponder.
Osama bin Laden eluded capture for 10 years. Ever wonder why? There was a $25 million bounty on his head. That’s a lot of money. $25 million can by a lot of plastic surgery. A new identity. Rosetta Stone tapes. Elocution lesson. A suburban home. A Brooks Brothers wardrobe. New partners. New friends. Surf and turf every night and a round of golf every day.
The enemy has eyes and ears. Fingers and toes. Speaks with lips. Runs with legs. Eats. Drinks. Has the face of a human being – but, has a much different heart and a much different soul.
The fury of ultimate evil is upon us and we must act – not to contain it. Not to degrade it. Not to manage it. Not to tolerate it, but to exterminate it utterly and absolutely.
If we fail in this holy crusade, we will live in a world bereft of color. Empty of music, of art, of romance, of laughter, of freedom, of invention. A world barren of all beauty. Depleted of all virtue.
We are divided today not by faith nor holy book. We are divided today by decency and indecency. By right and wrong. By moral and corrupt. By courage and cowardice. By righteousness and evil.
The good citizens of earth must rise up. Gather on the mountain top and proclaim in thundering unison the words of Isaiah:
woe to them that call evil, good and good, evil. Who present darkness as light and light as darkness. Who call bitter, sweet and sweet, bitter.
We must turn back the evil.
We must turn back the darkness.
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