Misunderstanding the Enemy: the Islamic Threat and the U.S. Media

On September 19 the Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune published an article entitled Struggle for the Soul of Islam: A rare look at secretive Brotherhood in America. This 5,000-word feature sought to reveal the existence, methods and ultimate goals of the American offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, "the world's most influential Islamic fundamentalist group." The Tribune story is important for revealing the magnitude of the threat America faces no less than for revealing the underlying misunderstanding of that threat by the American elite class in general and the media in particular.

The Brotherhood's slogan, ever since it was founded in Egypt in 1928, has been unambiguous: "Allah is our goal; the Messenger [Muhammad] is our model; the Koran is our constitution; jihad is our means; and martyrdom in the way of Allah is our aspiration." It has had a major impact on Islam in America by establishing mosques, Islamic schools, summer youth camps and Muslim organizations. Since 1993 it has operated under the name of Muslim American Society (MAS), a "charitable, religious, social, cultural and educational not-for-profit organization" with 10,000 members in 53 chapters nationwide.

The article claims that "because of its hard-line beliefs, the U.S. Brotherhood has been an increasingly divisive force within Islam in America, fueling the often bitter struggle between moderate and conservative Muslims." While separation of church and state is a bedrock principle of American democracy, the article says, "the international Brotherhood preaches that religion and politics cannot be separated and that governments eventually should be Islamic."

Other facts of the case concerning the Brotherhood, as revealed by the Tribune, can be summarized in seven key points:

2. It does not seek "the overthrow of the U.S. government" but wants to convert the nation to Islam so that one day Americans will choose to be governed by Islamic law.

3. It endeavors to "save" the younger generations of Muslims in the United States from "melting into the American lifestyle."

4. Its ideologues believe "the Koran justified violence to overthrow un-Islamic governments."

5. Its current leaders praise Palestinian and Iraqi suicide bombers, call for the destruction of Israel and assert that the U.S. has no proof that Al Qaeda was to blame for 9-11.

6. Its leaders scout mosques, Islamic classes and Muslim organizations for those "with orthodox religious beliefs consistent with Brotherhood views."

7. Its proselytizing in the U.S. is backed financially by the Saudi Arabian government, "which shares the Brotherhood's fundamentalist goals."

The problem with the Tribune story is not faulty research but flawed editorial paradigm. "Muslims [are] divided on Brotherhood," the sub-headline asserts, and the story itself suggests that the group's goals are "controversial" and that its "hard-line views" have "alienated many moderate Muslims." The claim that the Brotherhood is in tension or even conflict with the Islamic "mainstream" is a figment of the liberal mind, however. In reality the tenets of the Muslim Brotherhood, its methods and its goals—as enumerated by the Tribune—are in full accordance with standard Islamic teaching and practice. Such editorial slant reflects a structural problem: the refusal of the American opinion-forming elite to accept that Islam as such poses a threat, and not some allegedly aberrant variety of it.

The failure to come to grips with the message and implications of Islam, its sacred texts and teaching, its historical record and its contemporary political ambitions, is not limited to the media. It is endemic to the American elite class, which is prone to interpret the world by "Americanizing" reality. All religions are supposedly equally peaceful and tolerant, Islam is a religion, ergo it is also peaceful and tolerant. A blatant casuistic fallacy has become establishmentarian orthodoxy.

The most serious security implication of such mindset is manifest in the failure of the elite to examine the implications of Muslim immigration in the United States. It is evident that the existence of that multi-million-strong Muslim presence in the Western world is essential in providing the terrorists with the recruits, the infrastructure, the mobility, and the relative invisibility without which they would not be able to operate. Terrorist plots involving Muslim immigrants and their children or native-born converts are on the notable increase both in the United States and in Western Europe. That there is a correlation between the presence of a Muslim population in a country and the danger that it or some other Western country will be subjected to a terrorist attack is a demonstrable fact. Muslims are the only group, in Western Europe or North America, that harbors a substantial segment of individuals who share the key objectives with the terrorists, even if they do not all approve of all of their methods.

The Tribune asserts that the Brotherhood is in tension with the Muslim mainstream in America, but that claim is at odds with recent studies. In a survey of newly naturalized citizens, 90 percent of Muslim immigrants said that if there were a conflict between the United States and their country of origin, they would be inclined to support their country of origin. In Detroit 81 percent of Muslims "strongly agree" or "somewhat agree" that Shari'a should be the law of the land. This internal threat to America is increasing. Between 1987 and 1997 8 percent of all immigrants—two million—came from Muslim countries, but that proportion is rapidly increasing. While overall immigration (legal and illegal) has grown by 300 percent since 1970, growth of immigration from the Middle East has gone up 700 percent, from under 200,000 in 1970 to 1.5 million in 2000. Expected number of immigrants from the Middle East in 2010 will be 2,500,000. These figures are matched and likely to be exceeded by the number of Muslim immigrants from the Indian Sub-Continent (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh). Currently Muslims account for close to one-tenth of all naturalizations, and their birth rates exceed those of any other significant immigrant group. Even a conservative estimate of their number of three million, or one-percent of the population, has alarming security implications and the potential for disproportionate growth. A coherent long-term counter-terrorist strategy therefore must entail denying Islam the foothold inside the United States. The application of ideological and political criteria in determining the eligibility of prospective visitors or immigrants has been and remains an essential ingredient of any anti-terrorist strategy, whereby Islamic activism would be treated as eminently political rather than "religious" activity.

The problem of Muslim influx is inseparable from the phenomenon of Islam itself, and in particular from that faith's impact on its adherents as a political ideology and a program of action. The notion that terrorism is an aberration of Islam, and not a predictable consequence of the ideology of Jihad that is inseparable from it, reflects an elite consensus that is ideological in nature and dogmatic in application. That elite consensus is flawed, and it costs lives and treasure. Three years after the worst terrorist outrage in history the "war against terror" needs to be rethought before it is effectively lost. As it is currently conceived it cannot be won.

The enemy is well aware of the opportunity. The Tribune article quotes the MAS Chicago chapter's Web site as saying that Western secularism and materialism are evil and that Muslims should "pursue this evil force to its own lands" and "invade its Western heartland." Ultimately the outcome of the war against terrorists will depend on our ability to halt this ongoing invasion. That will demand a more acute understanding of the nature of the threat—that the violent message of the Kuran is the problem, and not the Brotherhood's reinterpretation of Muhammad's "revelations." That message is a huge problem for all Muslims. We cannot solve it for them, and we should not be asked to pretend that the Kuran is a pacifist tract. Those who submit to that faith must solve the problem they set themselves.

Muslim immigrants to America may draw very different things from their religion, its scripture and traditions, but anti-infidel violence is a hardy perennial. The challenge is how to prevent theocratic terror from sheltering behind secular-liberal toleration. While it is too much to hope that our elites will become pro-Christian any time soon, for the sake of survival they should rethink the refusal to legislate the practice of any religion in any way. Islam should be treated as a special case because it is, on its own admission, much more than "just a religion." It needs to be understood as, and subjected to the same supervision and legal restrains that apply to other cults prone to violence, and to violent political hate groups whose avowed aim is the destruction of our order of life.

Muslim activists in non-Muslim countries invoke those institutions when they clamor for every kind of indulgence for their own beliefs and customs. They demand full democratic privileges to organize and propagate their views, while acknowledging to each other that, given the power to do so, they would impose their own beliefs and customs, and eliminate all others. Once it is accepted that "true Islam" does not recognize a priori the right of any other religion or world outlook to exist—least of all the atheistic secular humanism—a serious anti-terrorist strategy will finally become possible.

Prophet of Doom - Islam’s Terrorist Dogma, In Muhammad’s Own Words

Islam is a caustic blend of regurgitated paganism and twisted Bible stories.
Muhammad, its lone prophet, conceived his religion solely to satiate his lust for power, sex, and money.
He was a terrorist.

And if you think these conclusions are shocking, wait until you see the evidence.

Radical Islam's 'plan' to take over America - Arab-American author outlines secret 20-year strategy to undermine country

The article is based on a false premise about the nature of tolerance and the reason we disallow government legislation restricting freedom of religion. It is not, as the article naively supposes, that we think all religions are warm and fuzzy things, or pacifist in nature. The country was founded by religious fanatics who had seen a third of the population of central Europe slaughtered in the name of religion. They did not think religion was pacifist or benign. On the contrary.

Tolerance is not tolerance for things judged to be good or true. Such things do not need tolerance. Tolerance is tolerance for error, or it does not merit the name. The reason we tolerate error is error is the natural state of mankind, and to require lack of error on the part of men (1) condemns must men to justified punishment and (2) requires an infalliable judge to decide what is and what is not error. Such a judge does not exist in this world. Governments are least of all capable of it. Governments are no arbiters of truth. Their record in the matter is abysmal, a river of blood spilled for the grossest superstitions and the most patent errors.

We tolerate because we prefer the danger of misguided fellow citizens to the danger of an omnipotent government that claims the sole possession of the truth. Not because there is no danger in the first. We keep the right to bear arms to protect from either. We aren't scared of wicked private individuals because we fully expect to defend ourselves against them if they appear, not because we think they do not exist. When individuals engage in criminal acts we throw the book at them, judging them ourselves in our capacity as jurors, not trusting anybody else to do so with our interests in view.

Freedom is not based on the desire for safety in the first place. It is independently desired even if it brings danger, as preferably to living as a ward of paternalistic states arrogating all judgment of truth, necessity, danger, or guilt to themselves. We expect and get no assurances we won't be endangered by doing so. We will be dangerous ourselves, right back, when the occasion demands.

In the case of militant Islam, we consider preposterous the notion that millions of fellow Americans will prefer so ridiculous and unjust an ideology. But if they do, we will fight against them. We have put up with idiocies from our domestic left that are at least as dangerous - including people who gave atom bombs to Joe Stalin and lobbied for the Khmer Rogue. We tolerate not in ignorance but in majestic strength. Even when they do their worst, they will not stop us. We will re-elect W and wage our war, in contempt of anything either Muslim radicals or the international left can do about it.

...are all "Middle America" and are some of the most liberal states in the country. Something that also comes to mind is a few senators from the Dakotas are Lefties.

Don't confuse the general politics of a state with the folks who live in it. There's a huge difference between the mind-set of people in Manhattan and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They may both vote Democratic, but the folks in Iowa, the Dakotas, and Southern Illinois are fiercely independent.

Middle America is what liberals like to call fly-over country, but it's the heartland of America. If you take a look at those red and blue states you can get a good idea of where it is. There's only one.

In this part of Tennessee we see muslims in headscarfs passing through, and although they're treated civilly the looks from the locals lets them know they're not wanted here. If they start to proselytize here I can forsee trouble. The rural Christian South is no place for mulims.

The country was founded by religious fanatics who had seen a third of the population of central Europe slaughtered in the name of religion. They did not think religion was pacifist or benign.

Which is why they chose to separate Church from State. They reasoned that the religious conflicts of Old Europe came from the mixing of religion and politics.

Islam not only mixes the two, it does not draw distinctions between them. It can be argued that allowing an Islamic foothold in the United States is akin to allowing foreign embassies to a government whose raison d'etre is to overthrow us entirely.

The inevitable consequence of allowing Islam the freedom of having a foothold in the West WILL be the loss of our own freedom, and many of our lives, as well. It is not a matter of "if," but "when."

If freedom as you define it in the end leads to more--and worse--oppression, then is freedom really worth it?

Yes, freedom is really worth it. No, they aren't going to defeat us. No, we don't have to adopt their linkage of politics and religion in order to defeat them. Our system is and always has been superior to theirs. We have nothing to learn from them. Your way is simply to become as stupid as they are out of fear. Fear is what has made them so stupid in the first place. Brave men do not throw away their freedom out of fear of pissant bullies half way across the world who can't organize their way out of a paper bag. Your council of cowardice is wasted on Americans, who are too brave and too generous to fall for such crap.

What have we done to counter this threat? Dubya has made a start but where are the leaders in Congress, the press, the academy and elsewhere who have come up with effective ways to stop this mortal threat? We should both make clear that those with good ideas are praised and those who support the attack on the United States are identified. FR is helping. What other groups are? We can help knit them together into an effective force. I would like to start by pointing to the Hudson Institute; they have transitioned from their former focus on "thinking the unthinkable" to very good programs on this threat. There are others. Let us bring them to the fore.

Here in NJ, it's very polarized. muslims are not welcome, anymore. The press here has picked up on it, the muslims have picked up on it and of course it's the Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Hindu, etc. communities are wrong. The muslims are the victims.
It's really a shame. I attended a small communitiy college, I had a few friends who were Lebanese Christians. I made a comment about islam being from what I read of the qu'ran (chosen excerpts for a "Comparison of Major World Religions" class) seemed to be "all right", although the concept of submission is not in my character.
They bristled at the idea and gave the inside dope on how they destroyed Lebanon. It wasn't pretty.
As far as New Jersey goes, it's quite different than the way it's portrayed in the movies and on tv. It's not all cities and toxic waste dumps. Actually, an episode of the "Sopranos" showed the other part. The Pine Barrens take up about half the state and when the night falls, there is no place darker.
Those of us who were raised in Central, South and West Jersey are totally different species from those in the Northeast New Jersey adjacent to New York breed.

Brave men do not throw away their freedom out of fear of pissant bullies half way across the world who can't organize their way out of a paper bag.

Therein lies the problem with your argument. Did you even read the article I posted?

This internal threat to America is increasing. Between 1987 and 1997 8 percent of all immigrants—two million—came from Muslim countries, but that proportion is rapidly increasing. While overall immigration (legal and illegal) has grown by 300 percent since 1970, growth of immigration from the Middle East has gone up 700 percent, from under 200,000 in 1970 to 1.5 million in 2000. Expected number of immigrants from the Middle East in 2010 will be 2,500,000. These figures are matched and likely to be exceeded by the number of Muslim immigrants from the Indian Sub-Continent (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh). Currently Muslims account for close to one-tenth of all naturalizations, and their birth rates exceed those of any other significant immigrant group. Even a conservative estimate of their number of three million, or one-percent of the population, has alarming security implications and the potential for disproportionate growth.

They are not halfway around the world. They are here. In the West. Our ridiculous immigration policies provide terrorists with a fresh Western Muslim diaspora--and therefore all the recruits and manpower they could possibly want.

OK. I am still trying to digest all the information.

The idea that Jewish people seem to dominate business and money concerns is like telling me that black men are trying to dominate the world by excelling in sports.

Both have foundations in tendency, but are still stereotyping.

I do believe I understand the basic premise of the article. The Islamic threat, though based on a corruption of the Koran, by a human designated prophet named Mohammed, is real. What is has turned into is similar to the top echelon of what is called the Democratic Party. And just as difficult to stop.

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