Five days after 9/11, George Bush stated

“This crusade, this war on terrorism is gonna take awhile. And the American people must be patient. I’m gonna be patient.”

It doesn’t matter that George Bush used the word “crusade,” not in a religious sense, but in a more literary, erudite sense, to mean “a vigorous concerted movement for a cause or against an abuse.” Because the President is known to be a religious man, his detractors and our enemies abroad have latched onto that single word to characterize all of America’s subsequent actions in the Middle East as a Christian crusade. (See, for example, this The Nation article, in which the author crows about President Bush’s ineptitude in allying himself with the medieval Crusaders, something that had “Bush already reading from [Osama Bin Laden’s] script.”)

These attacks against Bush’s (in retrospect) poor choice of words mean that America has vigorously and repeatedly denied that this war has anything to do with religion. Thus, while our opponents “coincidentally” belong to the same faith – Islam – we’re told repeatedly that Islam is a “religion of peace” (all present, historical and doctrinal evidence to the contrary). The obvious implication is that, to the extent that Islam is peaceful, religion can have nothing to do with events around us.

This blind obeisance to maintaining parity – because we’re not engaged in a religious war, they’re not engaged in a religious war – is both nonsensical and harmful. It’s nonsensical, of course, because it’s so obvious that our opponents – whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Canada, England, or wherever – make no secret about the impetus behind their animus towards us. While the Marxists may be spouting off about economic imperialism, those who array themselves against us talk generally about seeing Sharia enforced through the world. At a more specific level, they demand a Muslim takeover of America, the imposition of Sharia in Britain, and urge a holocaust to wipe out the Jewish nation (a nation Islam has long held to be an intractable enemy that must be destroyed). Under these circumstances, our denial that there is a religious component to the instant World War merely makes us look foolish.

Looking foolish doesn’t harm us, of course. What does harm us is our willful refusal to recognize the nature of our enemy. That self-imposed ignorance means that we are unable to fight effectively the Islamists arrayed against us. Or more to the purpose, it makes our enemy, which knows us very well, better equipped to challenge us, both on the field and off.

Examples of this asymmetry in knowledge abound. Islam, the religion we insist has nothing to do with the war raging around the world, believes in martyrdom. In Iran, for example, tens of thousands of children were trained to be martyrs in the battle against Iraq. As Mattias Kuntzel wrote:

After Iraq invaded in September, 1980, it had quickly become clear that Iran’s forces were no match for Saddam Hussein’s professional, well armed military. To compensate for their disadvantage, Khomeini sent Iranian children, some as young as 12 years old, to the front lines. There, they marched in formation across minefields toward the enemy, clearing a path with their bodies. Before every mission, one of the Taiwanese keys would be hung around each child’s neck. It was supposed to open the gates to paradise for them.

These children who marched to their deaths were part of the Basiji, a mass movement created by Khomeini in 1979. This volunteer militia went enthusiastically, and by the thousands, to their own destruction. According to one veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, “It was sometimes like a race. Even without the commander’s orders, everyone wanted to be first.”

This rapturous embrace of martyrdom isn’t limited to mystical Shia sects, or even to Iran. Amongst the Palestinians, Mariam Farhat leapt to fame, not just because she was a political candidate, but because she was a woman who cheerfully sent three of her sons to die in suicide bombings and now hopes to see her remaining children die in the same way. Other mothers, in other times, have waved their children off to battle, only to see them die in war (see America’s Gold Star mothers, for example), but Farhat is distinguished by her blood-thirsty enthusiasm for her own children’s deaths in Allah’s service:We cannot stop sacrificing just because we feel pain. What is the meaning of sacrifice? One sacrifices what is precious, not what is of little value. My children are the most precious thing in my life. That is why I sacrificed them for a greater cause — for Allah, who is more precious than them. My son is not more precious than his God, he is not more precious than the places holy to Islam, and he is not more precious than his homeland or his Islam. Not at all.

Given the enthusiasm the Muslim culture has for those who die in battle with infidels (and the rewards promised in the afterlife to those who make that sacrifice), one would think that Islamists around the world would be enthusiastically trumpeting the deaths of those dying in American or Israeli battles. I can easily imagine them spouting something along the lines of “Drop all the bombs you want! We embrace death. Our martyrs go straight to Paradise, and more will line up to take their place.” Certainly the thought of an unending supply of willing victims would unnerve me, especially since the Russian experience during WWII shows that a nation that has enough cannon fodder can defeat a better trained, better equipped army.

Yet that’s not what the Islamists do. Instead, they bemoan – and make causes célèbres of – the civilian dead, whether in Lebanon, on the beaches, or on the streets. Since Islamic precepts indicate that they should be embracing and celebrating these deaths, not bewailing them, the Islamists’ public declarations of outrage can be aimed only at our sensibilities, not theirs. And our all-American naval gazing, which forces us to deny that there is a religious element to this war, prevents us from understanding events through the Islamic lens. Instead, it sees us agonizing over these deaths through our guilt-ridden Western perspective. Each death, therefore, is not only a numerical loss to the opposition, but a disabling blow to ourselves as well.

The same holds true when it comes to torture. (By the way, I’m not espousing torture in this discussion; merely noting certain asymmetries in how the different cultures understand and rely upon it.) Americans find the idea of torture revolting and engage in endless debates about the righteousness of even limited torture under the most extreme circumstances (such as extracting knowledge to prevent a nuclear holocaust). Islamists, on the other hand, embrace torture, and do so in Koranic terms. For example, Nick Berg’s torture death was accompanied by joyous shouts of Allahu Akbar. The Koran abounds in references to decapitation, a death Americans instinctively believe to be a “cruel and unusual” punishment. It’s also no secret that criminals under Sharia law are routinely punished by being lashed, being stoned to death, having their eyes gouged out, or having hands, tongues, noses or ears sliced off – all in the name of Islam.

You’d think people from the Islamic world would be inured to even the ugliest injuries and indignities inflicted on the human body. So it was a bit strange to watch the uproar over the vile, but comparably innocuous, frat pranks played out at Abu Ghraib. To people used to street corner beheadings under Saddam Hussein, the sight of a man with underpants on his head simply cannot have touched upon the same emotions. The uproar, therefore, was for our benefit, to touch upon our revulsion over torture and public humiliation. And our public agony was misplaced because, had we had a better understanding our opponents’ religiously based belief about the punishments humans can take, we would have recognized the propaganda-based drama queen hiding behind that emoting.

And so it goes, in endless battles of perception and misperception. We’re entranced by our denial that this is a religious war, and blind to the fact that, on the other side it is. If we could at least honestly recognize our opponents’ driving religious beliefs, it would be less easy for them to manipulate us by dramatizing events that, under their religious tenets, are either appropriate or devoutly to be wished.

By the way, should the enemy succeed in its objective – which is to see Sharia law imposed in America – we will, finally, understand that this as a religious war because we’ll suddenly find ourselves living in Hell.

Bookworm is the pseudonym for a crypto-conservative blogger in a liberal stronghold. She publishes Bookworm Room.

NEVER FORGET

Islamic terrorists promising to conquer America prior to murdering all Christians and Jews therein.

"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith,
but to become dominant. The Qur'an should be the highest authority in America,
and Islam the only accepted religion on earth"

--Omar Ahmed, Chairman of the Board of CAIR (Council of American Islamic Relations), San Ramon Valley Herald, July 1998

Qur’an 8:12 “I shall terrorize the infidels.
So wound their bodies and incapacitate them
because they oppose Allah and His Apostle.”

Qur’an 8:57 “If you gain mastery over them in battle,
inflict such a defeat as would terrorize them,
so that they would learn a lesson and be warned.”

================= EXHIBIT 1 ================

Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay attacked by Islamic terrorists.

================= EXHIBIT 2 ================

London attacked by Islamic terrorists.

================= EXHIBIT 3 ================

Madrid attacked by Islamic terrorists.

================= EXHIBIT 4 ================

AMERICANS MURDERED ON A BRIDGE IN FALLUJA BY ISLAMIC SUBHUMAN TERRORISTS

The War for Infinite Justice MUST BE ESCALATED

================= EXHIBIT 5 ================

TORTURE OF AMERICANS BY ISLAMIC SUBHUMAN TERRORISTS.

The War for Infinite Justice MUST BE ESCALATED

================= EXHIBIT 6 ================

VERY PARTIAL LIST OF ISLAMIC TERRORIST ACTIVITIES
Full list is pages and pages and pages and pages.

1968 Robert Kennedy assassinated
1972 Munich Olympics Sep-5,1972 (Black September)
1976 Entebbe Hostage Crisis, June 27, 1976
1979 Iran Hostage Crisis, Nov. 4, 1979 444 days
1979 Grand Mosque Seizure, Nov 20,1979
1981 Assassination of Egyptian President, Oct 6,1981
1982 Assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister, Sept 14, 1982
1983 Bombing of US Embassy in Beirut6, April 18,1983
1983 Bombing of Maring Barricks, Beruit, Oct 23,1983
1984 Hizballah Restaurant Bombing, April 12,1984
1985 Egyptian Airliner Hijacking, Nov 23,1985
1985 Rome Airport murders
1985 TWA Flight 847 hijacked, U.S. Navy diver murdered
1985 Achille Lauro hijacking, Homacidal maniac lived in saddams Iraq
1986 Aircraft Bombing in Greece, March 30, 1986
1988 Pan Am 747 Flight 103 Bombing, Lockerbie, 100's murdered
1988 Berlin Discoteque Bombing, Dec 21,1988
1992 Bombing in Israeli Embassy in Argentina, March 17,1992
1993 Attempted Assassination of Pres. Bush Sr., April 14,1993
1993 First World Trade Center bombing, February 26th, 7 Killed, Hundreds injured, Billions
1994 Air France Hijacking, Dec 24,1994
1995 Attack on US Diplomats in Pakistan, Mar 8,1995
1995 Military Installation Attack, Nov 13, 1995
1995 Kashmiri Hostage taking, July 4,1995
1996 Khobar Towers attack
1996 Sudanese Missionarys Kidnapping, Aug 17,1996
1996 Paris Subway Explosion, Dec 3,1996
1997 Israeli Shopping Mall Bombing, Sept 4, 1997
1997 Yemeni Kidnappings, Oct 30,1997
1998 Somali Hostage taking crisis, April 15,1998
1998 U.S. Embassy Bombing in Peru, Jan 15, 1998
1998 U.S. Kenya Embassy blown up, 100's murdered
1998 U.S. Tanzania Embassy blown up, 100's murdered
1999 Plot to blow up Space Needle (thwarted)
2000 USS Cole attacked, many U.S. Navy sailors murdered
2000-2003 Intifada against Israel - 100's dead and injured
2000 Manila Bombing, Dec 30,2000
2001 4 Commercial airliners hijacked, 250+ murdered
2001 World Trade Center attacked, 2800+ murdered
2001 Flight 93 murders
2001 Pentagon attacked, 180+ murdered
2002 Reporter Daniel Pearl, kidnapped and murdered
2002 Philippines American missionary, Filipino nurse killed
2002 July 4, El Al attack Los Angeles LAX, several murdered
2002 Bali bombing - 200 dead, 300 injured
2002 Yemen, French Oil Tanker attacked
2002 Marines attacked / murdered in Kuwait
2002 Washington D.C. sniper
2002 Russian Theater attacked, 100+ dead
2002 Nigerian riots against Miss World Pageant, 200 dead, dozens injured
2002 Mombasa Hotel Attacked, 12 dead, dozens injured
2002 Israeli Boeing 757 attacked by missiles, fortunately no one injured
2002 August Hotel bombing in Jakarta, Indonesia. 12 dead, dozens injured.
2003 Rusian concert bombing
2003 Phillipines airport and market bombing
2003 Foiled SAM plot in the USA
2003 UN Baghdad HQ Bombing
on and on and on and on their terrorism has gone .........

The War for Infinite Justice MUST BE ESCALATED

================= EXHIBIT 7 ================

Islamic Terrorists (mainly from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) attack America
murdering 3000 Americans per hour [pictures censored by the MSM]

The War for Infinite Justice SHOULD HAVE BEEN ESCALATED IN 2001

================= EXHIBIT 8 ================

Russia, at Beslan, with children murdered by Islamic terrorists.

LIBERALISM IS A RETROVIRUS

Islamic terrorists promising to conquer America prior to murdering all Christians and Jews therein.

"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Qur'an should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth"

--Omar Ahmed, Chairman of the Board of CAIR (Council of American Islamic Relations), San Ramon Valley Herald, July 1998

"Why I left Islam", by Dr. Ali Sina

"...the real Islam is not what its philosophers and mystics have inferred but what is in the Quran and that is the Islam of the fundamentalist and the terrorist. The real Islam is the Islam that abuses women, that allows men to beat their wives, that imposes penalty tax on the religious minorities, that wants to dominate the world by subduing all the non-Muslims, that calls for Jihad and killing the non-believers until Islam becomes the only dominant religion of the World."
"The enemy is Islam and that is the target of my attacks. I do that, despite knowing that I have become the magnet of the hatred of fanatical Muslims and my own life could be in danger.
Yet I know that by eradicating Islam we can save the world from the dangers of a catastrophe that otherwise is looming over our heads and could cause more disaster than the 1st and 2nd World Wars combined."

Islamic terror based on Qu’ran: ex-CIA official

"A former top official of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency paints a menacing picture of the relationship between Islam and terrorism.
"Islamic terrorism is based on Islam as revealed through the Qu’ran," keynote speaker Bruce Tefft claimed in a panel discussion at the University of Toronto on jihad and global terrorism.
And, he added, "There is no difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism, which is a totalitarian construct..."
According to Tefft, the Qu’ran enjoins Muslims to believe that the whole world should be governed by the principles of Islam, an expansionist religion that has historically grown through conquest..."

And don't forget that CAIR is starting a new, well funded propganda campaign...

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.