Muslims deny that jihad has any military meaning, and assert that Islam permits only defensive warfare; Muslim apologists, propagandists, and so-called moderates will quote sura (chapter) and verse from the Koran to “prove” that Islam is a tolerant and peaceful religion. There are, indeed, verses in the Koran which call for patience and tolerance. This is the partial truth that is used to create a lie.
Taqiyya is created by concealing the fact that the Koran also contains verses, written later in Muhammad’s preaching ministry, which call for unremitting war and violence against infidels until they submit to Islam. They conceal the fact that, under the Islamic doctrine of naksh, or “abrogation,” when there is a contradiction between verses in the Koran, the later verse supersedes the earlier verse.24 According to sura 2:106, a later verse “substitutes something better” in place of an earlier verse; according to sura 16:101, the later verse will “substitute one revelation for another.” Chronologically, sura 9 was the second-to-last chapter written by Muhammad. Sura 9:5 commands Muslims to “fight the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war).” Sura 5 was the very last chapter written by Muhammad. Sura 5:33 states that “[f]or those who do not submit to Allah their punishment is . . . execution or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet, from the opposite sides, or exile from the land.” According to some scholars of Islam, verses 9:5 and 5:33, all by themselves, supersede and cancel at least 124 earlier verses in which Muhammad preached patience and tolerance.25 For Muhammad and Islam, the revelations of violent jihad replaced the revelations of peace.
The hatred, treachery, and violence of the Koran and the Hadith are reflected in the relationships between the rival power centers of the Islamist movement. The religion of Islam has two main branches, the Sunni and the Shia, along with a number of smaller sects and denominations (e.g., the Alawis, the Ismailis, the Druze). A substantial majority of the Arab world is Sunni, but there are significant Shia minority populations in many Arab countries, and the Shia constitute a majority in Iraq and in non-Arab Iran.
The Wahhabi or Salafi school of Sunni Islam is practiced and propagated by “moderate” Saudi Arabia as well as by the Taliban and the al Qaeda terrorist network. All over the world, from Pakistan and Indonesia to the USA, this is the version of Islam that is preached at every institution built or supported by Saudi oil money.26 According to Wahhabi Sunni religious doctrine, Shia Muslims are apostates from Islam, and therefore deserve death even more than Jews, Christians, and pagans.27 The late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared by Osama bin Laden to be the “emir of al Qaeda in Iraq,"28 relied on this religious doctrine in declaring jihad in 2005 on Iraqi Shia Muslims.29
The Shia extremists, led by Iranian disciples of the Ayatollah Khomeini and exemplified by the terrorist organization Hezbollah, have demonstrated themselves to be just as hateful and just as murderous as the Wahhabi Sunnis. We must remember that it was the Shia of Hezbollah who pioneered the tactic of suicide bombing.
Furthermore, both the Sunni and Shia Islamists consider the nominally secular pan-Arab nationalist governments (such as Assad’s Syria, Mubarak’s Egypt, and the Iraq of Saddam Hussein) to be apostates deserving of death. On the occasions when Islamists have challenged the authority of these Arab nationalist dictatorships, the Islamists have been slaughtered, sometimes by the tens of thousands. In 1982, the Muslim Brotherhood, a Wahhabi paramilitary organization, sought to bring down the Syrian Baathist dictatorship of Hafez al-Assad. In response, Assad attacked and destroyed the city of Hama, which had been a stronghold of the Brotherhood. According to Amnesty International, between ten thousand and twenty-five thousand inhabitants of Hama were killed, most of them civilians.30 More recently, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was brutally suppressed after launching a terror campaign to destabilize the Mubarak government.
However, despite all of this intense mutual hatred and wholesale slaughter, Sunni and Shia Islamist terrorists will join forces with each other, and with secular Arab terrorist states, despite assumptions to the contrary by some “experts.” They will do so whenever they believe it will serve their own tactical or strategic interests. For instance, secular Syria and Shia Iran have been close allies for over twenty years, since shortly after Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1981. The fundamentalist Shia Iranians had no theological problems in forming an alliance with Syria’s Assad, a rigidly secular pan-Arab apostate who had killed thousands of Muslim fundamentalists. The terrorist alliance between Iran and Syria still exists today, even though the cast of characters has changed. In a truly remarkable display of Sunni-Shia-secular terrorist cooperation, Sunni terrorists from all over the Arab world are trained in Lebanon by Shia Hezbollah, under the protection of secular Arab nationalist Syria, paid for by Shia Iran. After their training is completed, these Sunni terrorists are transported through Syria and smuggled into Iraq, where they will commit terrorist atrocities, mostly against Shia Iraqis. There are numerous other examples of cooperation between some combination of Sunni, Shia, and secular Arab terrorists.31
If you want to understand the nature of the enemy we face, visualize a tapestry of snakes. They slither and they hiss, and they could eat each other alive, but they will unite in a hideous mass to achieve their common goal of imposing Islam on the world. This is the enemy we are fighting.
It is certain that there are genuinely moderate Muslims, perhaps a substantial number, who do not seek to impose Islam on this country and the world through violent jihad. However, they are conspicuous by their silence regarding the more problematic doctrines of Islam. To the extent that Muslim “leaders” and lobbying organizations in the United States even address the issue, they offer nothing more than vague, tepid condemnations of terrorist violence and heated denials that the behavior of Islamic terrorists has any connection with Islam.
Where is the Muslim outrage in this country over the supposed few who hijacked their religion? Where is the Million Muslim March on the Mall in Washington, D.C., sending a message to all Muslims in the Arabic world condemning the killing of human beings in the name of Allah? Where is the cry to raise the consciousness of the rest of the Muslim world about their hijacked religion? If something of yours had been stolen, wouldn’t you scream to the world that someone had hijacked it?
Where are the voices of Western Muslims, particularly the American Muslim community, sending a clear message to the Arabic world that we are Americans, and when you attack one of us you attack all of us? We condemn and consider the enemy Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, al Gamaat al Islamiya, and the rest of the collection of barbaric Islamic thugs and murderers who have neither conscience nor humanity. Where is the outrage of the Muslim community? Why aren’t the imams of every mosque holding press conferences, and inviting the media to tell the American public, “We are Americans first. Any enemy of America is our enemy. We will work to find, stop, arrest, turn in, and condemn anyone in our community who aspires to radicalize our religion and harm our country"?
You hear moderates giving excuses for the Muslims in America by saying that maybe they are afraid to speak because of retaliation. What a bogus excuse. What retaliation? This is America. If American Muslims feel free to burn an American flag on any street corner in the USA, they can voice their opinion freely and openly condemning our enemy, America’s enemy. They live here in America, not in Iran or Saudi Arabia. I can understand why supposedly moderate Muslims in the Middle East are afraid to speak. They’d be lynched and have their bodies hung on electricity poles, as they do in the Palestinian territories, Iran, Iraq, and other Islamic countries, to send a message to silence other critics. They’d be hung in the public square for everyone to learn a lesson about speaking about their dictators. But Muslims living in America afraid to speak? Give me a break.
If American Muslims spoke forcefully to condemn terrorist organizations by name rather than dispensing empty verbiage seeking to soothe American’s pain, we in America could start buying thei
r sincerity. Instead of all this talk about what a peaceful religion Islam is, why don’t they show us that the majority of Muslims are truly against this barbaric killing being spread around the world in the name of Allah? When mullahs throughout the Arabic world and Europe get on their soapbox in their mosques calling for the killing of all infidel Jews and Christians and establishing Islamic rule, none of the recognized and respected Islamic authorities in America or the West find it necessary to correct them. What does that tell us? What does that tell you about moderate Muslims? Where is their voice? Are they really there? Or are they an invention by Jewish and Christian Westerners who cannot accept the fact that there are people that really, really hate by an order from God according to their religion?
You hear about Wahhabi Islam as the only extreme form of Islam. All the other Muslims are wonderful moderates. What about the suicide bombers who are Egyptians, Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians, Iraqis, and Iranians? People of these nationalities were not raised in Saudi Arabia, but the common thread between them is written in the Koran. They are simply practicing Muslims. They are not the extreme, they are the mainstream.
Our leaders and politicians bend over backward to tell us how sweetly wonderful Islam is and that most Muslims are moderate, that a few radicals have hijacked this unbelievably sweet poetry called the Koran and are trying to twist it to do harm. Snap out of it, America. America and the West can no longer afford to stay in a state of ignorance. The consequences of this mental laziness are starting to attack the body of our country, and if the necessary medical steps aren’t taken now to control it, death will be knocking soon.
The reality is, suicide bombers and mass murderers are produced, financed, and brainwashed from birth by a system, a community, that prepares them to strive to fight for the cause and to attain martyrdom. The Muslim community harbors these killers and arms them to go out into the world and wage jihad. Upon their death, the community celebrates them as heroes. Their funerals are like weddings and they become an ideal that every Muslim kid should strive toward. Terrorist organizations are like a business that is financed, managed, directed, and operated by employees and supporters. They have warehouses for, and purchasers and deliverers of, products such as visas, suicide belts, explosives, and communication devices, all paid for by many people, not just one rogue person. Those terrorists usually live and travel within Muslim communities throughout the world, protected by the Muslim umma ("nation").
Muslims are telling us exactly what their plan is. Muslims tell us straight out that their goal is to conquer us and establish Islamic law in Western lands. They are following through on every word they have said so far. It’s the West that is refusing to believe what they are saying and even justifying their words by disregarding them as extremists who don’t really reflect the views of the majority of moderate Muslims. That’s exactly what the Christians thought in Lebanon. They thought that they shouldn’t judge everybody, since the majority of Muslims were Lebanese first. Try asking that question to the Lebanese Christian refugees in the diaspora and let’s hear what they say. And let us hear it from the moderate Muslims by their actions. When they demonstrate where they stand by their actions, not their empty words, then and only then can we put our guard down.
Moderate Muslims must directly confront the teachings in their religion which support jihad and the killing of infidels, instead of pretending that those teachings do not exist. Before they can be considered truly moderate, they must expressly repudiate the belief that Muslims have the divine right and duty to impose their religion and culture on the entire world. They must acknowledge and repudiate the doctrine of taqiyya, the divine right to lie to advance the cause of Islam. In the absence of a repudiation of the supposed right to lie, all promises remain worthless. On an individual and an institutional level, if Muslims are unwilling to relinquish the right to lie and kill in the name of Allah, how can they be considered moderate? It is Islam that declared perpetual war on the non-Muslim world. Unless Islam declares peace, Western civilization must defend itself, or disappear.
10.
THE IVY-COVERED FIFTH COLUMN:
Islamic Influence Alive and Well
on American Campuses
Since 9/11, experts, think tanks, and authors have published volumes about who our enemy is, what their modus operandi is, and what is in store for us in the future. Yet little attention is being paid to one of the least recognized attacks our adversary is making. Their tactic is a subtle flanking maneuver taking place right in the middle of our college and university campuses. The groundwork for this sneak attack was laid well before 9/11, as the United States was then and is still now being inundated with millions of Arab dollars being poured into academic organizations. The irony is that the enemy of our culture and values has successfully hijacked a program that was originally intended to protect us, and is now using it against us.
As the daunting reality of 9/11 set in, many Americans questioned why the United States intelligence community and the public were not better informed about Islamic terrorism and its vision to destroy America and its Western way of life. Discoveries of backlogs of Arabic-language intelligence intercepts, literature, and documents began to surface. Reports of low numbers of intelligence personnel who could read and speak Arabic were alarming. Where was the pool of Arabic-language and Middle Eastern experts in which the government had been investing since 1958?
In an effort to create a reliable resource of talent from which to recruit personnel for Middle Eastern intelligence and espionage, Washington looked to our colleges and universities as a training ground for people versed in the languages and cultures of the Middle East. It turned to a program developed in 1958 called Title VI of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA). The U.S. Department of Education describes the NDEA as a program “to ensure trained manpower of sufficient quality and quantity to meet the national defense needs of the United States.” Title VI was the Language Development section of this act, focusing on uncommonly taught languages. Today, these language area centers, or National Resource Centers (NRCs), Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships (FLASF), and International Research and Studies (IRS) remain central programs in the Title VI array.1 This program has not gone unnoticed by the benefactor of Islamic Wahhabism, the Saudis. They saw a good thing, subtly worked their way in, and hijacked Middle Eastern studies on college campuses to their own advantage.
While Saudi-supported Wahhabism fuels hatred within its own ranks in madrassas and mosques toward the West’s religious tolerance, relatively liberal social agenda, and permissive lifestyle, it’s on campuses across America that Arabs using their petrodollars are undermining our war on terror and softening the brains of Western college students toward radical Islamic fundamentalist dogma. These “lobbyists for Islam” are increasingly penetrating our prestigious centers of higher learning with enormous offerings of cash.2 The Saudi royal family has spent close to $70 billion worldwide to further the teaching of Wahhabism through Islamic madrassas, and to spread anti-American and anti-Israel sentiment. Much of this money is spent deceptively on U.S. college campuses.3 The millions they offer cash-strapped school administrations to supplement the NDEA concept and found Middle Eastern studies programs, complete with buildings, staff, and teachers, are hard to turn down. These schools and the majority of college-affiliated Muslim Students Associations (MSAs) in the United States are dominated by pro-Islamic and anti-American agendas, as are the majority of Islamic centers and schools funded by the Saudis worldwide.4 It’s their money, so they call the shots.
The Middle East Quarterly notes, “There is plenty of evidence for the MSA’s strident advocacy of the Saudi-style Wahhabi interpretation of Islam.” In “Wahhabism: A Critical Essay,” Hamid Algar of the University of California, Berkeley writes,
Some Muslim student organizations have functioned at times as Saudi-supported channels for the propagation of Wahhabism abroad, especially in the United States. . . . Particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, no c
riticism of Saudi Arabia would be tolerated at the annual conventions of the MSA. The organization has, in fact, consistently advocated theological and political positions derived from radical Islamist organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood and]amaati Islam.5
In addition to paying the salaries of the academics who are promoting the Saudi Wahhabi cause, money from Title VI supports Saudi “mercenaries” on campuses. These warriors are actually student activists that train overseas during the summer and return in the fall to put into action their newly learned skills. As a result, anti-American and anti-Jewish attacks are steadily increasing on college campuses.6 So what return on investment has the government gotten? Not much, considering the poor numbers of Arabic speakers available in the intelligence agencies and State Department. With the Saudis muscling in with big bucks, the focus of these Middle Eastern studies departments that are 10 percent funded by Title VI has quietly changed to spread terrorist propaganda that turns students against our government instead of encouraging them to use their interest in the Middle East to help the government staff with Arabic translation and policy positions.7
Why should we be so concerned about what Saudi Wahhabism is up to? Let me have John L. Esposito, professor of religion and international affairs and of Islamic studies at Georgetown University, whom I consider an unabashed Islamic apologist, remind you in a revealingly candid appraisal in his book Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam what Wahhabi Islam is all about.
The Wahhabi religious vision or brand of Islam . . . is a strict, puritanical faith that emphasizes literal interpretation of the Quran and Sunmah (example) of the Prophet Muhammad and the absolute oneness of God. . . . Anything the Wahhabis perceived as un-Islamic behavior constituted unbelief (kufur) in their eyes, which must be countered by jihad. Thus jihad or holy war was not simply permissible: to fight the unbelievers and reestablish a true Islamic state was required.
Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America Page 21