Who Is Trying to Dominate the World?

President Obama and his administration seem to be extremely interested in telling the American public that the threat from al Qaeda is on the run and that the threat from terrorism in the Middle East is markedly less than it was when he became President. Is there truth to this claim? The debacle at Benghazi seems to belie that claim. Al Qaeda in North Africa has posted a real gain in the terrorist threat, and denying that fact is disingenuous. The steady advance of nuclear capability in Iran is also disquieting, to say the least; and it represents extreme danger to our ally, Israel—which the mullahs of Iran want to wipe off the face of the earth. We see Muslims fighting among themselves in Yemen, Egypt, and Syria—all trying to establish which competing party is sufficiently Muslim. They do not seem hesitant to kill one another to determine that question, either! 

The President seems determined to distance himself from the idea that the terrorist threats in the Middle East are due to any ideological phenomenon in the combatants—certainly not in their religion, Islam. Statements by White House counterterrorism chief, John Brennan, call attention to the idea that grievances of the terrorists come from “political, economic, and social forces that can make people fall victim to the cancer of violent extremism.” Mr. Brennan, as well as the President, are unwilling to say that Islamist terrorists are bound to their violent behavior by ideological beliefs that stem directly from their religion, i.e., Islam. Mr. Brennan has said that the Obama administration does not “describe our enemy as jihadists or Islamists because jihad is holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam meaning to purify oneself or one’s community.” He failed to mention that jihad also means holy war. Of note, also, is the fact that Eric Holder, the Attorney General, has never identified a terrorist as a Muslim in any of his public pronouncements. Mr. Obama said in his Cairo speech in 2009 that “Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism.”  However, these organizations, themselves, claim that their violent behavior is a demonstration of the fact that they are acting in defense of Islam. I wonder why our leaders do not take the word of the violent organizations, themselves, about their motives. (Wall Street Journal, Oct 10, 2012, page A 13)

As I have said before in these pages, a careful read of the Muslim instruction book, the Qur’an, will reveal dozens of references to violence where Muslims are advised to “beleaguer, ambush, and destroy” enemies of Allah. Violence is no stranger to the pages of the Qur’an.

There is a strong current in liberal American thinking that blames America for much of the terrorist attacks on our country and its allies. Liberals claim that both Christianity and Islam aim at world domination; and they point out that the West, prodded on by Christian religionists, is forcibly pushing its own agenda. The tenet is true that both Islam and Christianity are trying to dominate the world; but there is a huge difference in the way these two religions go at their goal. Christianity wants to dominate the hearts of men and will do so only on the basis of persuasion, not by violent means. Islam seeks to dominate minds and hearts, also; but in addition, it wants to dominate police departments. Islam seeks not only religious domination; it seeks political domination. And…Islam, unlike Christianity, has a system in place with which to do just that—Sharia Law, a system of jurisprudence worked out 1400 years ago, which does not comport with modern ideas of women’s rights, freedom of religion, speech, and the press (all of which are dear to the hearts of today’s people, especially in the Western world). Sharia Law is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia deals with many topics addressed by secular law, including crime, politics, and economics, as well as personal matters such as sexual intercourse, hygene, diet, prayer, and fasting.  Islam seems ready and eager to impose that system of law on all the peoples of the world. It also ignores the Western principle of jurisprudence that insists that the punishment for crime must equal the offence.

I am not sufficiently familiar with Islam to know if Muslims can throw off the mantle of violence from the Qur’an without doing harm to their sacred book, but I know if they do not do it, they will never be a safe neighbor. And…it does no good to world order to continue disclaiming that terrorism is not related to Islam. In order to know what to do about the terrorist threat, we must recognize where that threat is coming from.