Perhaps Terrorists Really Do Speak For Islam, and For Dems As Well

Commentary by Greg Lewis / NewMediaJournal.US
April 5, 2007

The time has come to consider, not whether it is Islamo-fascists who are waging war against the United States and Israel, but rather whether it is Islam itself that is waging war against us. Indeed, while Islamist terrorists are numerically a relatively small segment of Islam, there are so few Muslim voices being raised even against the most heinous atrocities the Islamists commit that it is not inaccurate to say that Muslims in general desire the fall of the west at the hands of their terrorist forces.
It's not, of course, a simple or straightforward matter. Islamic terrorist factions exert powerful influence over other Muslims, especially in the Middle East, through tactics that range from direct intimidation through more subtle coercion down to what amounts to outright bribery.

The city of Baghdad, with its weekly catalogue of grotesqueries that invariably include the discovery of the bodies of citizens tortured and beheaded for the simple reason that they had the misfortune to belong to the "wrong" Islamic sect, has become a constant reminder to all Muslims of the risks involved in standing up against the mass slaughter of their co-religionists at the hands of monsters.
And although the pace of the sectarian massacres has lessened significantly, don't expect acknowledgment of this initial success of the American troop surge from Democrats and the mainstream media any time soon. Harry Reid's typically blank mien seems to get even blanker, if that's possible, when anyone mentions that progress is being made in securing Baghdad as a result of the troop surge and changing Iraqi governmental policites.

Both the Democrats and the media, through their actions and comments, have positioned themselves solidly on the side of any Muslim who kills any other Muslim, as long as it makes the United States cause look bad. The very fact that Nancy Pelosi would have the audacity, not to mention the bad judgment, to deliver a message — and an incorrect one besides — from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Syrian leader Bashar Assad only confirms Democrats' acknowledgment of the legitimacy of Islamist terrorism. The Bush policy of not negotiating with terrorist regimes such as Iran and Syria is in place for a reason, and Pelosi's willfully ignorant mishandling of the situation only builds the case for Democrats as terrorist supporters more strongly.

Their common smokescreen is to say that their insisting on our pulling American troops from Iraq and threatening to cut off funding for the war, not to mention tying the hands of American Generals conducting the war with their so-called benchmarks, do not mean that they're unpatriotic. However, because of their inability to even deal with any of the positives coming out of Iraq, and the fact that their proposed legislation and the tone they've set in debate contribute to a lowering of American forces' morale and put our troops in danger, I think it's high time we actually do start questioning their patriotism.

Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and John Murtha and the rest of this sorry group are not simply anti-American, they're unpatriotic. By their words and deeds, they've effectively cast their lot with one of the most broadly murderous ideologies in religious history, Islam, and we can't allow them to continue to talk out of both sides of their mouths.

If you're still insisting that somehow Islam is a "religion of peace," please continue reading. On March 21, in an incident that was not nearly as widely reported as it should have been, a car with two men in the front seats and two children in the back pulled up to a checkpoint near a marketplace in northern Baghdad. Guards waved them through because two small children were seen in the back seat. Once they were in the marketplace, the two men exited the vehicle and ran. Moments later the car, with the two children inside, was detonated remotely, killing the children and a number of bystanders.

In other words, they used their own children to lower suspicion that they might be suicide bombers, then murdered them after they themselves had fled. Most westerners can think of no more cowardly and disgraceful act, yet Muslims, to judge by the absolute lack of any condemnation of such acts by so-called "moderate" Muslims, find it acceptable.

What was the saying in the 1960s? If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Well, Democrats, the "mainstream" media, and Muslims in general are now officially part of the problem.

Now come reports that Muslims are also training their own children to murder themselves. Fox News reported on a video dramatization aired on Hamas Television in which a girl who is perhaps four years old idolizes her mother, who is strapping explosives to her body in preparation for going on a suicide/homicide bombing mission. The video ends with the girl expressing her desire to emulate her mother and kill herself as she attempts to kill infidels.

Now it's been clear for a long time that such terrorist networks as Al Jazeera and Hamas Television and many Islamist websites are promoting wanton violence, not only against infidels but among Islamic sects. But what is remarkable is that there has been no loud public outcry emanating from Muslims themselves against this violence, especially as their own friends, family, and loved ones are overwhelmingly the people who bear the brunt of the violence.

In an article entitled "The Trouble With Islam," (Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2007, A15), Tawfik Hamid argues that this situation has arisen through the lack of a rigorously grounded moderate sect of Islam. Shariah law, as the article points out, allows, nay demands, the most egregious violence be committed against anyone, including fellow Muslims, who do not behave in accordance with this repressive doctrine. From female genital mutilation to the stoning of women for crimes the west has learned to deal with more humanely to the glory of martyrdom, Islamic law is brutal and barbaric, and it is those people, including a majority of Muslims as well as leftists around the world, who bear the responsibility for not speaking out against it.