Will Someone Say, ‘Holy War’?
It was strange indeed to see the black flag of Islamic Jihad flying over the White House in Washington, DC. Yet that was the image on the programs handed out at the annual United American Muslim Day Parade in New York City in September 2012. Below the photograph were the words Islam the Future of America.
Though reportedly dedicated to promoting peace and harmony, the parade ended with speakers spewing such incendiary, offensive rhetoric that New York State Sen. Tony Avella—a Democrat, VIP parade marshal, and scheduled speaker—walked off the stage in protest.
Among the diatribes was one by a Brooklyn imam calling for the UN to pass blasphemy laws criminalizing language offensive to Muslims. Another came from a young Muslim woman screaming, “We have unborn martyrs in our wombs!” And Palestinian refugees were referred to as victims of Israeli aggression who are confined in camps by “Zionist Nazis.”
Ironically, the event took place a mere 12 days after the September 11 attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, and U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the latter of which took the lives of American Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three members of his staff. Though many Americans and Western leaders refuse to acknowledge what truly is happening around the world, it isn’t difficult to connect the dots.
In concert with the attacks, the black flag of Islamic Jihad was hoisted over the U.S. Embassies in Cairo and Tunis, Tunisia. In fact, the Middle East was in flames as American flags were trampled and burned by Islamists who concluded the time was right to gain radical Muslim hegemony throughout the region.
Looking for Someone to Blame
Supposedly fueling the outburst of anti-American hatred was a 14-minute film clip, Innocence of Muslims, uploaded on YouTube in July 2012. The trailer was heralded as the precursor of a low-grade, full-length feature film that has never been produced.
Despite the clip’s failure to generate even casual inquiry in July, insurgents seized on it in September to inflame Islamist passions and justify striking the United States. They also called for the filmmaker to be beheaded.
Embarrassingly, American leaders initially joined the condemnation chorus, fingering the trailer as the sole cause of a “spontaneous” eruption unrelated to hatred of the United States. The scruffy filmmaker and his scurrilous film clip were deemed offenders-in-chief. As the riots spread, so did the perception that the film was the culprit. In actuality, however, almost none of the rioters had even seen the clip.
James Lewis, writing for American Thinker, got it right: “A week ago,…Al Qaida’s black flag of Holy War [emphasis added] was raised over the US Embassy in Cairo on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11.”1
Islamic revolution extends far beyond Africa and the Middle East. As the flag of jihadist holy war was hoisted over thousands of milling throngs around the world, the implacable enemies of freedom and democracy have launched what they hope will lead to a decisive conquest of everyone outside the umbrella of militant Islam. American and Western leaders are loath to acknowledge the ascent of terrorist elements, such as al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups. And though they refuse to abide even a mention of our being set upon by Islamist forces on a mission of holy-war conquest, the facts are there.
For an exercise in connecting the dots, you can begin by linking all of the countries and cities where anti-American riots have taken place. The list includes more than 20 countries in the Middle East. Then trace the line from Africa to Asia to Europe to North and South America, and you will be off to a good start.
Writing off this international eruption of hatred as a temporary phenomenon provoked by the work of one eccentric, misguided, Islamophobic miscreant will not produce peace, love, or cooperation. Neither will the West’s apologies or its obsequious groveling before religious fanatics.
These people are at war with us. And whether it’s a cartoon in France or Denmark; a film by a Dutch descendant of artist Vincent Van Gogh in Amsterdam; political opinions of Geert Wilders of the Netherlands; or the writings of the hapless Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses, speaking against Islam’s excesses carries a potential death sentence.
Beware of the ‘New World Order’
In his most recent appearances at the UN, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received near rock-star adulation from a cadre of fellow radicals. Among other things, they adored his hate-America rhetoric, his determination to reduce Israel to ashes, his Holocaust denial, and his contempt for attempts to curtail Iran’s developing nuclear capacity.
Ahmadinejad exposed his endgame when he implied the so-called Arab Spring would one day extend far beyond the Middle East and countries currently disrupted by the revolution. What he alluded to was the Islamic vision of planting the black flag of jihad triumphantly across the known world, replacing a diminished America with a Muslim caliphate and “new world order” very different from anything Western minds can conceive.
In 2008 Americans bought the idea that “hope and change” would transform the nation in every conceivable way. Today we’ve seen what that transformational vision has fostered.
When Ahmadinejad speaks of a new world order, he doesn’t mean democracy. He means a totalitarian, religious dictatorship ruled by the messianic Muslim mahdi and enforcing all of the brutal strictures of Sharia law.
Before the rise of Islamist ultra-radicalism, many Muslims were moderate secularists. They allowed themselves to become integrated through immigration and practiced their faith within those bounds. Turkey, for example, though having a Muslim majority, was recognized as secular. Lebanon also operated as a mixture of Christians and Muslims sharing power and running a relatively peaceful system.
One would therefore suppose Muslims could be broadly described as secular, moderate, or jihadist. One could say millions of secular and moderate Muslims did not participate in the jihadists’ bloodthirsty war of aggression, but fear prevented their overt opposition to it.
Historically, Islamic radicals have waged war in two ways: militarily and through infiltration. With military force virtually out of the question in America and Europe, infiltration became the approach. The tactic has transformed much of Europe and is beginning to change the United States.
Muslim enclaves are cropping up everywhere, not merely in the traditional strongholds of Detroit and Dearborn, Michigan. In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for example, a huge mosque is being constructed, obviously to prepare for an influx of immigrant Muslims. We have already heard the inflammatory hate speeches and shouts of “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is great”) that rang through the streets not far from where the World Trade Center once stood. Islamic terrorists in 2001 took more than 3,000 innocent lives there as they slammed air-planes into the towers.
A war from within is attempting to alter the demographics and governments of democracies. Enclaves dominated by Islamists and radical clerics may some-day elect local, state, and federal officials from within their ranks. Already, Muslim authorities in some of these enclaves are demanding Sharia courts be established within their jurisdictions.
Where Is the ‘Love’?
We are repeatedly told Islam is a loving, peaceful religion and that anyone daring to say otherwise should be charged with a hate crime and prosecuted. If the hallmark of Islam is peace, love, and neighborly tranquility, how does one account for the thousands of Christians and others who are being slaughtered in Muslim countries?
On my desk is a photograph of what was a beautiful church in Pakistan engulfed in flames, along with a school attended by both Christian and Muslim children. The school was destroyed by an out-of-control mob. How can any religious group justify, in the name of its God, laying waste to communities that have done it no harm? And, to be fair, no harm was done by an insensitive film clip or cartoon, either. Yet people half a world away from America slashed, burned, and destroyed property and innocent men, women, and children.
To their shame, most of our leaders refuse even to acknowledge the dimension of the problem, while churches are being burned to the ground. Yet how many mosques are being attacked by Christians? It is time to stop coddling the perpetrators and hold them accountable for their crimes.
Secularists and moderate followers of Islam who claim to shun terrorism and radical objectives should be in the forefront of those calling for a halt to terror and suppression. If they truly desire to live in democratic freedom, it is in their own best interest to do so. Should the Islamic “new world order” be achieved, all people—including Muslims—who refuse to march under the black flag of militant jihad will be the first to fall under the hard hand of Sharia.
A holy war is being waged. And the black flag of jihad is waving a warning to all free people.
ENDNOTE
- James Lewis, “Why the New York Times forgets 9/11,” American Thinker, September 17, 2012 <americanthinker .com/blog/2012/09/why_the_new_york_times_forgets_ 911.html>.
