The Islamic threat is greater than that posed by Nazism and Communism, and it always has been

A brilliant, courageous, and decent man, Dennis Prager addresses the peace and tolerance of Islam in The Islamic threat is greater than German and Soviet threats were. I offer only a few thoughts in response.

"The existence of an unprecedentedly large number of people wishing to destroy decent civilization as we know it – and who celebrate their own deaths – poses a threat the likes of which no civilization in history has had to confront."

While it is true that the weapons at the disposal of Islam today are far more powerful than any previously available in human history, it is not true that no previous civilization has had to confront an equal threat. Ironically, it was Islam then threatening, just as it does today.

Allah's war against the Infidel has raged for fourteen centuries.

Upon the unification of Arabia by the sword and the death of its wielder, Mohammed, Islam exploded into the non-Muslim world, killing, raping, enslaving, and subjugating and humiliating non-Muslims throughout Western Europe, North Africa, Asia Minor, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Asia.

"The evils committed by Nazism and communism were, of course, greater than those committed by radical Islam. There has been no Muslim Gulag and no Muslim Auschwitz."

Allah commands his people to fight against, subdue and humiliate, and kill non-Muslims to make the world Islam.

Only if the last few decades of Islam's history are compared with Nazism and Communism's will the carnage caused by The Religion of Peace seem less severe. When factoring in Islam's brutality over the last one and one-half millennia throughout the non-Muslim world against millions of Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Animists, and other non-Muslims, the inhumanity of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and the rest pale in comparison.

The public must be willing to criticize Islam openly. All citizens must strengthen their own resolve to resist Jihad and the implementation of Shari'a by discovering exactly what Islam's "sacred" texts require regarding non-Muslims (it isn't pretty).

As one does this, (adding some histories of Jihad and Dhimma to one's reading list--Spencer, Bostom, Fregosi, and Yeor are excellent resources), it will become clear that those Muslims who truly oppose all offensive violence against non-Muslims are those "hijacking" Islam. Those "believers" who support full equality of human rights for non-Muslims and women are the actual "tiny minority of extremists."

Because Allah and the false prophet require it

From The American Thinker (links in original):

Abdul Rahman faced death at the hands of our Afghan allies for the “crime” of converting to Christianity. This fate is no fluke, not a brutal Afghan variant on the practice of “tolerant” Islam. Death for apostacy is part and parcel of Islamic scripture and tradition. When Afghanistan’s leading clerics endorse his death, they are on solid ground. Thus, in the wake of appeals by world leaders , including the Pope, even though Mr. Rahman appears to have received a “dispensation” by the Karzai Government —for “mental health”, or other reasons, unfortunately, he is and remains guilty as per Afghan religious leaders, and Shari’a.

John Ralph Willis, Princeton University Professor of Near Eastern Studies, has described the “apparent paradox” that jihad wars and razzias (p.343) —rationalized as struggles to liberate men from unbelief—became, through the mass enslavement intrinsic to these campaigns, “a device to deprive men of freedom.” And freedom, in the Muslim conception, “being perfect slavery” to Allah, the sole (distant) hope of earthly freedom from the bondage and humiliation of slavery for the subjugated infidel—whose dignity and very legal essence were annihilated by jihad—was to “..incarcerate his spirit in Islam,” and await manumission at the discretion of his Muslim overlord.

Another respected Princeton scholar of Islam, Patricia Crone, has stated bluntly (or one might argue, self-evidently) regarding such jihad enslavement —a major historical modality for Islamization—

.. it would be absurd to deny that force played a major role in their [the vanquished infidels] conversion [to Islam]

A strikingly similar “paradox” of Islam is the contention epitomized by Koran 2:256, “There is no compulsion in religion.” The poignant ongoing travails of Afghan Muslim convert to Christianity Abdul Rahman illustrate another uniquely Islamic fusion of absurdity and denial: in light of Koran 2:256 and repeated claims that Islam is characterized by freedom of belief and creed, devoid of compulsion, why has apostasy from Islam always been punished so harshly, for thirteen centuries, into the present era?

Ibn Warraq’s seminal 2003 study of apostasy, Leaving Islam (p.31) , distinguishes transient doubt—edified by discovering the “truth” of Islam—from apostasy:

Doubt is a very good passageway, but a very bad place to stop in. However, apostasy is a matter of treason and ideological treachery, which originates from hostility and hypocrisy. The destiny of a person who has an inborn handicap is different from the destiny of one whose hand should be cut off due to the development of a dangerous and infectious disease. The apostasy of a Muslim individual whose parents have also been Muslim is a very infectious, dangerous and incurable disease that appears in the body of an ummah (people) and threatens peoples lives, and that is why this rotten limb should be severed.

And punishment by death for apostasy from Islam is firmly rooted in the most holy Muslim texts—both the Koran, and the hadith—as well as the sacred Islamic Law (the Shari’a). Koran 4:89 states* :

They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah’s way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.

One of the most authoritative Koranic commentators, Baydawi (d. 1315/16) interprets this passage thus:

“Whosoever turns back from belief (irtada), openly or secretly, take him and kill him wheresoever ye find him, like any other infidel. Separate yourself from him altogether. Do not accept intercession in his regard” (cited in Zwemer, The Law of Apostasy in Islam, 1924, pp. 33-34).

Ibn Kathir’s (d. 1373) venerated commentary on Koran 4:89 concurs, maintaining that as the unbelievers have manifested their unbelief, they should be punished by death. These draconian judgments are reiterated in a number of hadith (i.e., collections of the putative words and deeds of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, as compiled by pious transmitters). For example, Muhammad is reported to have said “Kill him who changes his religion” in hadith collections of both Bukhari and Abu Dawud. There is also a consensus by all four schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (i.e., Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, and Shafi’i), as well as Shi’ite jurists, that apostates from Islam must be put to death. Averroes (d. 1198), the renowned philosopher and scholar of the natural sciences, who was also an important Maliki jurist, provided this typical Muslim legal opinion on the punishment for apostasy (vol. 2, p. 552):

An apostate…is to be executed by agreement in the case of a man, because of the words of the Prophet, “Slay those who change their din [religion]”.… Asking the apostate to repent was stipulated as a condition…prior to his execution

The contemporary (i.e., 1991) Al-Azhar (Cairo) Islamic Research Academy-endorsed Shafi’i manual of Islamic Law, ‘Umdat al-Salik (pp. 595-96) states:

Leaving Islam is the ugliest form of unbelief (kufr) and the worst…. When a person who has reached puberty and is sane voluntarily apostasizes from Islam, he deserves to be killed. In such a case, it is obligatory…to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed.

Finally, Warraq (p.19) summarizes the means by which convicted apostates have been killed, typically by the sword (i.e., beheading)

…though there are examples of apostates tortured to death, or strangled, burned, drowned, impaled, or flayed. The Caliph ‘Umar [d. 644] used to tie them to a post and had lances thrust into their hearts, and the [Mameluke] Sultan Baybars II (1308-09) made [their] torture legal.

Thus even if Mr. Rahman gets a “dispensation” by the Karzai Government —for “mental health”, or other reasons, unfortunately, he is and remains guilty as per Afghan religious leaders, and Shari’a. As such, once released from prison, should any pious Afghan Muslim kill him (heeding the calls of local Afghan clerics), according to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, (which prevails in Afghanistan), specifically the important legal text The Hidaya by al-Marghiniani (d. 1197),

If any person kills an apostate….Nothing [i.e., no punishment]...is incurred by the slayer.

At this stage, perhaps the only way to assure that Mr. Rahman avoids a tragic and gruesome fate (“We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there’s nothing left,” maintained Abdul Raoulf a “moderate” cleric jailed for his previous opposition to the Taliban), is to find sanctuary for him outside of Afghanistan.

For a decade, three courageous, prescient scholars—Ibn Warraq , David Littman, and Bat Ye’or —have warned about the grave dangers posed by Shari’a-based “human rights” constructs, such as the 1990 Cairo Declaration (i.e., the so-called Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, to which all member states [now 57] of the Organization of the Islamic Conference—including “secular” Turkey—are signatories). Indeed the intrepid Senegalese jurist Adama Dieng (a Muslim, who subsequently became a United Nations special rapporteur), then serving as secretary-general to the International Commission of Jurists, declared forthrightly in February 1992 that the Cairo Declaration, under the rubric of the Shari’a,

...gravely threatens the inter-cultural consensus on which the international human rights instruments are based; introduces, in the name of the defense of human rights, an intolerable discrimination against both non-Muslims and women; reveals a deliberately restrictive character in regard to certain fundamental rights and freedoms, to the point that certain essential provisions are below the legal standard in effect in a number of Muslim countries; [and] confirms the legitimacy of practices, such as corporal punishment, that attack the integrity and dignity of the human being.

And distracting, fatuous conceptions such as “Extreme Shari’a” are mere enervating delusions which do nothing to combat this growing, lethal threat to the most fundamental rights of free societies. Invoking the difficult lessons learned from Cold War experiences, David Littman stated with the requisite moral clarity that

…only a firm and uncompromising stand on the most fundamental questions can bring about the effective implementation of the ideals set forth in the International Bill of Human Rights. Diplomatically correct words and gestures are not enough

More than 80 years ago, in his 1924 The Law of Apostasy in Islam, Samuel Zwemer made these observations, still depressingly relevant today, and extending beyond the “Near East”, to the entire Muslim world:

The story is told that Damocles, at the court of Dionysius of Sicily, pronounced the latter the happiest man on earth. When, however, Damocles was permitted to sit on the royal throne, he perceived a sword hanging by a horse-hair over his head. The imagined felicity vanished, and he begged Dionysius to remove him from his seat of peril. Today [circa 1924] we read of new mandatories, of liberty, and of promised equality to minorities under Moslem rule; and newspapers assert that a new era has come to the Near East. Economic development, intellectual awakening, reforms, constitutions, parliaments and promises Does the sword of Damocles, however, still hang over the head of each convert from Islam to Christianity? Is the new Islam more tolerant than the old? Will the lives and property of converts be protected, and the rights of minorities be respected? ….

Again and again has European pressure, aided by a few educated Orientals, endeavored to secure equality before the law for all religions and races in the Near East. But as often as the attempt was made it proved a failure, each new failure more ghastly than the last. The reason is that the conscience and the faith of the most sincere and upright Moslems are bound up with the Koran and the Traditions. Civilization cannot eradicate deep-seated convictions. Rifles and ironclads, the cafe, the theatre, written constitutions, representative parliaments; none of these reach far below the surface. A truer freedom…than the one supplied by their own faith, must come before Moslems can enter into the larger liberty which we enjoy.

Denial or obfuscation of the role played by the very essence of Islam—by Shari’a—will never remove this murderous scimitar of Damocles hanging over the heads of hapless “apostates” such as Abdul Rahman, and others, perhaps untold thousands, if not more, like him, throughout the Muslim world. And burgeoning, often irredentist Muslim populations in the West, especially Western Europe, have established de facto Islamic colonies within their host countries, punctuated by demands for local jurisdiction under Shari’a Law.

Should nothing be done to desacralize the Shari’a and divorce it entirely from the governance of civil societies, future Western generations, may face the same brutal application of Shari’a punishments for “apostasy”, or as the Danish cartoon jihad demonstrated, for “blaspheming” the Muslim Prophet Muhammad. If that frightening scenario unfolds, Westerners may be forced to experience Mr. Rahman’s current dire predicament—to paraphrase (albeit inelegantly) John Donne: “Do not ask over whom the scimitar hangs, it hangs over thee”.

[*For three simultaneous translations of Koran 4:89, see here:

YUSUFALI: They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (From what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks;

PICKTHAL: They long that ye should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that ye may be upon a level (with them). So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of Allah; if they turn back (to enmity) then take them and kill them wherever ye find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them,

SHAKIR: They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they fly (their homes) in Allah’s way; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and take not from among them a friend or a helper.]

Andrew G. Bostom is the author of The Legacy of Jihad.

Infidel impotence invigorates institutionalized Islamic intolerance

Destroying one of the governments that aided OBL was not "interfering"? Was not decisive, overwhelming military action a bit more intrusive than "voicing concern"? Why the restraint now? And like the West's etiolated response to the recent Cartoon Jihad, what will be the result of this indifference in the Muslim mind but the strengthened conviction that the West is weak and unwilling to resist Jihad?

For what have Americans bled and died, freedom for men like Rahman or Shari'a and the tyranny of Allah? Why is not the President as outraged at this injustice as he is at Helen Thomas's inanity?

More on a fellow Christian facing execution in Afghanistan for the crime of...becoming a Christian:

"Abdul Rahman is charged with rejecting Islam and could be executed under Sharia law unless he reconverts.

The US made a subdued appeal for him to be allowed to practise his faith - but stressed it did not want to interfere.

Germany, Italy and Canada, which all have troops in Afghanistan, also voiced concern over Mr Rahman's plight.

Mr Rahman, 41, converted 16 years ago as an aid worker helping refugees in Pakistan. His estranged family denounced him in a custody dispute over his two children."

His family denounced him for rejecting Islam, and his country wants him dead all because Mohammed said, "Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him" (Bukhari Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57).

Misunderstanding Muslim motivation

Mark Steyn has written with a bluntness about the recent problematic behavior of Muslims around the world that is rare. Unfortunately, he diminishes the force of his recent commentary with the article excerpted below, revealing a misunderstanding of the nature and cause of Islam's violence against non-Muslims.

Steyn reveals several misapprehensions regarding Islam. He attributes the faithful's carrying out Jihad against the Infidel to the Infidel's defending himself against Jihad; he refers to Islam's "intellectual rubble," "global ideology," and "Islamism" rather than call it what it is--the fulfillment of Allah's commands to fight to make the world Islam; and he implies that a diversification of industry will in some way change the source and sustenance of Islam's war against humanity: the command of Allah and the example of his false prophet.

Read Port decision won't put U.S. in a safe harbor and weep:

"So saying 'Get lost, Dubai' isn't a new steeliness so much as a retreat into an unsustainable bunker mentality more sentimental than Bush's liberty promotion. My National Review comrade John Derbyshire has been promoting the slogan 'Rubble Doesn't Cause Trouble.' Cute, and I wish him well with the T-shirt sales. But, in arguing for a 'realist' foreign policy of long-range bombing, he overlooks the very obvious point that rubble causes quite a lot of trouble: The rubble of Bosnia is directly responsible for radicalizing a generation of European Muslims, including Daniel Pearl's executioner; the rubble of Afghanistan became an international terrorist training camp, whose alumni include the shoebomber Richard Reid, the millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam, and the 9/11 plotters; the rubble of Grozny turned Chechen nationalists into pan-Islamist jihadi.

Those correspondents of mine who send me e-mails headed 'Nuke Mecca!' might like to consider the broader strategic impact on a billion Muslims from Indonesia to Yorkshire, for whom any fallout will be psychological rather than carcinogenic. Rubble is an insufficient solution, unless you're also going to attend to the Muslim world's real problem: its intellectual rubble.

Arab Muslims fought in Afghanistan, British Muslims took up arms in Bosnia, Pakistani Muslims have been killed in Chechnya. When you're up against a globalized ideology, you need to globalize your own, not hunker down in Fortress America. Right now the Arab world's principal exports are oil and Islamism. Ports management is a rare diversification and long overdue."

Apostasy not a plan for success

In a recent debate with one either unwilling or unable to admit the truth about Islam's "sacred" texts and history, this individual expressed doubt that a large number of Western (especially American) Muslims could be unfamiliar with their own religion's commands to fight Infidels "until all religion is for Allah." He falsely concluded that since only a small percentage of the faithful in the West have carried out actual violence against non-Muslims in the name of their god, Allah must not require it.

That a large number of American adherents to a particular faith could be ignorant of, hold positions inconsistent with, and habitually behave in a manner contrary to the dictates of their own religious texts is demonstrated by the study excerpted below. Unfortunately, these are Christians. If it is an accurate representation of American Christians as a whole, this study goes a long way toward explaining the rampant immorality in our consumer and political decision-making and the attraction of other, more fervent religious expressions.

From The Barna Group:

Citing the findings from a just-completed national survey of 2033 adults that showed only 4% of adults have a biblical worldview as the basis of their decision-making, researcher George Barna described the outcome. "If Jesus Christ came to this planet as a model of how we ought to live, then our goal should be to act like Jesus. Sadly, few people consistently demonstrate the love, obedience and priorities of Jesus. The primary reason that people do not act like Jesus is because they do not think like Jesus. Behavior stems from what we think - our attitudes, beliefs, values and opinions. Although most people own a Bible and know some of its content, our research found that most Americans have little idea how to integrate core biblical principles to form a unified and meaningful response to the challenges and opportunities of life. We're often more concerned with survival amidst chaos than with experiencing truth and significance."

Not Just Any Worldview

The research indicated that everyone has a worldview, but relatively few people have a biblical worldview - even among devoutly religious people. The survey discovered that only 9% of born again Christians have such a perspective on life. The numbers were even lower among other religious classifications: Protestants (7%), adults who attend mainline Protestant churches (2%) and Catholics (less than one-half of 1%). The denominations that produced the highest proportions of adults with a biblical worldview were non-denominational Protestant churches (13%), Pentecostal churches (10%) and Baptist churches (8%).

Among the most prevalent alternative worldviews was postmodernism, which seemed to be the dominant perspective among the two youngest generations (i.e., the Busters and Mosaics).

For the purposes of the research, a biblical worldview was defined as believing that absolute moral truths exist; that such truth is defined by the Bible; and firm belief in six specific religious views. Those views were that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life; God is the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator of the universe and He stills rules it today; salvation is a gift from God and cannot be earned; Satan is real; a Christian has a responsibility to share their faith in Christ with other people; and the Bible is accurate in all of its teachings.

The Difference a Biblical Worldview Makes

One of the most striking insights from the research was the influence of such a way of thinking upon people's behavior. Adults with a biblical worldview possessed radically different views on morality, held divergent religious beliefs, and demonstrated vastly different lifestyle choices.

People's views on morally acceptable behavior are deeply impacted by their worldview. Upon comparing the perspectives of those who have a biblical worldview with those who do not, the former group were 31 times less likely to accept cohabitation (2% versus 62%, respectively); 18 times less likely to endorse drunkenness (2% versus 36%); 15 times less likely to condone gay sex (2% versus 31%); 12 times less likely to accept profanity 3% versus 37%); and 11 times less likely to describe adultery as morally acceptable (4% versus 44%). In addition, less than one-half of one percent of those with a biblical worldview said voluntary exposure to pornography was morally acceptable (compared to 39% of other adults), and a similarly miniscule proportion endorsed abortion (compared to 46% of adults who lack a biblical worldview).

Among the more intriguing lifestyle differences were the lesser propensity for those with a biblical worldview to gamble (they were eight times less likely to buy lottery tickets and 17 times less likely to place bets); to get drunk (three times less likely); and to view pornography (two times less common). They were also twice as likely to have discussed spiritual matters with other people in the past month and twice as likely to have fasted for religious reasons during the preceding month. While one out of every eight adults who lack a biblical worldview had sexual relations with someone other than their spouse during the prior month, less than one out of every 100 individuals who have such a worldview had done so.

Some Groups Are More Likely to Have a Biblical Worldview

Adults who have a biblical worldview possessed a somewhat different demographic profile than those who did not. For instance, individuals who attended college were much more likely than those who did not to have this perspective (6% versus 2%, respectively). Married adults were more than twice as likely as adults who had never been wed to hold such a worldview (5% versus 2%). Whites (5%) were slightly more likely than either blacks (3%) or Hispanics (3%) to hold this ideology. One of the largest gaps was between Republicans (10% of whom had a biblical worldview), Independents (2%) and Democrats (1%).

Residents of Texas and North Carolina were more likely than people in other states to have a biblical worldview. Among the states in which such a worldview was least common were Louisiana and the six states in New England. The nation's largest state - California - was average (i.e., 4% of its residents had a biblical worldview).

Attributes such as gender, age and household income showed no statistical relationship to the possession of a biblical worldview.

The fruits of American labor

Thousands of Americans have sacrificed life and limb, tens of thousands have lost loved ones, and millions of Americans have given time, talent, and treasure in carrying out the President's plan of bringing democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq. What has all this brought about? The implementation of Shari'a--Islam as law--in both nations.

Just as when President Clinton bombed Christians to help Muslims, so now are American efforts aiding Muslims' killing of Christians.

The President was right to punish and remove the Taliban and Saddam. He was prudent to believe that our enemies would aid each other, and that if one had WMD, he might be inclined to share them with others.

The grave error made by President Bush, Dr. Rice, and others has been to believe the lie that Islam is the "Religion of Peace," that it is just like any other religion. Their utter ignorance of Allah's commands to fight against, subdue and humiliate, and kill non-Muslims to make the world Islam (and fourteen centuries of the faithful carrying out those commands) has allowed the people of these two democracies to choose the rule of Allah and his false prophet.

The following story of a former Muslim facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity is only surprising to those ignorant of Islam, since Mohammed stated, "If anyone leaves his Islamic faith, then kill him" (Bukhari Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57).

From Jihad Watch, Man faces death over Christianity:

"A MAN detained by police for converting from Islam to Christianity could face the death penalty if he refused to become a Muslim again, an Afghani judge said today.

Islamic sharia law proposes the death sentence for Muslims who abandon the religion. Afghanistan's new constitution says 'no law can be contrary to the sacred religion of Islam'.

Supreme Court judge Ansarullah Mawlavizada said the suspect, Abdur Rahman, was arrested after members of his family informed police of his conversion.

He would be charged with abandoning Islam, Mr Mawlavizada said.

'The prosecutor says he should be executed on the basis of the constitution,' Mr Mawlavizada said, who added that Mr Rahman could come back to Islam.

'If he does not ... he will be punished,' he said..."

There's "no compulsion in religion," but with Islam, there aren't many good options for the non-Muslim.

Taqiyyapedia on Jihad

It appears impossible to hide some ugly truths (though would it be possible to understate the severity of the situation any less?).

Not generally known for the integrity of its reporting on Islam, Wikipedia offers this in its opening statement on Jihad:

In law, according to general doctrine and in historical tradition, the jihad consists of military action with the object of the expansion of Islam and, if need be, of its defence.

From the University of Southern California's hate site

The USC-MSA Compendium of Muslim Texts:

...Important Note

The position of the Imam with regard to the disbelievers, if they are from the People of the Book, is that he gives them three choices in this order: (i) To embrace Islam, (ii) to pay the jizyah or (iii) to fight.

As for the idol-worshipers, their choices are but two: (i) To embrace Islam or (ii) to fight.6

What do you do when someone tells the truth about Islam?

If you're a Qur'an-literate Muslim in the Middle East, Europe, or some other Islamic stronghold, you threaten death and try to carry it out.

If you're a Western Infidel Without a Clue eager to institute Shari'a in the land of your birth (or a "moderate" Muslim in your adopted country), you misrepresent what they said and engage in ad hominem attacks.

Here's an edifying piece on one woman's speaking the truth to the world--it's too bad Western mainstream media are so unwilling to amplify her voice; they'd rather promulgate the myth of "moderate" Islam. An excerpt from Wafa wows the West (but not Muslims and media):

Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American psychiatrist, has been at the center of a journalistic blizzard ever since debating – and devastating – an Egyptian professor of religious studies, Dr. Ibrahim al-Khouli, on Al-Jazeera TV. The broadcast was made available on the Internet by the Middle East Media Research Institute, and has since been viewed over a million times.

Sultan could not have spoken any clearer about the religion that midwives terrorism. In a previous appearance on the station, she had come out of the blocks with this:

When you recite to a child still in his early years the verse: "They will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off," ... you have made the first step towards creating a great terrorist.

It's thus of special significance that members of the American news media – not Al-Jazeera – have distorted what Sultan has said, introducing their bias into her unambiguous words. Equally intriguing is the fact that Al-Jazeera – not the American Fourth Estate – introduced Sultan to the world.

At the request of her Al-Jazeera host, Sultan proceeded to explain the origins of the "clash of civilizations" coinage. In sonorous Arabic, a salve to Western ears, which have become accustomed to associating the language with faces twisted in rage, threatening blood and fire, she explained that:

The Muslims are the ones who began using this expression. The Muslims are the ones who began the clash of civilizations. The Prophet of Islam said: "I was ordered to fight the people until they believe in Allah and His Messenger." When the Muslims divided people into Muslims and non-Muslims, and called to fight the others until they believe in what they themselves believe, they started this clash, and began this war. In order to [stop] this war, they must re-examine their Islamic books and curricula, which are full of calls for takfir and fighting the infidels.

In a subsequent interview, she spoke as plainly, stating that "our people are hostages to our own beliefs and teachings." She herself was "questioning every single teaching of our holy book."

If this was insufficiently forthright, an earlier Al-Jazeera interview certainly was not:

In our countries, religion is the sole source of education, and is the only spring from which that terrorist drank until his thirst was quenched. He was not born a terrorist, and did not become a terrorist overnight. Islamic teachings played a role in weaving his ideological fabric, thread by thread, and did not allow other sources – I am referring to scientific sources – to play a role. It was these teachings that distorted this terrorist and killed his humanity. It was not [the terrorist] who distorted the religious teachings and misunderstood them, as some ignorant people claim. [Emphasis added].

Still, "ignorant people" will be ignorant. The New York Times modified what Sultan had said. Duly, Mahdi John M. Broder "reported" that "Dr. Sultan bitterly criticized the Muslim clerics, holy warriors and political leaders who she believes have distorted the teachings of Muhammad and the Quran for 14 centuries" [Emphasis added].

Sultan said nothing of the sort. Not a murmur did she utter about a noble religion that had been kidnapped by crazies.

Bin Laden, the genocidal Janjawiid of Darfur, the Saudi religious police (the Mutawaa'in) which barricaded girls in a burning school because their heads were immodestly uncovered (headgear incinerated, presumably, by the fire); the hundred thousand innocent women and men killed in Algeria, thousands of Syrian civilians, including the murder by the Muslim Brotherhood of Sultan's professor at the University of Aleppo; the massacre of Coptic peasants in Egypt, and terrorism in Indonesia and Turkey – all this is the handiwork of people who've heeded, not hijacked, Islam.

Or so says Sultan.

The Los Angeles Times' Islamic advocate, Teresa Watanabe, got Sultan's message loud and clear: "Islam is fatally flawed." To which the correspondent responded by deriding the psychiatrist: Sultan was no longer a Muslim, had "never been connected with progressive Islamic groups and does not know the writings of Islam's most respected voices of reform," she carped.

The little woman was out of line – Sultan had failed to defer to authority, and had offered up her own independent analysis instead. And she was unaffiliated with any Muslim organization. In short, an individualist who swims against the current. Where is a burka when you need one!

Hussam Eyloush of the Council on Islamic Relations, a shady outfit masquerading as moderate, was one of many Muslim representatives galvanized by the lickspittle media to put Sultan in her place.

At first, Eyloush smeared Sultan with the shopworn "Islamophobic" smear. He then further discounted her by telling CNN correspondent Chris Lawrence that "reform is alive and well within Islam, but it will only happen by those from within Islam and not those who hate Islam."

Lawrence, every bit as bright as Broder, disregarded Sultan's words, choosing to regurgitate what the "moderates" had fed him. Sultan was saying nothing new: "stop the suicide bombings and allow more rights for women," he fudged fecklessly, adding that she had compared "Muslim suicide bombers to the Jews who survived the Holocaust."

We can't expect CNN reporters to be burdened by fact, now can we?

Sultan's message is seismic – it departs radically from the warmed-over fare "moderates" have been dishing out to dhimmis in-the-making. She said the following to the cleric whose clock she cleaned: "You can believe in stones, as long as you don't throw them at me. You are free to worship whoever you want, but other people's beliefs are not your concern ... These are personal matters that do not concern you."

Her take on the Jews vis-a-vis CNN's sainted suicide bombers was also almost unheard of hitherto. I can see why the network's apostles of Islam felt obliged to distort the following:

The Jews have come from the tragedy [of the Holocaust], and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror, with their work, not their crying and yelling. Humanity owes most of the discoveries and science of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists. Fifteen million people, scattered throughout the world, united and won their rights through work and knowledge. We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.

Another Smoking Gun

The President and his administration never claimed Saddam had anything to do with 9/11, but they did link Hussein's Iraq to al-Qaeda. Here is more evidence of Saddam and bin Laden's collaboration, including a reference to "proof" the U.S. had that they planned to strike "within America." Will the liars and critics retract their false accusations and apologize?

Newly released document links Saddam to al-Qaida:

"In the Name of God the Merciful

Presidency of the Republic

Intelligence Apparatus

To the respectful Mr. M.A.M

Subject: Information

Our source in Afghanistan No 11002 (for information about him see attachment 1) provided us with information that that Afghani Consul Ahmad Dahestani (for information about him see attachment 2) told him the following:

1. That Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan are in contact with Iraq and it that previously a group from Taliban and Osama Bin Laden group visited Iraq.

2. That America has proof that the government of Iraq and Osama bin Laden group have shown cooperation to hit target within America.

3. That in case it is proven the involvement of Osama bin Laden group and the Taliban in these destructive operations it is possible that American will conduct strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

4. That the Afghani Consul heard about the subject of Iraq relation with Osama Bin Laden group during his stay in Iran.

5. In light of this we suggest to write to the Commission of the above information.

Please view… Yours… With regards

Signature:……, Initials : A.M.M, 15/9/2001

Foot note: Immediately send to the Chairman of Commission

Signature:…………."

Misrepresenting the messenger

When presenting Islam's "sacred" texts and history to a non-Muslim, their reaction is often one of disbelief (followed by ad hominem attacks). Too many in the West are ignorant of what Allah and his (false) prophet command and practiced, and when confronted by the truth remain inexplicably unwilling to admit it.

Unfortunately, many more days like 9/11, 3/11, and 7/7 will come when it will be impossible to ignore or deny any longer that Allah requires the fighting against, subduing and humiliating, and killing of non-Muslims to make the world Islam.

Eviscerating more willful Infidel ignorance and dispelling more "moderate" Muslim mythology, Spencer points out the falsehoods and poor reasoning in the New York Sun's review of Oriana Fallaci's The Force of Reason:

All right. Because Fallaci was offered champagne and a trip to Mecca by a Saudi, therefore moderate Islam exists? Stoll is confusing, or hoping we will confuse, laxity in Islamic observance with the existence of an actual Muslim group or tradition that does not teach Islamic supremacism and the subjugation of the infidel.

Of course there are millions of Muslims who don't follow the teachings of Islam to the letter. There is a spectrum of fervor and practice in Islam as there is in all religious traditions (and in every group of every kind, for that matter). They will never fight jihad. There are even some Muslims who oppose these ideas and would like to see them definitively rejected. But none of that changes the fact that jihadists today can point to teachings that are firmly rooted in the Qur'an and Sunnah to justify their actions.

The existence of moderate (or, in this case, simply lax) Muslims does not establish the existence of moderate Islam. There are eight madhahib, or schools of Islamic jurisprudence. Every one of them teaches that the Islamic social order, as delineated by Islamic law, must ultimately be imposed over the whole world, and that Muslims must fight for this. This will involve institutionalized discrimination against non-Muslims and women. I do not consider that a 'moderate' idea. The only Muslim groups that reject these ideas, such as, notably, the Ahmadiyyas, are reviled and persecuted as heretics by members of mainstream Muslim sects."

America founded upon the principles of Christianity

From John Adams:

The general Principles, on which the Fathers Atchieved Independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite, and these Principles only could be intended by them in their Address, or by me in my Answer. And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all those Sects were united: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty, in which all those young Men United, and which had United all Parties in America, in Majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her Independence.

Now I will avow, that I then believed, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System. I could therefore safely say, consistently with all my then and present Information, that I believed they would never make Discoveries in contradiction to these general Principles. In favour of these general Principles in Phylosophy, Religion and Government, I could fill Sheets of quotations from Frederick of Prussia, from Hume, Gibbon, Bolingbroke, Reausseau and Voltaire, as well as Neuton and Locke: not to mention thousands of Divines and Philosophers of inferiour Fame.

Source: John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 28th, 1813, from Quincy. The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, edited by Lester J. Cappon, 1988, the University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, pp. 338-340.

The true St. Patrick

On St. Patrick:

Most of what we think we know about Patrick turns out to be wrong.

He wasn't Irish, but English.

He never drove snakes out of Ireland – because the island never had any snakes.

He did, however find Ireland 'all heathen, and left it all Christian.'

Kidnapped as a boy, Patrick was a slave for six years in pagan, druid Ireland. He miraculously escaped, only to dream years later that he must go back. By his death in 461, Patrick had founded 300 churches, baptized 120,000 believers, and his followers re-evangelized Europe.

This St. Patrick's Day will have new meaning for all who read this great book by William Federer.

It has been said that Patrick is one of the few figures in recorded history who was directly responsible for the completely non-violent religious conversion of an entire nation.

Argumentum ad hominem easier (and more gratifying for the craven) than intellectual integrity

In response to a post citing an anti-Barton hit piece nearly verbatim, I left the following comments:

"The Boston piece cited here is full of half-truths, misleading assertions, and ad hominem attacks. Rather than addressing the questions of fact in discrediting Barton's argument, Boston tries to discredit Barton.

Argumentum ad hominem is persuasive only with the easily-deceived and those lacking intellectual integrity. Instead of repeating such attacks here nearly verbatim, it would be better to do some independent research and address the argument itself.

Then again, mocking is easier (and more gratifying) than telling the truth."

Western leaders' blindness to Islam

From Spencer, Fantasies About Jihad:

Blakeman introduced me to an official of the Dutch Ministry of Integration, who spends her days in dialogue with Dutch imams and other Muslim leaders. We began a wide-ranging discussion about the nature of the jihad threat and the proper response to it. In the course of this I asked her how many Muslim leaders she encountered who were ready to lay aside attachment to the Sharia, accept the Dutch governmental and societal structure and the parameters of Dutch pluralism, and be willing to live in Dutch society as equals to, not superiors of, non-Muslims indefinitely. She told me that there were only very few, but insisted that we had to work with those few, and indeed had to place our faith and hope in them, for otherwise the future was impossibly bleak. I asked her if she had read the Qur’an. She told me no, she hadn’t, and wouldn’t, because she didn’t want to lose all hope -- and because whatever was in it, she still had to work to find some accord with the Muslim leaders, no matter what.

I urged her to ask the imams with whom she spoke questions that made their loyalties clear, insofar as they would answer them honestly. I urged her to ask them whether they would like to see Sharia implemented in the Netherlands at any time in the future, and whether they were working toward that end in any way, peaceful as well as violent. I asked her to ask them whether they would be content to live as equals with non-Muslims indefinitely in a Dutch pluralistic society, or whether they would ultimately hope to institute Islamic supremacy and the subjugation of non-Muslims.

She couldn’t ask them those questions, she told me. Such questions would immediately put their relationship on a confrontational plane, when cooperation was what they wanted, not confrontation. But, I sputtered, you’re not getting cooperation as it is. The confrontation is already upon us. What is to be gained by pretending that it isn’t happening?

I don’t envy this articulate and intelligent young lady her job. But her remarks reminded me of a message I received not long ago, after I had criticized former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid’s bit of Wall Street Journal puffery about how Islam is really a religion of peace. A reader took me to task for “suggesting that Islam is irredeemable in some sense.” He asked: “if we assume this to be true, what is to be done. What would Mr. Spencer suggest that this or any American president do to deal with this reality. Wahid was thought to be a step in the right direction when he was president of the extremely large population of Indonesia, but if he is not much more than a ‘trumped-up counterfeit,’ where do we go from here.”

Where do we go from here? We go to reality. We stop deceiving ourselves and allowing ourselves to be deceived by others. If Wahid was being disingenuous about the teachings of Islam, then he doesn’t offer Westerners hope. He offers them a weak reed that will collapse when they need it the most. Why? Because Muslims who are attracted by the siren song of jihad will see through his pleasing platitudes and recognize how slim a case he really has with reference to the Islamic texts. Westerners can be fooled by him, and Muslims can’t. The young lady in the Dutch Ministry of Integration, despite her best efforts to ignore or deny this reality, kept coming up against it: she found that only a small minority of Muslim leaders in Holland were at all interested in working toward integration.

Eventually the Dutch Ministry of Integration and other administrative bodies in the Western world are going to have to come to grips with the implications of that fact, and with the implications of other facts about Islamic jihad that so far they have preferred to pretend did not exist. What would I suggest that the President do about this reality? I would suggest that he acknowledge it as a reality. That he address the nation and the world, and tell them that the United States is going to lead the resistance to jihad and Sharia supremacism in the name of equality of rights and dignity of all peoples. That any state that oppresses non-Muslims or denies them equality of rights in any way will receive no American aid whatsoever. That any state that allows the idea that Muslims must make war against non-Muslims until they either convert to Islam or submit to the Islamic social order will be no friend of the United States. That the idea that the U.S. Constitution should one day be replaced by Islamic Sharia, whether by violent or non-violent means, will be understood within the United States as seditious.

The Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference was one small effort to bring Dutch officials, and ultimately the West at large, to confront the realities of our world that the world is doing all it can to deny. Bat Ye’or spoke about how European officials themselves had brought Eurabia into being by encouraging immigration while eschewing assimilation at the insistence of the Arab League. Only now are Europeans realizing that their culture, their soul, has been sold by their leaders for oil, and the jihad is upon them.

It is a reality so bleak that it is no wonder that most officials prefer fantasy. But they won’t be able to maintain their comfortable illusions much longer.

Since Allah commands the fighting against, subduing and humiliating, and killing of non-Muslims, what else can you expect?

What will prevent any peaceful, "moderate" Muslim from obeying Allah and his (false) prophet's commands for violence against non-Muslims? How can one tell the difference before it is too late?

Raising questions and observing matters of fact that I've asked and noted since discovering Qur'an and Sunnah for myself. Sudden Jihad Syndrome (links in original):

“Individual Islamists may appear law-abiding and reasonable, but they are part of a totalitarian movement, and as such, all must be considered potential killers.” I wrote those words days after 9/11 and have been criticized for them ever since. But an incident on March 3 at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill suggests I did not go far enough. That was when a just-graduated student named Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, 22, and an Iranian immigrant, drove a sport utility vehicle into a crowded pedestrian zone. He struck nine people but, fortunately, none were severely injured.

Until his would-be murderous rampage, Taheri-azar, a philosophy and psychology major, had an apparently normal existence and promising future. In high school, he had been student council president and a member of the National Honor Society. A number of UNC students told the Los Angeles Times that he “was a serious student, shy but friendly.” One fellow student, Brian Copeland, “was impressed with his knowledge of classical Western thought, adding “He was kind and gentle, rather than aggressive and violent.” The university chancellor, James Moeser, called him a good student, if “totally a loner, introverted and into himself.” In fact, no one who knew him said a bad word about him, which is important, for it signals that he is not some low-life, not homicidal, not psychotic, but a conscientious student and amiable person. Which raises the obvious question: why would a regular person try to kill a random assortment of students?

Taheri-azar’s post-arrest remarks offer some clues. He told the 911 dispatcher that he wanted to “punish the government of the United States for their actions around the world.” He explained to a detective that “people all over the world are being killed in war and now it is the people in the United States[’] turn to be killed.” He said he acted to “avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world.” He portrayed his actions as “an eye for an eye.” A police affidavit notes that “Taheri-azar repeatedly said that the United States Government had been killing his people across the sea and that he decided to attack.” He told a judge, “I’m thankful you’re here to give me this trial and to learn more about the will of Allah.”

In brief, Taheri-azar represents the ultimate Islamist nightmare: a seemingly well-adjusted Muslim whose religion inspires him, out of the blue, to murder non-Muslims. Taheri-azar acknowledged planning his jihad for over two years, or during his university sojourn. It’s not hard to imagine how his ideas developed, given the coherence of Islamist ideology, its immense reach (including a Muslim Student Association at UNC), and its resonance among many Muslims.

Were Taheri-azar unique in his surreptitious adoption of radical Islam, one could ignore his case, but he fits into a widespread pattern of Muslims who lead quiet lives before turning to terrorism. Their number includes the 9/11 hijackers, the London transport bombers, and Maher Hawash, the Intel engineer arrested before he could join the Taliban in Afghanistan. Mohammed Ali Alayed, the Saudi living in Houston fits, the pattern because he stabbed and murdered Ariel Sellouk, a Jewish man who was his one-time friend.

So do some converts to Islam; who suspected Muriel Degauque, a 38-year-old Belgian woman, would turn up in Iraq as a suicide bomber throwing herself against an American military base? This is what I have dubbed the Sudden Jihad Syndrome, whereby normal-appearing Muslims abruptly become violent. It has the awful but legitimate consequence of casting suspicion on all Muslims. Who knows whence the next jihadi? How can one be confident a law-abiding Muslim will not suddenly erupt in a homicidal rage? Yes, of course, their numbers are very small, but they are disproportionately much higher than among non-Muslims.

This syndrome helps explain the fear of Islam and mistrust of Muslims that polls have shown on the rise since 9/11. The Muslim response of denouncing these views as bias, as the “new anti-Semitism,” or “Islamophobia” is as baseless as accusing anti-Nazis of “Germanophobia” or anti-Communists of “Russophobia.” Instead of presenting themselves as victims, Muslims should address this fear by developing a moderate, modern, and good-neighborly version of Islam that rejects radical Islam, jihad, and the subordination of “infidels."

Which they will not be able to do, for as the (false) prophet said, Islam cannot change.

Teaching, not propagandizing

Propaganda is propaganda, not teaching. That so many impressionable young people are being misled into civilizational self-loathing by those to whom their care and development are entrusted is an avoidable tragedy and must be combated if the West is to preserve itself.

On telling the truth to those in your care, Classroom Brainwashing:

Academic freedom is the freedom to do academic things -- teach chemistry or accounting the way you think chemistry or accounting should be taught. It is also freedom to engage in the political activities of other citizens -- on their own time, outside the classroom -- without being fired.

Nowhere else do people think that it is OK to engage in politics instead of doing the job for which they are being paid. When you hire a plumber to fix a leak, you don't want to find your home being flooded while he whiles away the hours talking about Congressional elections or foreign policy.

It doesn't matter whether his political opinions are good, bad, or indifferent if he is being paid to do a different job.

Only among "educators" is there such confusion that merely exposing what they are doing behind the backs of parents and taxpayers is regarded as a violation of their rights. Tenure is apparently supposed to confer carte blanche.

The Colorado geography teacher is not unique. A professor at UCLA wrote an indignant article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, denouncing organized efforts of students to record lectures of professors who impose their politics in class instead of teaching the subject they were hired to teach.

All across the country, from the elementary schools to the universities, students report being propagandized. That the propaganda is almost invariably from the political left is secondary. The fact that it is political propaganda instead of the subject matter of the class is what is crucial.

The lopsided imbalance among college professors in their political parties is a symptom of the problem, rather than the fundamental problem itself.

If physicists taught physics and economists taught economics, what they did on their own time politically would be no more relevant than whether they go swimming or sky diving on their days off. But politics is intruded, not only into the classroom, but into hiring decisions as well.

Even top scholars who are conservatives are unlikely to be hired by many colleges and universities. Similarly with people training to become public school teachers. Some in schools of education have said that, to be qualified, you have to see teaching as a means of social change -- meaning change in a leftward direction.

Such attitudes lead to lopsided politics among professors. At Stanford University, for example, the faculty includes 275 registered Democrats and 36 registered Republicans.

Such ratios are not uncommon at other universities -- despite all the rhetoric about "diversity." Only physical diversity seems to matter.

When the only paradigm promoted is false, what can one reasonably expect?

Tapes reveal mendacity of Democrats and their propagandists in the mainstream media

Will all those who lied for monetary, political, and ideological advantage now admit the truth? Tapes reveal WMD plans by Saddam:

"Audiotapes of Saddam Hussein and his aides underscore the Bush administration's argument that Baghdad was determined to rebuild its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction once the international community had tired of inspections and left the Iraqi dictator alone.

In addition to the captured tapes, U.S. officials are analyzing thousands of pages of newly translated Iraqi documents that tell of Saddam seeking uranium from Africa in the mid-1990s.

The documents also speak of burying prohibited missiles, according to a government official familiar with the declassification process.

But it is not clear whether Baghdad did what the documents indicate, said the U.S. official, who asked not to be named.

'The factories are present,' an Iraqi aide tells Saddam on one of the tapes, made by the dictator in the mid-1990s while U.N. weapons inspectors were searching for Baghdad's remaining stocks of weapons of mass destruction.

'The factories remain, in the mind they remain. Our spirit is with us, based solely on the time period,' the aide says, according to the documents. 'And [inspectors] take note of the time period, they can't account for our will.'"

A Crusade for the survival of Western Civilization

If the Western world continues to wallow in ignorance of its own great Christian heritage, who will stand to resist the barbarian horde?

And it should be noted that those "revising" history distort, suppress, and deny the truth about our past, making the West blind not only to its own worth, but also to its old enemy now seeming new.

An informative Q&A on the Crusades from Jihad Watch:

Q: The Crusades are often portrayed as a militarily offensive venture. Were they?

Spencer: No. Pope Urban II, who called for the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095, was calling for a defensive action -- one that was long overdue.

As he explained, he was calling the Crusade because without any defensive action, "the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked" by the Turks and other Muslim forces.

"For, as most of you have heard, the Turks and Arabs have attacked them and have conquered the territory of Romania [the Greek empire] as far west as the shore of the Mediterranean and the Hellespont, which is called the Arm of St. George," Pope Urban II said in his address. "They have occupied more and more of the lands of those Christians, and have overcome them in seven battles. They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire.

"If you permit them to continue thus for a while with impunity, the faithful of God will be much more widely attacked by them."

He was right. Jihad warfare had from the seventh century to the time of Pope Urban conquered and Islamized what had been over half of Christendom. There had been no response from the Christian world until the Crusades.

Q: What are some popular misconceptions about the Crusades?

Spencer: One of the most common is the idea that the Crusades were an unprovoked attack by Europe against the Islamic world.

In fact, the conquest of Jerusalem in 638 stood at the beginning of centuries of Muslim aggression, and Christians in the Holy Land faced an escalating spiral of persecution.

Early in the eighth century 60 Christian pilgrims from Amorium were crucified; around the same time the Muslim governor of Caesarea seized a group of pilgrims from Iconium and had them all executed as spies -- except for a small number who converted to Islam.

Muslims also demanded money from pilgrims, threatening to ransack the Church of the Resurrection if they didn't pay.

Later in the eighth century, a Muslim ruler banned displays of the cross in Jerusalem. He also increased the tax on non-Muslims -- jizya -- that Christians had to pay and forbade Christians to engage in religious instruction of their own children and fellow believers.

Early in the ninth century the persecutions grew so severe that large numbers of Christians fled for Constantinople and other Christian cities. In 937, Muslims went on a rampage in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, plundering and destroying the Church of Calvary and the Church of the Resurrection.

In 1004, the Fatimid Caliph, Abu 'Ali al-Mansur al-Hakim, ordered the destruction of churches, the burning of crosses, and the seizure of church property. Over the next 10 years 30,000 churches were destroyed, and untold numbers of Christians converted to Islam simply to save their lives.

In 1009, al-Hakim commanded that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem be destroyed, along with several other churches, including the Church of the Resurrection. In 1056, the Muslims expelled 300 Christians from Jerusalem and forbade European Christians from entering the rebuilt Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

When the Seljuk Turks took Jerusalem in 1077, the Seljuk Emir Atsiz bin Uwaq promised not to harm the inhabitants, but once his men had entered the city, they murdered 3,000 people.

Another common misconception is that the Crusades were fought to convert Muslims to Christianity by force. Glaringly absent from every report about Pope Urban's address at the Council of Claremont is any command to the Crusaders to convert Muslims.

It was not until over 100 years after the First Crusade, in the 13th century, that European Christians made any organized attempt to convert Muslims to Christianity, when the Franciscans began missionary work among Muslims in lands held by the Crusaders. This effort was largely unsuccessful.

Yet another misconception revolves around the Crusaders' bloody sack of Jerusalem in 1099.

The capture of Jerusalem is often portrayed as unique in medieval history, and as the cause of Muslim mistrust of the West. It might be more accurate to say that it was the start of a millennium of anti-Western grievance mongering and propaganda.

The Crusaders' sack of Jerusalem was a heinous crime -- particularly in light of the religious and moral principles they professed to uphold. However, by the military standards of the day, it was not actually anything out of the ordinary.

In those days, it was a generally accepted principle of warfare that if a city under siege resisted capture, it could be sacked, and while if it did not resist, mercy would be shown. It is a matter of record that Muslim armies frequently behaved in exactly the same way when entering a conquered city.

This is not to excuse the Crusaders' conduct by pointing to similar actions. One atrocity does not excuse another. But it does illustrate that the Crusaders' behavior in Jerusalem was consistent with that of other armies of the period -- since all states subscribed to the same notions of siege and resistance.

In 1148, Muslim commander Nur ed-Din did not hesitate to order the killing of every Christian in Aleppo. In 1268, when the jihad forces of the Mamluk Sultan Baybars took Antioch from the Crusaders, Baybars was annoyed to find that the Crusader ruler had already left the city -- so he wrote to him bragging of his massacres of Christians.

Most notorious of all may be the jihadists' entry into Constantinople on May 29, 1453, when they, according to historian Steven Runciman, "slew everyone that they met in the streets, men, women and children without discrimination."

Finally, it is a misconception that Pope John Paul II apologized for the Crusades. He did not.

There is no doubt that the belief that Pope John Paul II apologized for the Crusades is widespread. When he died, the Washington Post reminded its readers "during his long reign, Pope John Paul II apologized to Muslims for the Crusades, to Jews for anti-Semitism, to Orthodox Christians for the sacking of Constantinople, to Italians for the Vatican's associations with the Mafia and to scientists for the persecution of Galileo."

However, John Paul II never actually apologized for the Crusades. The closest he came was on March 12, 2000, the "Day of Pardon."

During his homily he said: "We cannot fail to recognize the infidelities to the Gospel committed by some of our brethren, especially during the second millennium. Let us ask pardon for the divisions which have occurred among Christians, for the violence some have used in the service of the truth and for the distrustful and hostile attitudes sometimes taken toward the followers of other religions."

This is hardly a clear apology for the Crusades.

Q: How have Muslims perceived the Crusades then and now?

Spencer: For centuries, when the Ottoman Empire was thriving, the Crusades were not a preoccupation of the Islamic world. They were, after all, failures from a Western standpoint.

However, with the decline of the military power and unity of the Islamic world, and the concomitant rise of the West, they have become a focal point of Muslim resentment of perceived Western encroachment and exploitation.

Q: To what extent are false ideas about the Crusades being used by extremists to foment hostility to the West today?

Spencer: The Crusades may be causing more devastation today than they ever did in the three centuries when most of them were fought -- but not in terms of lives lost and property destroyed. Today's is a more subtle destruction.

The Crusades have become a cardinal sin not only of the Catholic Church but also of the Western world in general.

They are Exhibit A for the case that the current strife between the Muslim world and Western, post-Christian civilization is ultimately the responsibility of the West, which has provoked, exploited, and brutalized Muslims ever since the first Frankish warriors entered Jerusalem.

Osama bin Laden has spoken of his organization not as al-Qaida but of a "World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders," and called in a fatwa for "jihad against Jews and Crusaders."

Such usage is widespread. On November 8, 2002 -- shortly before the beginning of the Iraqi war that toppled Saddam Hussein -- Sheikh Bakr Abed Al-Razzaq Al-Samaraai preached in Baghdad's Mother of All Battles mosque about "this difficult hour in which the Islamic nation [is] experiencing, an hour in which it faces the challenge of [forces] of disbelief of infidels, Jews, crusaders, Americans and Britons."

Similarly, when Islamic jihadists bombed the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in December 2004, they explained that the attack was part of larger plan to strike back at "Crusaders": "This operation comes as part of several operations that are organized and planned by al-Qaida as part of the battle against the crusaders and the Jews, as well as part of the plan to force the unbelievers to leave the Arabian Peninsula," the jihadists said in a statement.

They also said that jihad warriors "managed to enter one of the crusaders' big castles in the Arabian Peninsula and managed to enter the American consulate in Jeddah, in which they control and run the country."

In the face of this, Westerners should not be embarrassed by the Crusades. It's time to say, "enough," and teach our children to take pride in their own heritage.

They should know that they have a culture and a history of which they can and should be grateful; that they are not the children and grandchildren of oppressors and villains; and that their homes and families are worth defending against those who want to take them away, and are willing to kill to do so.

Resist evil. Read Spencer's The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), Bostom's Legacy of Jihad, and Fregosi's Jihad in the West for more on Islam's war against Christendom (and rest of the non-Muslim world).

The perpetual war

Like many people, before 9/11 I was unaware of the nature and imminence of Jihad.

In researching several years ago information on whether or not the United States could be called a "Christian nation," I happened upon the misattribution at the beginning of the article excerpted below. Happily, I was enlightened by this essay as to the real context in which the statement was made (and by whom). At the time, I had no sense of the other, vital understanding to be derived from this article; namely, that the United States had been the victim of Jihad before, and that our greatest leaders fought against the tyranny of Allah then just as they struggled against the tyranny of the British king decades earlier.

Preserving and restoring in the minds of the American people the faith of our Founding Fathers in the God of the Bible is still paramount for that will determine the fate of our nation; Islam's endlessly bloody march toward the domination of all mankind can only be halted and reversed by a people who know for Whom and for what they fight.

Rejecting the God of the Bible only aids the enemy by leaving our nation open to false ideologies; such faithlessness will leave men without the courage to resist Islam's will to conquer.

From Wallbuilders.com, on the Treaty of Tripoli (footnotes omitted):

Those who advance the notion that this was the belief system of the Founders often publish information attempting to prove that the Founders were irreligious. One of the quotes they set forth is the following:

The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian religion. GEORGE WASHINGTON

The 1797 Treaty of Tripoli is the source of Washington’s supposed statement. Is this statement accurate? Did this prominent Founder truly repudiate religion? An answer will be found by an examination of its source.

That treaty, one of several with Tripoli, was negotiated during the "Barbary Powers Conflict," which began shortly after the Revolutionary War and continued through the Presidencies of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison. The Muslim Barbary Powers (Tunis, Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli, and Turkey) were warring against what they claimed to be the "Christian" nations (England, France, Spain, Denmark, and the United States). In 1801, Tripoli even declared war against the United States, thus constituting America’s first official war as an established independent nation.

Throughout this long conflict, the five Barbary Powers regularly attacked undefended American merchant ships. Not only were their cargoes easy prey but the Barbary Powers were also capturing and enslaving "Christian" seamen in retaliation for what had been done to them by the "Christians" of previous centuries (e.g., the Crusades and Ferdinand and Isabella’s expulsion of Muslims from Granada).

In an attempt to secure a release of captured seamen and a guarantee of unmolested shipping in the Mediterranean, President Washington dispatched envoys to negotiate treaties with the Barbary nations. (Concurrently, he encouraged the construction of American naval warships to defend the shipping and confront the Barbary "pirates"—a plan not seriously pursued until President John Adams created a separate Department of the Navy in 1798.) The American envoys negotiated numerous treaties of "Peace and Amity" with the Muslim Barbary nations to ensure "protection" of American commercial ships sailing in the Mediterranean. However, the terms of the treaty frequently were unfavorable to America, either requiring her to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars of "tribute" (i.e., official extortion) to each country to receive a "guarantee" of safety or to offer other "considerations" (e.g., providing a warship as a "gift" to Tripoli, a "gift" frigate to Algiers, paying $525,000 to ransom captured American seamen from Algiers, etc.).

The 1797 treaty with Tripoli was one of the many treaties in which each country officially recognized the religion of the other in an attempt to prevent further escalation of a "Holy War" between Christians and Muslims. Consequently, Article XI of that treaty stated:

As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion as it has in itself no character of enmity [hatred] against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] and as the said States [America] have never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

This article may be read in two manners. It may, as its critics do, be concluded after the clause "Christian religion"; or it may be read in its entirety and concluded when the punctuation so indicates. But even if shortened and cut abruptly ("the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion"), this is not an untrue statement since it is referring to the federal government.

Recall that while the Founders themselves openly described America as a Christian nation (demonstrated in chapter 2 of Original Intent), they did include a constitutional prohibition against a federal establishment; religion was a matter left solely to the individual States. Therefore, if the article is read as a declaration that the federal government of the United States was not in any sense founded on the Christian religion, such a statement is not a repudiation of the fact that America was considered a Christian nation.

Reading the clause of the treaty in its entirety also fails to weaken this fact. Article XI simply distinguished America from those historical strains of European Christianity which held an inherent hatred of Muslims; it simply assured the Muslims that the United States was not a Christian nation like those of previous centuries (with whose practices the Muslims were very familiar) and thus would not undertake a religious holy war against them.

This latter reading is, in fact, supported by the attitude prevalent among numerous American leaders. The Christianity practiced in America was described by John Jay as "wise and virtuous," by John Quincy Adams as "civilized," and by John Adams as "rational." A clear distinction was drawn between American Christianity and that of Europe in earlier centuries. As Noah Webster explained:

The ecclesiastical establishments of Europe which serve to support tyrannical governments are not the Christian religion but abuses and corruptions of it.

Daniel Webster similarly explained that American Christianity was:

Christianity to which the sword and the fagot [burning stake or hot branding iron] are unknown—general tolerant Christianity is the law of the land!

Those who attribute the Treaty of Tripoli quote to George Washington make two mistakes. The first is that no statement in it can be attributed to Washington (the treaty did not arrive in America until months after he left office); Washington never saw the treaty; it was not his work; no statement in it can be ascribed to him. The second mistake is to divorce a single clause of the treaty from the remainder which provides its context.

It would also be absurd to suggest that President Adams (under whom the treaty was ratified in 1797) would have endorsed or assented to any provision which repudiated Christianity. In fact, while discussing the Barbary conflict with Jefferson, Adams declared:

The policy of Christendom has made cowards of all their sailors before the standard of Mahomet. It would be heroical and glorious in us to restore courage to ours.

Furthermore, it was Adams who declared:

The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were. . . . the general principles of Christianity. . . . I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature.

Adams’ own words confirm that he rejected any notion that America was less than a Christian nation.

Our fighting men and women are heroic and glorious. Would that our leaders would share a measure of that heroism and glory by telling the truth about the religion of Mahomet.

Rebelling against the God-ordained civil authority, or defending certain unalienable Rights?

God commands His people obey the governing authorities since they are established by Him. What exceptions does He allow? When the civil authority requires a believer to sin, he or she is to obey God, not men.

What possible argument can be made in defense of the American rebellion against its sovereign? Perhaps self-defense against those violating the laws of both man and God, but nothing else. From Wallbuilders.com: Was the American Revolution a Biblically Justified Act (footnotes omitted)?

The second factor which the Framers believed gave them Biblical justification for their actions was the fact they did not initiate the conflict. The Framers had been fully committed to peaceful reconciliation and had pursued that course for 11 consecutive years before the separation from Great Britain. There was no desire to raise arms against England, their mother country and the land of their birth. Nevertheless, in the last two years of their peaceful reconciliation attempts (e.g., as in May 1776 with their Olive Branch Petition), their entreaties and appeals were met solely by military force. In fact, King George III dispatched 25,000 British troops to invade his own Colonies, enter into the homes of his own citizens, take their private possessions and goods, and imprison them without trials — all in violation of his own British common law, English Bill of Rights, and Magna Carta.

When their peaceful entreaties were met with armed attackers, the Framers cited full Biblical justification to defend their own homes, families, properties, and possessions — an important point to them. In their understanding of the Scriptures, God could bless a defensive war but not an offensive war. This was their great point of spiritual appeal: they had not attacked Great Britain; they had never fired the first shot — not in the British Massacre of 1770, nor in the Lexington and Concord engagements of 1775, nor in the bombing of Boston in 1774. Yet, now fired upon, they could defend themselves. In fact, so reticent were they to separate from Great Britain that it was a full three years after King George III had drawn the sword and sent armed troops against his own citizens in America before they announced their separation. As signer of the Declaration John Witherspoon confirmed:

On the part of America, there was not the most distant thought of subverting the government or of hurting the interest of the people of Great Britain; but of defending their own privileges from unjust encroachment; there was not the least desire of withdrawing their allegiance from the common sovereign [King George III] till it became absolutely necessary — and indeed, it was his own choice.

When the decision for a separation was finally made, however, the Founders continued to maintain their strong entreaty to God for the justness of their actions. For example, in a letter to British officials, Samuel Adams, the “Father of the American Revolution,” declared:

There is One above us who will take exemplary vengeance for every insult upon His majesty. You know that the cause of America is just. You know that she contends for that freedom to which all men are entitled — that she contends against oppression, rapine, and more than savage barbarity. The blood of the innocent is upon your hands, and all the waters of the ocean will not wash it away. We again make our solemn appeal to the God of heaven to decide between you and us. And we pray that, in the doubtful scale of battle, we may be successful as we have justice on our side, and that the merciful Savior of the world may forgive our oppressors.

Adams also authored a manifesto for the Continental Congress which reflected a similar tone of submission to God:

We, therefore, the Congress of the United States of America, do solemnly declare and proclaim that. . . . [w]e appeal to the God who searcheth the hearts of men for the rectitude of our intentions; and in His holy presence declare that, as we are not moved by any light or hasty suggestions of anger or revenge, so through every possible change of fortune we will adhere to this our determination.

It was the fact that they had been attacked which — in their understanding of the Bible — completely changed their status in the eyes of God, for the Bible clearly authorized and justified self-defense against an aggressor as righteous before God. But some object that the American Revolution resulted in a loss of life, and therefore cannot be justifiable in the eyes of God. This position demonstrates a lack of Biblical understanding about life.

Clearly, protecting innocent life is a key and recurring theme in the Bible. Life is God-given; He formed us, made us, and breathed life into us. Therefore, He gave clear commands both on preserving innocent life and on punishing those who take it (See, for example, Exodus 23:7, Deuteronomy 27:25 & 21:8-9 & 19:10, Proverbs 6:16-17, 2 Kings 24:4, Psalm 10:2,8, et al.) Since God is the author of life, and since He alone holds the keys of death (see 1 Samuel 2:6), He – not man – is to determine when life is to end.

However, the taking of life is not always the taking of innocent life. God allows man justifiably to take human life on three occasions.

The first occasion is for the cause of civil justice (e.g., Deuteronomy 19:11-13, Numbers 35:16-27, 2 Samuel 4:11, etc.). The shedding of blood in such cases is not the shedding of innocent blood. The second justifiable cause is general military conflict (e.g., Numbers 32:27, 2 Chronicles 32:8, 1 Samuel 4:1). The third cause is in defense of one’s life, family, or property (e.g., Nehemiah 4:13-14 & 20-21, Zechariah 9:8, 2 Samuel 10:12). In these three situations, the taking of life is not viewed by God as the shedding of innocent blood.

Similarly, Jewish scholars point out that the prohibition in the Sixth Commandment is not against killing but rather is against murder. That is, they assert that the proper translation from the Hebrew is not “Thou shalt not kill,” but rather “Thou shalt not murder.” Murder is the taking of innocent life, while killing may not be (e.g., the three Biblically justified examples given above).

Therefore, the fact that the American Revolution was a defensive rather than an offensive war made all the difference in whether it could be a righteous war before God. The Framers’ writings emphasized this fact. For example, Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence (and a church choir leader, musician, noted poet and literary figure), made this clear in his 1777 work “A Political Catechism”:

Q. What is war?

A. The curse of mankind; the mother of famine and pestilence; the source of complicated miseries; and the undistinguishing destroyer of the human species.

Q. How is war divided?

A. Into offensive and defensive.

Q. What is the general object of an offensive war? . . .

A. [F]or the most part, it is undertaken to gratify the ambition of a prince, who wishes to subject to his arbitrary will a people whom God created free, and to gain an uncontrolled dominion over their rights and property. . . .

Q. What is defensive war?

A. It is to take up arms in opposition to the invasions of usurped power and bravely suffer present hardships and encounter present dangers, to secure the rights of humanity and the blessings of freedom, to generations yet unborn.

Q. Is even defensive war justifiable in a religious view?

A. The foundation of war is laid in the wickedness of mankind . . . . God has given man wit to contrive, power to execute, and freedom of will to direct his conduct. It cannot be but that some, from a depravity of will, will abuse these privileges and exert these powers to the injury of others: and the oppressed would have no safety nor redress but by exerting the same powers in their defence: and it is our duty to set a proper value upon and defend to the utmost our just rights and the blessings of life: otherwise a few miscreants [unprincipled individuals] would tyrannize over the rest of mankind, and make the passive multitude the slaves of their power. Thus it is that defensive is not only justifiable, but an indispensable duty.

Q. Is it upon these principles that the people of America are resisting the arms of Great Britain, and opposing force with force?

A. Strictly so. . . . And may Heaven prosper their virtuous undertaking!

Q. But it has often been said, that America is in a state of rebellion. Tell me, therefore, what is Rebellion?

A. It is when a great number of people, headed by one or more factious leaders, aim at deposing their lawful prince without any just cause of complaint in order to place another on his throne.

Q. Is this the case of the Americans?

A. Far otherwise.

James Wilson (a signer of the Declaration and the Constitution, an original Justice on the U. S. Supreme Court and the father of the first organized legal training in America), explained in to his law students more about defensive rights:

I here close my examination into those natural rights, which, in my humble opinion, it is the business of civil government to protect, and not to subvert, and the exercise of which it is the duty of civil government to enlarge, and not to restrain. . . . The defence of one’s self, justly called the primary law of nature, is not, nor can it be abrogated by any regulation of municipal law. This principle of defence is not confined merely to the person; it extends to the liberty and the property of a man: it is not confined merely to his own person; it extends to the persons of all those, to whom he bears a peculiar relation — of his wife, of his parent, of his child, of his master, of his servant: nay, it extends to the person of every one, who is in danger, perhaps, to the liberty of every one, whose liberty is unjustly and forcibly attacked. It becomes humanity as well as justice. . . . As a man is justified in defending, so he is justified in retaking, his property, or his peculiar relations, when from him they are unjustly taken and detained. . . . This long investigation concerning natural rights and natural remedies, I conclude by answering the question, with which I introduced it: Man does not exist for the sake of government, but government is instituted for the sake of man.

A final indication that the Framers believed they were engaged in a defensive war was the fact that throughout the course of the struggle, the conflict was often described by the Americans as a civil war rather than a revolution. Only in later years was it consistently called a revolution rather than a civil war. Very clearly, the Framers did not view the American Revolution as an act of anarchy or of rebellion against God, the Bible or any of its teachings. Under the view of Romans 13 as understood by the Framers, the American Revolution was indeed a Biblically-justifiable act.