And the debate goes on

Six years after the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the free world was celebrating victory! Five years after the heinous crime of 9/11, the debate goes on and on and on: We haven't even come to a definitive decision as to what we are fighting yet!

Of course, there are differences in the nature of the war we are fighting now from the one we fought between 1939 and 1945. But there are also similarities. Then, as we are doing now, we were fighting against dark forces, fighting against tyranny, fighting against a people who had no respect for freedom, fighting against an implacable enemy, an enemy hell-bent on dominating the world.

After a period of appeasement, it became increasingly clear to all right-thinking people that the enemy would have to be confronted if the free world was to remain in tact. People then, though, were not in the grip of the disease of political correctness. As a result, they could see clearly who their enemy was, and there grew a determination to defeat that enemy: National Socialism.

At the present time, we are still in a period of appeasement similar to the lead up to 1939 when war broke out. There prevails a feeling that if we make concessions to the enemies, then they will come around, and let us live in peace. They won’t! Appeasement, by its very nature, is weakness. If there is one thing that Muslims despise, it’s weakness. The Islamic world is patriarchal. They have no time for weakness. Concessions, to them, equate with weakness. They only embolden them in their struggle to dominate the world.

There is another important similarity between then and now. At that time, we were fighting a political dogma: Nazism. At this time, we are also fighting a political dogma: Islam. Unfortunately, this political dogma is clothed in a deity. It comes complete with ‘Allah’s words’ and ‘Allah’s messenger’! But do not be fooled! Islam is a ‘religion’ like no other! It is nothing short of a total political system, with its very own laws and legal structures, the Shari’ah.

To complicate matters further, all Muslims are taught that the world is divided into two: Dar ul Islam, or the ‘House of Islam’, and Dar ul Harb, or the ‘House of War’. Muslims believe it is their God-given duty to fight in the way of their Lord, Allah, Rub al‘ameen, ‘Lord of the Worlds’, until the ‘House of War’, the home of the infidels, has been incorporated into the ‘House of Islam’. The fight will not be given up. At best there can be respites.

What is actually happening is clear to see; yet there is a great reluctance on the part of our leaders to admit to what is truly happening. The fact of the matter should be obvious to all: the Muslim world is fighting the jihad, or holy war, in order to conquer the world for Allah. America, seen as it is as the archenemy of Islamic values, has become the main enemy of Muslims worldwide. Hence, the United States is known as the ‘Great Satan’, and they call for its death. ‘Death to America’ is the cry from many a mosque throughout the world, and from many a street corner, too.

The problem for us is made more complicated because the Islamic world, dominated as it is by the Middle East in general, and Saudi Arabia in particular, is the home of Islam. It is also home to the one commodity the West needs in great abundance: oil.

Westerners show little desire to do without this commodity. It is, after all, one of the engines of our economies. Out of a lack of vision and short-sightedness, the West has wasted nearly forty years of research time to find a viable alternative source of energy. Where alternatives are available, Western leaders are reluctant to further their use.

This leaves us dependent in no small measure on Middle Easterners. The trillions of dollars that have made the Middle East rich beyond anyone’s wildest dreams enable our Saudi ‘friends’ to spend billions of dollars worldwide to buy influence in the West. They buy up our businesses, build mosques, build schools, build Islamic propagation centres, and fund university chairs. Of course, Saudi Arabia, being the home of the pernicious brand of Islam known as Wahhabism promotes that extreme brand of Islam in the West.

Fact is, in short, we are funding the jihad against ourselves!

Muslims despise America and are intent on destroying its influence in the world. Why do Muslims hate America so much? Well, there are many reasons too numerous to mention. But here are some: America is seen as the home of capitalism, with all its evil, debauched, hedonistic, godless, fun-seeking, entertainment-obsessed ways. Muslims see Americans as choosing the enjoyment of life over piety.

Moreover, America is successful economically in a way that Muslims in most parts of the world could only dream of. Muslims in the Middle East are rich by happenstance: oil has made them rich. They happen to have it in abundance. They have not become rich by working for their wealth; rather, they have become rich simply because they have this natural resource aplenty. Americans, by contrast, have become rich through intelligence, progress, resourcefulness, creativity, and sheer business acumen. This is an enviable state of affairs.

Then there’s the concept of freedom. America espouses freedom for all. Freedom is anathema to Muslims. To Muslims, the only part of freedom they understand is the freedom to worship Allah and his messenger! That’s the only freedom they are interested in!

In addition, there are two very important matters. America supports and stands up for Israel, and Muslims hate Israel with a vengeance. Muslims, as we all know, are anti-Semitic in the extreme. They despise the fact that the US, with all its power, could have the temerity to stand up for the Jews.

To complicate matters still further, the jihadis hate the fact that America keeps the Saudi royal family in power. Many devout Muslims see the Saudi royal family as apostates, people who have left Islam, for they view them as debauched, and see that their home country is run as a private business, very much as Nicolae Ceausescu ran Romania up until 1989. They despise the Americans for its support of a rotten régime. The Islamists are even more determined to Islamize America to be able to change its political course.

In order for America to be victorious in this battle of cultures, it needs a volte-face in its foreign policy. Not one to appease the Muslims, but one to ensure the West’s ultimate victory over its enemy: Islam.

To do this, we need strong leadership: strong leadership in the US, in Europe, and in the rest of the free world. We also need leaders with vision, determination, courage, and conviction. Leaders with the will to win, and leaders prepared to take the uncomfortable decisions necessary to drive these dark forces back into the desert sands, where they truly belong.

President Bush may have done his best. But his best is not yet good enough. I would suggest that in his remaining years in office that he come to recognize the forces working against his country. The enemy needs to be called by its proper name. This war of the twenty-first century is a war between Western and Islamic culture. Furthermore, he needs to get tougher on the enemy, for it is only strength our enemy understands.

To allow unfettered access to the West for Islam is something that will only complicate matters still further. After all, could Nazism be propagated in the United Kingdom during World War II? Could communism be propagated in the US in the post-War years? Certainly not! It would have been unthinkable to allow these ideologies to be propagated! Yet Islam has been allowed to grow apace in the West post-9/11!

It helps us not one jot to say that Islam is a religion, and we have freedom of religion in the West. Let’s have freedom of religion, by all means. But in Islam, we have a religion like no other: Islam is, first and foremost, a political ideology. The kind of religion that the founders of the US had in mind when the Constitution was drawn up was something quite different. They were referring to religions that are personal and spiritual in natural. Islam is not. Islam is communal and political and trans-national. Are we really being sensible in allowing a 'religion' to grow and grow in the West which has as its main goal the supplanting of our political system with a totally different set of laws based on a totally different ideology?

To add insult to injury, Christianity, and all other religions, are disallowed in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and their practice is severely restricted in most other Islamic countries, too. Moreover, Muslims have no shame in disallowing other religions to be propagated, either. This is asymmetry if ever I recognized it!

The debate needs to stop. The time has come to take off our kid gloves. The time to fight the good fight is HERE and it is NOW. We have no time to waste. We really do not have the luxury of time.

In addition, people need to start preparing for the enormous struggle that lies ahead of them. They must be prepared to relinquish many comforts, and many liberties hitherto taken for granted; and they need to be prepared to sacrifice. For truly, no war was ever won without sacrifice!

Ladies and gentlemen, previous generations have sacrificed so much for the freedoms you and I enjoy today. They sacrificed for the sake of their children, and for the sake of their children’s children. The time has come for you and me to do the same for our children! Start preparing to sacrifice now. The debating needs to stop.

©Mark Alexander