An August 18, 2019 Associated Press report describes the carnage resulting from the most recent suicide bombing in Kabul, an atrocity in which 63 guests at a Shiite Muslim wedding were killed and 182 were wounded. According to the AP report, an ISIS suicide bomber detonated his suicide vest as he stood near the bandstand, watching the wedding guests dance. The bombing took place in a western Kabul neighborhood inhabited by many of Afghanistan’s minority Shiite Muslims, and although the wedding guests were a mixture of both Shiites and Sunnis, the local ISIS affiliate, a Sunni terror group, took credit for the mass killing.
So, what is it about the world of Islam that we in the West fail to understand? We know of no instances in which Lutheran suicide bombers have blown themselves up at Roman Catholic weddings or funerals. Nor have we heard of instances in which Baptist terrorists have drowned Methodist captives by enclosing them in steel cages and then lowering them into large tanks of water. Unlike Islam, there are simply no commandments in Christianity or Judaism that require us to kill others who do not share our religious beliefs.
In an August 25 article by Raymond Ibrahim, titled “There Is No Christian Anymore in This Town”: Persecution of Christians, June 2019, The Gatestone Institute reports on some of the most recent acts of anti-Christian genocide in majority Muslim nations of Africa and Asia.
Ibrahim reports that, on June 9, approximately 50 heavily armed Islamic Fulani gunmen arrived at a Christian village in Mali, a west African nation in which some 90% of the population are Muslims and only 5% are Christians. They surrounded the village and then set it ablaze. Many residents… men, women, and children… were burned to death. No one escaped. At least 93 Christians died in the massacre. According to Malian security forces, the village was “virtually wiped out.”
On the same day, June 9, in Burkina Faso, located on Mali’s southern frontier, 19 residents of the town of Arbinda were slaughtered by Muslim terrorists. The following day, June 10, ten additional Christians were slaughtered in a nearby town. When peace was restored, one local Arbinda resident said, “There is no Christian anymore in this town.” According to a 2006 census, approximately 60.5% of the Burkina Faso population are Muslims; 25% are Christians.
Ibrahim reports that, in Nigeria, on June 17, Muslim Fulani herdsmen slaughtered at least 24 Christians, three of whom were children, in three separate raids. The terrorists also burned two churches and more than 200 Christian homes, along with crops in the fields. Approximately 53% of Nigerians are Muslims and 47% are Christians. And while the terror group Boko Haram, famous for kidnapping 276 schoolgirls in April 2014, gets the lion’s share of the headlines in Nigeria, the Global Terrorism Index reports that, “In 2018 alone, deaths attributed to Fulani extremists are estimated to be six times greater than the number committed by Boko Haram…”
So, what is it that sets Islam apart from civilized societies? Why is it that Muslims stand alone in their indifference to the value of human life? What is it that makes Muslims so angry? And why have they no sense of right or wrong?
First, we must understand that Islam is not a religion, as such, subject to First Amendment protections as we in Western cultures understand the term. To fully understand why Muslims worldwide are so intent upon murdering large numbers of innocent people, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, we must begin by imagining the hatred generated by nearly 1400 years of endless internecine warfare. Add to that a large measure of insoluble political differences, a laundry list of legal disputes, centuries worth of military scores still to be settled, and a long list of social and cultural disparities and we can begin to understand why so many Muslims feel not only superior to the rest of us, but also disrespected or marginalized by competing Muslim sects.
Wherever we find them, Islamists refuse to assimilate into host country cultures, insisting that they be allowed to exist as a separate culture within a culture, not subject to the laws of their host countries. In order to accomplish their ends, they rely on anti-western directives of the Quran to preach the overthrow of host governments, by force and violence if necessary.
Since the earliest days of the 116th Congress, whatever dignity and decorum the House of Representatives still possessed has been shattered by the presence of the first two Muslim women ever elected to Congress: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a Somali refugee, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), a Palestinian. In the nearly eight months since they took office in January 2019, they have been a thorn in the side of House Democratic leadership, creating daily headlines with their radical left criticism of Donald Trump and their unceasing antisemitic criticisms of Israel and American Jewry.
Jn recent weeks the two have spurned a junket to Israel with a larger group of congressional fact-finders. Instead, the two freshman members planned to visit Israel and the Palestinian territories on their own. But Trump intervened, asking Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to deny them access to Israel – a request that Netanyahu readily complied with. In denying the women access, Netanyahu cited their support for Boycott Divest Sanction (BDS), a movement that advocates the boycott of Israel and Israeli products until it withdraws from the occupied territories and grants full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens.
One wonders whether the Muslims who’ve settled in Michigan and Minnesota in such large numbers are naturalized US citizens. If they are, they’ve sworn an oath which begins: “I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…”
If the two Muslim congresswomen had been allowed to visit Israel as planned, it appears that a sufficient body of law exists that could have denied them reentry into the United States. Jimmy Carter used that law to deny access to Iranians during the Iranian hostage risis. As a far more courageous man, Donald Trump might easily have done the same in the present case
In other words, a Muslim who takes that oath of citizenship can no longer maintain allegiance to the dictates of the Quran because the Quran and the US Constitution are wholly incompatible. It is also interesting to note that Section 212(a)(28) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (The McCarran-Walter Act), denies access to all aliens “who are anarchists, or who have at any time been members of or affiliated with any organization (such as Islam or the Communist Party USA) that advocates or teaches the overthrow of the government of the United States by force, violence, or other unconstitutional means.”
To be an American, enjoying all the benefits of a free society, one must be willing and able to assimilate into our culture. Clearly, that is not what Muslims have in mind. It should be clear to all by now that what Muslims want is to replace our 21st century culture with their brutal 7th century culture, and if we resist they will simply force the issue. We will have no choice in the matter. What we in the West must decide, before we reach the point of no return, is whether we want future generations of our families to be forced into a primitive 7th century culture.
If the answer is yes, then the road ahead is clear; we only need to do what we’re already doing to reverse the Muslim onslaught… which is nothing. However, if the answer is no, we must begin by identifying Islam for what it is. Abandoning the political correctness of the political left, it is imperative that we officially define Islam, not as a religious denomination, but as a brutal 7th century culture, totally foreign to and incompatible with 21st century Western values.
Many of the great nations of Europe are now spiraling
downward into irreversible Islamic chaos.
And unless we undertake to defeat radical Islam in the deserts of the
Middle East and in the streets of Europe in the months and years ahead, they
will surely confront us in the cities, towns, and villages of America. If that comes to pass, western civilization
will cease to exist. We cannot bequeath
to our children and grandchildren the prospect of fighting a bloody, unwinnable
battle that should have been fought and decided in our time.
Paul R. Hollrah is a retired government relations executive and a two-time member of the U.S. Electoral College. He currently lives and writes among the hills and lakes of northeast Oklahoma’s Green Country.