LT. COLONEL JAMES G. ZUMWALT, USMC (RET)
Current U.S. political gridlock brings to mind an old joke, modified for the times.
A Democrat and Republican politician walking through the woods come
across tracks. Unable to agree on anything, they debate the source. One
says they are deer tracks; the other, moose tracks. As the debate rages,
the two are killed by an oncoming train. The tracks, of course, were
train tracks.
It is sad our leaders -- so focused on playing party politics -- neglect a real danger barreling down upon us.
The problem is complicated because the danger is a stealthy, political ideology.
Imagine the outcry by Democrats or Republicans if one's political
ideology were given special treatment over the other's in influencing
the U.S. population.
Both demand an equal playing field. Whenever it is overstepped --
like a religious group promoting one political party's goals over the
other's -- legal action is taken to stop the group by threatening
revocation of its religious status.
The concept of separation of church and state is so fundamental to
our nation the requirement for secularism is unquestioned -- i.e., the
American people will be legally bound by government-imposed laws and
never religion-imposed ones.
The interests of government and religion coexist separately, never
imposing upon the other's domain. The government cannot dictate a state
religion nor can religion dictate to state government. Religion
addresses the spiritual body; the state addresses actions by the
physical one.
Why then do we blindly accept a political ideology -- totally
anathema to U.S. values and our way of life -- promoting itself as a
religion? This is Islam's DNA -- a political ideology and religion
rolled into one that totally ignores the secularism so integral to the
United States' existence for 237 years. Incompatible too with the
constitutional rights sanctified by the U.S. founding fathers, Islam is
gaining ground in America.
In fact, the founding fathers warned about this danger.
In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met Tripoli's Muslim
ambassador to England to negotiate an end to attacks by Barbary pirates
on U.S. shipping and enslavement of crewmembers.
Returning to the United States, they told of an ideology founded by a
prophet who dictated a holy book -- the Koran -- deeming any nation
failing to submit to Islamic authority a sinner and giving Muslims the
right to declare war, enslaving enemy citizens as non-Muslims.
President George Washington worried submission to this ideology would
only encourage further aggression; yet Congress voted to pay tribute.
Washington's concerns proved right when the pirates later demanded
increased tribute. Jefferson, then president, refused the demand,
abandoning the United States' appeasement policy. The Muslims declared
war on the United States.
A 2012 article by Hugh Fitzgerald very succinctly summed up what
historical research bears out, "There is not a single American statesman
or traveler or diplomat in the days of the early Republic who had a
good word for Islam."
Fitzgerald went on to note, "John Quincy Adams (our most learned
president), who was far more knowledgeable about Islam (wrote), 'The
precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that
(Muhammad) is the prophet of God ... the victorious may be appeased by a
false and delusive promise of peace ... but the command to propagate
the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory ... The commands of
the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force ...'"
Fitzgerald continued, "And the very idea that someday Muslims,
adherents of the fanatical faith of Islam, would be here and would dare
to invoke the Freedom of Conscience that is guaranteed by our First
Amendment, through both the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses,
would have struck them as impossible. For everyone knew then, as so many
now apparently do not know, that Islam itself inculcates not freedom of
conscience, but blind, unquestioning submission of the individual
Muslim to Authority, that is, the Authority of the Koran ..."
Jefferson kept a copy of the Koran, not out of respect, but to better
understand how it justified Muslim violence against non-Muslims.
(Ironically, this same Koran was used by the first Muslim congressman,
U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., to take his oath in 2007.)
While Jefferson read the Koran, understanding its violent message,
today Americans arguing in favor of Islam's constitutional right to
religious freedom have failed to do so, thus not understanding its
message.
The Koran promotes HIV -- hatred, intolerance and violence -- against
non-Muslims, disguising it as a religion. The Koran makes hundreds of
references encouraging this. Because Muslims package their political
ideology as religion, the United States naively accepts it as such,
oblivious to its ultimate goal of global control under Shariah -- with
opponents put to the sword. The master plan for imposing Shariah upon
the United States was formulated two decades ago.
Needed is a national panel debate among knowledgeable Muslims and
non-Muslims on what Islam really represents. A call for such debate has
long been inhibited by political correctness and Muslims playing the
"victim" card whenever criticized.
This author's own writings concerning a Koranic "call to arms"
against non-Muslims have never been substantively addressed by
pro-Muslim groups; they are only dismissed as Islamophobic musings. Such
concerns must be responsibly addressed by Muslims relying on personal
attacks as subterfuge.
Muslims may want on their panel such rational voices promoting
Shariah as Saudi cleric Sheik Saleh bin Saad al-Luhaydan who declares
women who drive risk damaging their ovaries; or Egyptian Salafi preacher
Abu Islam who says raping women protesters is justified; or Iranian
imams proclaiming men must wear long-sleeve shirts as exposed arm skin
is a continuation of the genitalia's; or Egyptian scholar Ibrahim
Al-Khouli who claims human pregnancies can take four years.
The train barreling down the tracks, endangering America's freedoms,
is Islam. We fail, at our peril, to understand its danger through a
national debate.
© 2013 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Lt.
Colonel James G. Zumwalt, USMC (Ret.), is a retired Marine infantry
officer who served in the Vietnam war, the U.S. invasion of Panama and
the first Gulf war. He is the author of "Bare Feet, Iron Will--Stories
from the Other Side of Vietnam's Battlefields," "Living the Juche Lie:
North Korea's Kim Dynasty" and "Doomsday: Iran--The Clock is Ticking."
He frequently writes on foreign policy and defense issues.
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