How Long Before.....
Just
how long will it be, pray tell,
before Islamic mosques in the
United States begin to sound the
clarion call to
"Jihad", right here at
home, over some perceived slight
of Muslim sensibilities by
American culture? And just how
long will it be before Americans
are faced with the same sort of
foreign injected, homeland based
Islamic terrorist organizations
that have plagued European
democracies for decades? How long
before our security as a nation
and our peace of mind as a people
begin to slip away? How long,
indeed. History teaches us that
when and where non-Islamic
societies have come in contact
with Islamic culture, conflict
ensues. This could be explained
away in a Medievil context, when
an aggressive and abusive
Chritianity also bore fault. But
contemporary Islam continues to
embrace the 7th Century, and its
contacts with non-Muslims are oft
times incendiary. Consider:
Armenia's fight for survival with
Azerbijian; The Balkin Wars
pitting Christian Croations,
Serbs and Macedonians against
Islamic Bosnians, Kosovars and
Albanians; Israel and all of its
surrounding Muslim neighbors;
Russia and Chechnia; Europe and
the Ottoman empire; The U.S. and
Iran; The U.S. and Iraq; The
Infidel and the Believer.
Needless to say, precedent
strongly suggests incapatibility.
And yet, on our shores, we're
seeing a massing and expansion of
this same dangerous and
diabolical religious force, one
that seems particularly
vulnerable to radical
interpretation, invariably
leading to fundamentalist fervor,
fire and brimstone, and embraced
by mainstream Islamists. Are we
ready for this in our midst? Is
not our country's Judeo-Christian
based democracy ill suited and
ill equipped to combat virulent
religious ferocity? The Founding
Fathers, after all,
de-institutionalized religion
precisely to de-claw it. How,
then, do we fight a religious
war, if it came to that, without
the tools to do so? With Jerry
Falwell and Pat Robertson? And
how do we even address this
problem without being deemed
"racist, culturally
intolerent and politically
incorrect"? Very upfront,
I'd say. This is not the time to
politely tiptoe around these
issues that have, seemingly,
become issues only since Sept,
11, when, in reality, they have
festered for decades. What we
need is a serious, sit-down
"family" discussion to
decide whether we Americans want
to endure, in the future, what
Israelis endure daily. Once this
theological virus spreads, it
will be extremely difficult to
control, as we're seeing.
Consequently, we must be vigilant
of this ideology that preaches
one thing, but does another. Of
neighbors who would harm us over
our beliefs. Of an intolerant
religion that satisfies its own
hyper-gender-centric ego lust by
encouraging violence and
destruction against
"non-believers". And we
should be particularly vigilant
lest Islamic mosques in the
United States begin to sound the
clarion call of "Holy
War" to their followers, as
they do in Muslim countries. I
don't think we should take that
chance. That's an evil genie in
that bottle. And remember, the
Ottoman Empire lasted 500 years.
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