I was speaking with an Australian friend last week, an insightful and intelligent man whose opinion I highly respect. He contends, and I do not disagree, that America has developed an increasing tendency to behave in an imperialist manner which tends to inspire hatred in its enemies and suspicion in those who are otherwise friendly towards it.
Please understand that I am not advocating the suicidal sacrifice of U.S. sovereignty to the evil fraud that is the United Nations, like those who would leave our national security in the hands of the French, Chinese and Syrian governments. I am, however, skeptical of such things as the global dollar economy, the International Monetary Fund and stationing American troops around the world in the support of questionable governments whose only virtue is a willingness to offer the well-being of their people on the altar of the overvalued dollar.
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But while the war on Iraq reflects aspects of this financial imperialism, its primary significance is the role it will play in the ongoing clash of civilizations between Islam and the West.
For although the United States is now regarded as the Great Satan in Islamic circles, this is a recent development which came about long after expansionist Islam had revealed its vicious, murderous nature in Kashmir, in Algeria and in the Philippines. If the United States is particularly hated, it is only because it is feared for its overwhelming power – the most dangerous threat that the Dar al-Islam has ever known.
Nevertheless, Islam is at war with all the world, not just the United States or even all the West, hence the appellation Dar al-Harb, or abode of war, for those countries where Islamic law does not rule. Of course, it is not called this because war is a natural state of the Dar al-Harb, but because Muslims are continually instigating war within it.
My friend learned this last night, I fear, as dozens of his countrymen died in the Bali bombing. They were not murdered because of any antipathy for America and its wrongdoings any more than were the Hindus slaughtered in last February's Godhra train burnings or the thousands of East Timorese butchered by Indonesian Muslims. They were murdered because they were not Muslims!
This is not the first time the West has been forced to confront expansionist Islam. Then, as now, the West was weakened by its own divisions and a lack of resolve. While the Crusades, for all their great lore, were little more than a minor sideshow on both sides, the incredible invasion of Islam into Spain, northern Africa and central Europe had ramifications that affect us even now.
The fate of Constantinople should be a lesson to today's American leaders, as the once-mighty empire declined to a state so decrepit that only 4,983 men remained capable of bearing arms within its walls at the time of its fall to Mehmet II. This was not because of the prowess of its Muslim enemies, but due to the pillaging by the treacherous Venetians and their puppet crusaders. Should America be foolish enough to forget the implacable nature of its enemy and listen to the carping voices of the U.N. and the cowardly European nations, it will deserve to suffer the same fate.
So it is vital to understand this is not a war between rich, decadent Christian America and Islam – it is a war that Islam has declared on the entire world. It is not a war that has been caused by American actions – it is a war that is fundamental to the core of Islam. There are surely many Muslims, especially westernized Muslims, who will deny this warlike imperative, just as one can find many Christians who will deny almost every teaching of Jesus Christ. But these objections are meaningless, even deceptive, and historically ignorant.
There is no War on Terror. The war in Afghanistan, the ongoing war in Iraq, the latest chapter in the Israeli-Arab war and the myriad of murderous assaults on non-combatants around the world are all part of this great clash of civilizations. The flare-up in terroristic violence which will surely occur as the Iraqi war continues should neither surprise us nor intimidate us, but provide us with this encouragement: Terror is the weapon the weak use against the strong.
Let all of us who value Western civilization pray that our leaders find the will and courage to use our strength judiciously and crush those who would destroy it.