Yes, it is Islam!

So, here we are again, being told that we can't blame Islam for the murderous acts that have cost thousands of lives since 9/11 and millions of lives since the 14th century! Well, then let me ask a simple question: If Islam did not exist, how many of these events would have occurred?

It is IDIOTIC to keep pushing this canard of the left that "Islam is not to blame." The horrific events this week in France tell us what we should already know– that we cannot delay any longer a forthright reckoning and confrontation with Islamic radicalism.

That will sound like common sense to most citizens, but to our political elites, it is a lesson they want desperately to avoid and evade.

The head of British counterintelligence on Friday warned of terrorist plans for widespread violent attacks across Europe, and there is no reason to believe the United States will be bypassed. It's long past time to get serious about combating Islamic radicalism – not in Iraq or Syria or Yemen, but in or own streets, schools, mosques, pulpits and prisons.

The enemy is not "terror," it is not shoe bombs or hijacked airplanes or suicide bombers. The enemy is radical Islam, which has declared war on all non-Muslim societies, faiths and religions.

Our leaders' unwillingness to name the enemy has led to not only wasted billions in Iraq and elsewhere but loss of tens of thousands of lives. If even leftist comedian Bill Maher can call out fellow liberals for failing to face up to this truth, why are so many Christian leaders silent?

It is becoming clearer every day that the cost of continuing this foolishness will be intolerable in the loss of lives and the loss of freedom. It must end, and it must end now. We must declare that we are at war with radical Islam and begin taking concrete steps based on that truth.

As the saying goes, everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts. The war with radical Islamism is a fact, and it's time we stopped listening to – and voting for – those who deny that fact.

It is true that not all Muslims are radical Islamists, but that is not an excuse for turning a blind eye to the truth that all jihadists are professed, practicing Muslims. That the jihadists do not represent all Muslims is irrelevant: jihadists are inspired by radical Islam, not Marx, not Adam Smith, not Buddha and not Scientology. Pretending otherwise is not an excess of political correctness, it is an excess of human stupidity and evidence of sheer mental incompetence – an incompetence that is as deadly as it is cowardly.

We have spent tens of billions hunting down and killing terrorist leaders with drones and other tools of high-tech warfare, while accepting and permitting the growth of the cancer of Shariah law in our own communities. That lunacy must end.

Yes, this is a new kind of war. Let's be honest about that, and let's also be honest that fighting a murderous religion will have many distasteful aspects, as all wars do. The firebombing of Dresden was not a pretty sight. In the Second World War, not all members of the Nazi Party or the German Army wanted to send all Jews to Auschwitz, but we did not administer a questionnaire to German soldiers to determine each individual's culpability before engaging them in battle.

It's time to recognize that preventing the planned mass murder of millions of non-Muslims in the name of Allah is a challenge that is not in the same ballpark as profiling and arresting a lone serial killer or gang of meth dealers. This new kind of war is a test of our desire to survive the growing jihadist assault, and necessarily, it is also test of our ability to survive as a constitutional republic.

Instead of thinking of this war as a series of encounters with armed militants in faraway deserts and free-fire zones, we need to see it first and foremost as a war of ideas. The heart of radical Islam's messianic agenda is Shariah law. That's why the war is already half lost in Europe, where Shariah law has already been quietly accepted as legitimate within the thousands of Muslim enclaves from London to Budapest, from Paris to Stockholm.

Here is the brute reality our politicians are avoiding. When any democratic nation accepts the right of avowed Muslims to live under Shariah law, interpreted and applied by mullahs and imams reading the Quran, they have accepted the first, foundational principle of the establishment of the Islamic Caliphate, and they are watering the seeds of civilization's destruction.

There are two concrete steps we need to take immediately. They are controversial, but they also are necessary.

First, we must stop all immigration of Muslims into the United States – yes, ALL Muslims – and then deport those already here who adhere to Shariah law. I know the "not all Muslims are terrorists" retort would be screamed from the roof tops, and indeed, I know many who are good citizens. The problem is that once large communities of Muslims spring up in the West, they provide breeding grounds for "homegrown terrorists" and safe havens for the same.

Shariah can be practiced in Muslim countries, but it is incompatible with the rule of law in any Western democracy.

The second thing that must be done immediately is to seal our borders against all illegal entry. Does anyone doubt that Islamist jihadists will use our open borders to infiltrate our communities?

Let's start there. Those two steps are only a beginning, but they will serve to define the problem and point us in the right direction.

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