RUTHFULLY YOURS

“Are we going to win this war?”

That critical question was asked by someone from the audience at a panel discussion called “The Sharia Challenge in the West,” I attended two weeks ago at the three-day CPAC 2011 (Conservative Political Action Conference). The panel of experts included former CIA Director James Woolsey; former US Attorney Andrew McCarthy who successfully prosecuted the first World Trade Center bombers in 1993; Clifford May – president of the Foundation For the Defense of Democracies; and Ayaan Hirsi Ali – one of the most courageous people alive.

“Are we going to win this war?”

None of the panelists answered with an emphatic “Yes” and that depressed me, even if it didn’t surprise me. Each indicated we could win, but whether we will or not depends on how much Americans want to win. That, unfortunately, is still an open question.

Panelist Ayaan Hirsi Ali has the most to lose if we don’t win because she’s already marked for death by our enemy. She wrote the script for “Submission,” a movie directed by Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker and grand-nephew of the famous Dutch painter. “Submission” criticized Islam for sanctioning abuse of women. Both Hirsi Ali and Van Gogh were threatened with death if they released it, but they did so anyway.

Shortly after, in broad daylight on the streets of Amsterdam, a Muslim immigrant shot Van Gogh eight times, cut his throat, and pinned a note to his torso with a dagger, saying Hirsi Ali was next. Ever since, she’s been under armed guard 24-7-365. Even though she was an elected member of Dutch Parliament, her government has balked about paying to defend her. She moved to the United States and accepted a fellowship with the American Enterprise Institute. Her security is now paid for privately.

“Are we going to win this war?”

The question lingered in the air. Hirsi Ali said the way to win is to “offer an alternative vision,” and I couldn’t agree more strongly. Western Civilization is itself an alternative vision, but our universities and our media are dominated by liberals who blame it for the world’s ills. American colleges and universities are eliminating western civilization courses. And, The Muslim Brotherhood’s goal is to “bring down western civilization from within,” (If you hit this link, scroll down for the English translation). The American left (including many in the Obama Administration) supports the Muslim Brotherhood and its offspring, Hamas. Ramsay Clark, Bill Ayers, Code Pink, and A.N.S.W.E.R. tried to bring aid to Hamas by breaking the Israeli blockade of Gaza last year. The American Left abhors Western Civilization and cooperates with the Muslim Brotherhood to bring it down.

“The way you fight this thing is to expose it,” said panelist Andrew McCarthy. Trouble is, leftists dominating our universities shout down speakers who try to expose it. Sharia is Islamic law. Under it, women cannot go out in public unless accompanied by a male relative. Thieves get their hands cut off. Adulterers and homosexuals are stoned to death. If you reject Islam, you’re killed. A woman’s testimony in legal issues is worth half that of a man.

The slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood is:

Allah is our objective.
The Prophet is our leader.
Quran [Sharia] is our law.
Jihad [holy war] is our way.
Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.

Our enemies are anxious to die for their cause. Millions are brainwashed from birth as was Ayaan Hirsi Ali growing up in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. She said: “Their paradigm is a paradigm of death. That is their core vulnerability. It is a core of death. You defeat it by pushing a core of life.”

She’s right of course. We need a massive propaganda campaign to expose Sharia Law and the theist totalitarianism of radical Islam for the dark-age depravity it is. We must contrast our enemy’s vision with the values of our constitutional democracy embodied in The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution with its Bill of Rights.

“We’ve inhibited ourselves,” said Hirsi Ali. “We’re not speaking out enough,” because too many of us have been indoctrinated with multicultural political correctness. “If they defeat us,” she added, “it’s because of our lack of confidence.”

Right again. As our leftist media and our leftist universities continue their indoctrination, fewer and fewer Americans understand that our republic is the summit of civilization. Many won’t ever realize that unless we lose it. Then they’ll find out the hard way, but the rest of us need to witness confidently while there’s still time. We need a president who will celebrate Western Civilization, not apologize for it, who will call our enemy by its names: Radical Islam, Sharia, and jihad. We need a president who will champion American exceptionalism, who will foster patriotism in every American and proclaim the United States as the greatest country in the history of the world – because it is.

European leaders including Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy, and the UK’s David Cameron are finally declaring that leftist moonbat multiculturalism is a total failure. As columnist Pat Buchanan puts it: “Only in Canada and the U.S., it seems, is the issue still in dispute.” CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) will, no doubt, scream “Islamophobia!” But, as panelist James Woolsey put it: “If you’re opposed to the beating of women and the killing of apostates, you are not an Islamophobe.”

Please ponder this: How can we expect to defeat our enemy if we’re unwilling even to offend him?