RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Obama administration calls its national security strategy “Countering Violent Extremism.” In the benighted times before January 20, 2009, we used to call it counter-terrorism.

Why does Obama insist on the more fuzzy “extremism”? Because “terror” has its roots in Islamic scripture. This fact ought to be undeniable, but Obama denies it — and in Washington, he’s far from alone in that.

It is not just that the word terror appears several times in the Koran; it is that the word appears in a particular context: The duty of Muslims to act as Allah’s instrument to terrorize non-Muslims is a recurring scriptural theme. In Sura 3:151, to take one of several examples, Muslims are admonished:

Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the unbelievers.

Omar Abdel Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh” I prosecuted in the mid-’90s after his cell bombed the World Trade Center and planned similar strikes against other New York City landmarks, was a renowned scholar of Islamic jurisprudence. Indeed — and this is worth pausing over — his mastery of our enemy’s ideology was the sole source of his authority to approve jihadist attacks. Think about that: his blindness, and various other maladies, render Abdel Rahman unable to do anything useful for a terrorist network. He can’t build bombs, command forces on the battlefield, execute assassinations, and so on. But his authority is unquestioned because of his scholarship and rhetorical power in the scripture-based doctrine our president pretends is non-Islamic and of marginal importance.

Sheikh Abdel Rahman was adamant that terror is fundamental to Islamic doctrine:

Why do we fear the word terrorist? If the terrorist is the person who defends his right, so we are terrorists. And if the terrorist is the one who struggles for the sake of God, then we are terrorists. We … have been ordered with terrorism because we must prepare what power we can to terrorize the enemy of Allah and your enemy. The Koran [said] “to strike terror.” Therefore, we don’t fear to be described with “terrorism.” … They may say, “He is a terrorist, he uses violence, he uses force.” Let them say that. We are ordered to prepare whatever we can of power to terrorize the enemies of Islam.

On December 2, 2015, two Muslim terrorists massacred fourteen Americans at a Christmas party in San Bernardino, California. On December 6, President Obama delivered an Oval Office address. In it, he said, “We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam … It is the responsibility of all Americans to reject discrimination.” Many listeners were disappointed that Obama focused so much passion on lecturing Americans.

Media reported that hostility against Muslims increased after the San Bernardino attack. Public figures including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, filmmaker Michael Moore, and Wheaton college professor Larycia Hawkins insisted that Muslims must be protected against the bigotry, stereotyping, and violence of non-Muslim Americans.

President Obama, Zuckerberg, Moore, and Hawkins are acting on their own bigotry. In hostility and ignorance, they stereotype all Americans (except Muslims, of course) as an inherently ignorant lynch mob. That’s not who we Americans are. If Americans had been hearing from their leaders what they need to hear – a passionate defense of Western Civilization and a ringing condemnation of jihad – average Americans would not feel that they themselves must take on both rhetorical tasks. Americans, as YouTube curmudgeon Pat Condell pointed out, are trying to fill a leadership vacuum and to speak and hear unspoken truths.

It is a demonstrable historical fact that Americans have traditionally not held hatred toward or stereotypes of Muslims. A hundred years ago, if Americans thought of Muslims at all, they associated Muslims with romance. Maud Hull’s 1919 softcore novel The Sheik was a blockbuster bestseller. Superstar Rudolph Valentino made two Sheik films, in 1921 and 1926. They were record-breaking international hits.

It is primarily terrorists and Islam-apologists, people like Obama, Zuckerberg, Moore and Hawkins, who are in fact responsible for the current tension. Politically Correct speech codes suppress and demonize necessary conversations about Islam. Priests and rabbis, presidents and judges, journalists and college professors – the very people whose job it is to wield words to address matters of public import – are complicit. These cultural leaders are all covering their own posteriors, timidly mincing words so that no stray syllable can be used against them. Americans are frustrated and outraged at this absence of frank speech.