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War Has Been DeclaredReader comment on item: Ban the Burqa - and the Niqab Too Submitted by Geno M. (United States), Aug 27, 2007 at 18:14 Recently, I had occasion to visit Canada. Walking the downtown streets of Montreal I noticed many more hijab-clad women then I'd remembered from times past. In cities across the West the phenomenon is repeated over and again. Particularly in the USA, highly visible elements of Islamic culture are becoming more evident on a daily basis. On a related subject, it is no longer seriously debatable that countries supporting large Muslim populations cosegregate with more frequent incidents of Islamic terror. Coincidentally, I just finished reading The Four Faces of Nuclear Terror by Potter, Ferguson, and Spector. If a person harbored unease about the potential for Islamic nuclear attack beforehand, this book will surely render them "terror-stricken" ever-after. The take home message from this book is that, presuming the Islamic terrorists can obtain an appropriate quantity of HEU, it is just a matter of time before the unthinkable becomes inevitable. Such a cataclysmic outcome will surely render 9/11 a pale historical footnote by comparison. Strikingly, many predict that an Islamic nuclear attack against an American city is most likely to be undertaken, in large part, by sleeper cells populated by Muslims living right here in the United States. This brings up a relevant analysis. In the literature, September 11th is often compared to Pearl Harbor. Yet, for my part, I find the contrasts more illuminating than the similarities. After the Japanese attack on December 7th, America had no qualms about taking internal security-based measures to protect itself on December 8th. This included humanely isolating those persons of Japanese extraction until the end of the war. Most Japanese-Americans living in this country just prior to WWII probably had no intention of causing harm to the United States. But at the time, common sense dictated that it was dangerous and foolhardy to let those who might share an ideological affinity with our enemies roam freely among us. Unfortunately, iron-fisted pragmatism has been supplanted by limp-wristed, politically correct paralysis. Somehow we've forgotten that violent ideological words usually lead to violent ideological actions. Thus it is that in Great Britain, France and even in the United States, we have allowed our enemies to preach openly about their hatred of our most cherished Western ideals, indoctrinating numerous adherents in the process. That they do so in our midst, safely coocooned within Wahabi-esque madrasas built by Saudi funds and subsidized by State sponsored tax credits is, arguably, the most profound obscenity of all. Yet, we keep shaking our heads in stunned disbelief when homegrown terrorists repeatedly punch our eyes out. And, even more naively, we continue trying to placate an increasingly hostile and aggressive Muslim Uuma. With the charred remains of the 9/11 dead still swirling in the air, the president of our great country timidly removes his shoes as he enters the mosque and solemly declares that the United States has no quarrel with Islam. What pretty nonsense! How much more evidence is needed for us to grasp the fact that Islam most definitely has a quarrel with us. For whatever reason, it seems nearly impossible for us to comprehend that these people just don't like us. They certainly don't respect us, and a fair number of them mean to exterminate us. But despite all, politically correct sycophants that we've become, we keep right on trying to make friends with those for whom our extermination constitutes their holy redemption! The way I see it, trying to find friends within 21st Century Islam is like reaching your hand into the basket and trying to pick the least venomous cobra to shake hands. Maybe you'll get bitten. Maybe you won't. But perhaps, rather than getting envenomated time and again, we'd do well to pull our hand out of the Islamic basket entirely, and as quickly as possible. And maybe we shouldn't stupidly let the cobras slither out of the basket and burrow into our homeland waiting to strike a deadly blow when the time suits them. WHAT THEN SHOULD WE DO? A critical, but maddeningly absent, step in the analysis of how to deal with Islam and Islamists is our myopic failure so far to secure our country from within. Since, unfortunately, we can't just gaze into an Islamic person's eyes to see who among them harbors a patholgical hatred against us, we ought to at least consider a more pragmatic approach other than waving them all into the country and hoping that they mean us no harm. Just as during WWII, there are steps we can and should implement if we intend to protect ourselves against our sworn enemies. First, I believe we must immediately cease all but the most urgent cases of immigration. "Sorry folks, until further notice the open door to the U.S. is now closed." Simultaneously, we'd do well to reaquire meaningful control of our borders. We should think of this as a time of war. Because this is a time of war. In a far less technological age than today our country managed to put a man on the moon. I'm reasonably confident that, with the proper motivation, we could also manage the task of securing our international borders. Next, as much as possible, we'd better devote serious energy to identifying every single Muslim living, working, and potentially plotting, in the USA. Given the computing power available, this need not be a rate-limiting step. We have to know who they are. We have to know where they are. And we have to assess the threat level they pose. Ultimately, we will have to consider whether or not it is worth the risk of allowing those who practice the Muslim faith to walk freely among us. I think we would do well to err on the side of utmost caution. Perhaps these nice Islamic folks should be given the perrogative to relocate to a Muslim country of their choice or, if they prefer, to remain safely and comfortably within our borders, but isolated in a place of containment where they can do us no physical harm. I comprehend that these measures are neither pleasant nor optimal. But they're also much less scary than the alternative of letting untold thousands of potential terrorists run roughshod in our streets. Undoubtedly, such an approach will trigger vitriole-laced threats from Iran and elsewhere in the Uuma. In my view, this is not a problem. To the Islamic nations of the world we should convey the message that, while it is certainly not our intention to go to war against them, neither is it our intention to let our Western secular society be eroded from within. For some reason we seem to have found tolerance in allowing these Islamic monsters to declitorize young girls, stone adulterers, and publically flog those who do not conform to their 12th Century dress code. We worry a bit too much, I think, about what their opinion is of us. Lest we forget, it is from the Koran that these people derive their inspiration. Those who follow the practices most "religiously" are those who are likeliest to find themselves in violent opposition to secular Western society. Neither should we lose sight of the fact that it is solely because of Islamic terror that we can no longer board a commercial jetliner without being subjected to invasive and demoralizing interrogation. It is solely because of Islamic terror that we must hesitate before building a new skyscraper in an American city. It is solely because of Islamic terror that we are compelled to live in quaking dread for our future and the future of our children. At some point it will be time to stand up and say enough is enough. I suggest that maybe the time is now, before they unleash an Islamist nuclear nightmare, not after. Ultimately, I believe the United States can and should cooperate with whomever in the outside Islamic world demonstrably supports our overarching agenda; i.e. basic security, basic freedom,and basic human rights. But until and unless these assurances come to pass, we should focus our resources on shoring up our own country and those of like-minded Western democratic nations, not in appeasing those like the Saudis who extend one hand in friendship while stabbing us in the back with the other. Perhaps times may change, but in 2007, the evidence overwhelmingly shows that Islam constitutes a profoundly dangerous threat to the interests and well-being of secular Western society. I fully acknowledge that my ideas are xenophobic. But as a wise person once said, "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you". I believe we've had at least forty years worth of empirical evidence that many of the Islamic persuasion are "out to get us". Submitting....
Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". << Previous Comment Next Comment >> Reader comments (342) on this item
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