According to the Islamists, Islam is not a peaceful religion.

Submitted by Wallace Edward Brand (United States), May 29, 2007 at 22:42

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
ISLAM IS NOT A RELIGION OF PACIFISTS (1942)

Islam's jihad is a struggle against idolatry, sexual deviation, plunder, repression and cruelty. The war waged by [non-Islamic] conquerors, however, aims at promoting lust and animal pleasures. They care not if whole countries are wiped out and many families left homeless. But those who study jihad will understand why Islam wants to conquer the whole world. All the countries conquered by Islam or to be conquered in the future will be marked for everlasting salvation. For they shall live under [God's Law] . . . .

Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those [who say this] are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! Does this mean that Muslims should sit back untill they are devoured by [the unbelievers]? Islam says: Kill them [the non-Muslims], put them to the sword and scatter [their armies]. Does this mean sitting back until [non Muslims] overcome us? Islam says: Kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you! Does this mean that we should surrender to [the enemy]? Islam says: Whatever good there is exists that to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to paradise, which can be opened only for holy warriors!

There are hundreds of other [Koranic] psalms and hadiths [sayings of the prophet] urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.

Quoted in Bostom, " The Legacy of Jihad and the Fate of the Non-Muslims" Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY 2005

Note: This statement was made before the US invaded Iraq for the second time, or the first time. It was made before the US, at the request of the government of Saudi Arabia stationed US troops in Saudi Arabia to defend it against Saddam Hussein. It was made before the ouster of Mohammed Mossadegh as Prime Minister of Iran in 1953. It was made before the Declaration of the State of Israel of its independence in 1948. Therefore, one must ask, what is it that the US did, which was responsible for Khomeini's statement? Fight against the Barbary Pirates?

What about now? As Gary Sick has said: "Ahamdinejad sees himself as emulating his great mentor Khomeini."

This was not a new concept:

Tripoli's ambassador, Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja 1786

In 1786, Thomas Jefferson, then ambassador to France, and John Adams, then ambassador to Britain, met in London with Tripoli's ambassador, Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja. Jefferson and Adams asked by what right the Barbary States preyed upon American shipping, enslaving crews and passengers.

Adja replied that the actions of the Islamic nations were "… founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every [Muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise."

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