On the Third Hand…

The Islamic States of America?

The hardest thing for Westerners to understand is not that a war with militant Islam is underway but that the nature of the enemy’s ultimate goal. That goal is to apply the Islamic law (the Shari‘a) globally. In U.S. terms, it intends to replace the Constitution with the Qur’an.

This aspiration is so remote and far-fetched to many non-Muslims, it elicits more guffaws than apprehension. Of course, that used to be the same reaction in Europe, and now it’s become widely accepted that, in Bernard Lewis’ words, “Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century.”

Because of the American skepticism about Islamist goals, I postponed publishing an article on this subject until immediately after 9/11, when I expected receptivity to the subject would be greater (it was published in November 2001as “The Danger Within: Militant Islam in America”). I argued there that
The Muslim population in this country is not like any other group, for it includes within it a substantial body of people—many times more numerous than the agents of Osama bin Ladin—who share with the suicide hijackers a hatred of the United States and the desire, ultimately, to transform it into a nation living under the strictures of militant Islam.
The receptivity indeed was greater, but still the idea of an Islamist takeover remains unrecognized in establishment circles – the U.S. government, the old media, the universities, the mainline churches.

Therefore, reading “A rare look at secretive Brotherhood in America,” [use bugmenot.com if you don't have an account — kk] in the Chicago Tribune on Sept. 19 caused me to startle. It’s a long analysis that draws on an exclusive interview with Ahmed Elkadi, the Muslim Brotherhood leader in the United States during 1984-94, plus other interviews and documentation. In it, the authors (Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Sam Roe, and Laurie Cohen) warily but emphatically acknowledge the Islamists’ goal of turning the United States into an Islamic state.

I’ve been saying for some time that there are two strains of Islamists, the ones we are fighting and the “moderate Islamists”. The moderates don’t want to use violence (yet), they want to take us over by converting people to Islam, immigrating, and outbreeding us. They may succeed within a generation in doing that in parts of Europe. They are already beginning to sneak their agenda into Canada, which is now allowing Shariah courts.

It is partly because of this group that I oppose vouchers for religious schools. It’s also because of this group that I vehemently oppose abstinence-only sex education. These people marry off their girls very young. We need to give them any and all information about birth control that they can get. The religious right undermines our battle against these “moderate” Islamists as much as the anti-American left undermines our battle against the terrorist strain. (I’m talking about the extremes on both sides here, not the general liberal/conservative/centrist groups.)

At any rate, read the articles, and think about them. The “moderate Islamists” may not be as much of an immediate threat as the jihadis but they are a threat.