A Critical Analysis of 'Real Islam'. Its People ... - Bukti dan Saksi

hate are currently winning decisively. In fact the war of ideas occurring within Islamic cultures has
already been won in the most populous Islamic lands, and cleaning up loose ends like Nobel laureate
Shirin Ebadi will take place in due time. State-appointed clerics throughout the Middle East are preaching
to the faithful that it is their "duty" to murder Jews, because Jews are "rejected" by God, who turned them
into "monkeys and pigs". There is no hope for people like Ebadi re-creating Islam or convincing large
numbers to divorce itself from dependencies on violence and Jihad. Their scripture is considered final and
immutable, but if it were edited to remove sections supporting or calling for violent or forceful methods
of conversion and conquest, there would be little left. In large parts of the world Ebadi represents more a
fringe minority than a majority, and she and others so inclined continue to face mortal danger for such
heretic views which are indeed in opposition to true Islam and the example of their esteemed prophet.
While perhaps most Muslims here are peace-loving people wanting to "live together in peace and
harmony" with those of other beliefs, the question that must be answered is: Are these Muslims for peace
because of Islam or in spite of Islam? The fact will remain that Muslims are saddled with a system that
has a spiritual force behind it, with violence firmly planted as a systemic root. In the end it is inescapable
that to be a Muslim is to be aligned with the same spirit that choked and influenced Muhammad in the
cave, that caused Muhammad to wage war and massacre those who rejected him, and that caused
Muhammad to teach his followers that it is an unalterable eternal imperative to continue to do the same.
To truly reject militant Islam is to reject Muhammad and much of what he taught, and such a choice
offers only mortal peril to Muslims so inclined.
Most people think that the ‘War on Terror’ began Sept 11 th , and as far as our active participation in
the conflict they are partially right, but in the larger view such thinking is naïve. 1979 is when the shah of
Iran fell, and the Saudi royal family, out of greed and fear, capitulated to pressures and started financing
the worldwide expansion of militant Wahhabi Islam. These two key events represent the foundation and
beginning of the current Jihadic movement launched against the West by militant Islam. Not long
afterwards, Islam fired the first volley to initiate a new campaign against the West in Lebanon, which is in
reality just the latest in its ongoing multi-millennial campaigns to spread its ideas through the sword of
Jihad.
Lebanon was once the most progressive, free, and most democratic state in the Arab world, but
quickly thereafter fell into civil war, with conflicts arising out of ideological differences, pushed from
behind by newly empowered Islamists inspired by Wahhabi preaching and funding from Syria and Iran.
In Syrian-occupied Lebanon, Hezbollah Islamists were battling moderate Arab Muslims, Arab Christians,
and internationalists who had once found Lebanon to be a safe and congenial place. Unfortunately, if not
predictably, the Hezbollah Shiite terrorist group had no interest in compromise or peace. Hezbollah was
determined and eventually successful in seizing control of Lebanon and subjugating all local Arabs who
opposed them. When challenged they drove the Americans out in a brutal attack on marines asleep in
their barracks, massacring 241 of them. As we collected our dead and went home, none realized how that
retreat would embolden the terrorists. But Islamic terrorists everywhere remember it well, and still
celebrate it as a great first victory for their side against America and proof that their God is behind them.
Our retreat reaffirmed their faith and reassured them that eventual victory is assured even against the
better-equipped American military. Their belief that America is a paper tiger was reinforced again and
again in subsequent years, most dramatically in Somalia.
Still most Americans did not then connect the dots, failing to grasp the fact that we were already in a
low-grade war; until al Qaeda Sunni copycat terrorists mounted its attack on September 11. Afterwards,
most of us understood that war was indeed upon us, but many still struggle to connect all the dots, failing
to recognize the source of the true threat and the more recent origins of the current Jihad declared against
us. Fewer still understand how our own missteps of the past have encouraged and animated terrorists
worldwide. We have tended to focus exclusively on the threat from al Qaeda and its offshoots, forgetting
Hezbollah altogether or seeing it only as a menace only to Israel. In Afghanistan, we deposed al Qaeda
and its Taliban allies, scattering terrorist forces. But meanwhile, the terrorists who ruined Lebanon,
murdered our sons, and drove us out still strut about free and unafraid, ruling openly. Hezbollah has big,
secure bases in Lebanon and Syria, is hurting our efforts to stabilize Iraq, and is expanding its global
reach to places like the tri-border region of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. It is a much larger and more