Will the West Survive?

[Walter Williams, "Jewish World Review," 6/23/04]

The Muslim world is at war with Western civilization. We have the military
might to thwart them. The question is: Do we have the intelligence to
recognize the attack and the will to defend ourselves from annihilation?
Their intent is clear, but let's refresh our memories with a bit of history.

At the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, several athletes were massacred.
In 1979, the U.S. embassy in Tehran was taken over and 52 hostages held for
more than a year.
In 1983, U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut were blown up,
killing 241 U.S. soldiers.
In 1988, Pan Am flight 103 was bombed, killing
270 people.
In 1993, there was the first bombing of the World Trade Center
In 1998, U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed, resulting in more
than 200 dead and 4,000 injured.
In 2001, the World Trade Center was reduced to rubble, killing more than 3,000 Americans.
 

Who are the people responsible for these
and other wanton murders of innocents, including the recent barbaric
beheading of two innocent men? They were all Muslims.

You say, "Williams, you can't make an indictment of a whole people and their
religion!" I'm not, and let me clearly state: By no means are all Muslims
murderers. But on the other hand, I've never heard broad Muslim condemnation
of their fellow Muslims' murderous acts committed in the name of their god.

If anything, there has been jubilation and dancing in the streets in the
wake of Muslim attacks on Westerners. Contrast their response to the
widespread Western condemnation of the, mild by comparison, behavior of a
few coalition forces in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

Muslim atrocities, and the collective Muslim response to those atrocities,
might be better understood knowing their belief system as spelled out by a
few, among many, passages from the Quran: "Fight those who do not believe in
Allah" (Surat At-Taubah 9:29). "I will instill terror into the hearts of the
unbelievers, Smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger tips of
them" (Quran 8:12). "The unbelievers among the People of the Book and the
pagans shall burn forever in the fire of Hell. They are the vilest of all
creatures" (Quran 98:1-8). "Fight against those who believe not in Allah,
and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (Islam), until they are
subdued" (Surat At-Taubah 9:29).

Phil Lucas, editor of the Panama City, Fla., News Herald, in his April 4,
2004, editorial "Up Against Fanaticism," asks, "Can anybody name three
ongoing world conflicts in which Muslims are not involved?" Lucas says,
"They can't get along with their neighbors on much of the planet: France,
Chechnya, Bosnia, Indonesia, Spain, Morocco, India, Tunisia, Somalia, etc.,
etc., etc."

My colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell observes, "Those in the Islamic world have
for centuries been taught to regard themselves as far superior to the
'infidels' of the West, while everything they see with their own eyes now
tells them otherwise." He adds, "Nowhere have whole peoples seen their
situation reversed more visibly or more painfully than the peoples of the
Islamic world." Sowell adds that few people, once at the top of
civilization, accept their reversals of fortune gracefully. Moreover, they
don't blame themselves for their plight. For the Muslim world, it's the West
who's to blame.

History never repeats itself exactly, but we might benefit from the
knowledge of factors leading to the decline of past great civilizations.
Rome was one of those advanced civilizations. Rome was so caught up in
"bread and circuses" and moral decline that it couldn't manage to defend
itself from invading barbaric hordes who ultimately plunged Europe into the
Dark Ages. The sooner we recognize the West is in a war for survival, the
more likely we'll be able to escape the fate that befell the Roman Empire.

Note:

- and when our loved ones are blown to pieces on our soil, some of us will still condemn our President in our effort to prove that he really, really isn't Christian because he passed out a couple of metals to a Catholic and a Mormon. You Christians who are Democrats but can't get yourself to vote for a Republican and so are looking for an 'alternative', you are not unique. In 1990 I was an active supporter of Ross Perot. My co-workers in that campaign were Democrats who were not impressed with Clinton and disenchanted Republicans scared of Bush Sr.'s use of the phrase 'new world order'. So, instead of a mild-mannered globalist who, at least, managed to keep Islamofacisim at bay, we got a degenerate psychopath who bombed empty factories, sent Elian back to Cuba, and shamed the Office of the President because 'he could'. This election has little to do with fear but much to do with deception.

 - Marie Komar