Thursday, May 23, 2013

Islam In Europe


Gary L. Bauer

American Values

Peaceful, tolerant, socialist Sweden has been stunned by four nights of rioting in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods of Stockholm. One police spokesman said, "We have never had this kind of riots before in Stockholm, not this amount of riots and not this number of hot areas."

According to a BBC report, mobs of youth are starting fires, burning cars or shops, and then waiting "for emergency services to attend a fire before attacking them." That is a tactic commonly used by Palestinian jihadists.

We reported yesterday about the incredibly barbaric attack by two British-born Muslims who decapitated a British soldier at a base near London. They stayed at the scene for a considerable period of time while horrified onlookers listened to them spout the rhetoric of jihad.

Of course, following the predictable pattern, the British government and various news outlets were hesitant to describe this as Islamic terrorism "until there has been a full investigation."

But outraged Brits took to the streets chanting, "Enough is enough!" There were what appeared to be a few retaliatory incidents at several mosques. One mosque leader condemned the beheading, saying, "It was an appalling act of terror -- but it wasn't Islamic in any way. I wish it wasn't described like that."

This is the pattern we have seen time and again throughout the Western world. After every atrocity -- 9/11, the Fort Hood shooting, the London subway bombings, the Bali bombing, the Beslan school attack and a long litany of attacks in Israel -- we are told it had nothing to do with Islam. But go through the list of names of the murderous thugs who committed these atrocities and you will not find a Presbyterian among them.

Western governments and Muslim leaders are lecturing the wrong audience when they chant this almost magical incantation, "It had nothing to do with Islam," to those of us who are witnessing all of this horror. If it has nothing to do with Islam then there must be a lot of confused Muslims, because they almost always make sure to tell us it had everything to do with Islam.

Witnesses to yesterday's London beheading said the murderers shouted, "Allahu Akbar" -- "Allah is greatest." They stated, "We want to start a war in London tonight." Like the Tsarnaev brothers, they claimed the attack was in revenge for the war in Afghanistan, saying, "I killed [the soldier] because he killed Muslims and I am fed up with people killing Muslims in Afghanistan." (By the way, no one in the world -- not America, not England, not Israel nor any other Western nation -- kills Muslims more than other Muslims.)

One of the attackers even threated to kill children, saying, "You think [Prime Minister] David Cameron is going to get caught in the street when we start busting our guns? ...No, it's going to be the average guy, like you, and your children."

Let me say the required politically correct statement: Not every Muslim is a terrorist, nor was every German a Nazi. But it is true that virtually every terrorist who attacks the West is a Muslim.


"Swearing In The Enemy"

Ayaan Hirsi Ali experienced Sharia law firsthand while growing up in Muslim communities in Africa. She took refuge in the Netherlands, where she worked to expose Sharia's barbaric treatment of women. But radical Islamists there forced her to flee to America. She gained her citizenship last month and wrote a stirring column about her revulsion at the news that the Boston Marathon bombers were naturalized citizens like her.

Ali noted that data from a 2011 Pew survey suggests that "more than 180,000 American Muslims regard suicide bombings as being justified in some way." Meanwhile the political elites in Washington are engaged in a debate over immigration reform that appears to do nothing to make sure we do not allow in more people like the Tsarnaev brothers.

Ali wrote that the process of becoming a citizen was entirely bureaucratic. Never once was anything done to determine whether she or any of the other 1,834 people naturalized during her ceremony had the appropriate love for and knowledge of what America stands for to justify citizenship. She added, "I believe that we are entitled to filter out would-be citizens who are ideologically and morally opposed to the U.S. and pose a threat to its population."

How come it takes a naturalized American citizen, who grew up in Islamic countries and saw firsthand the horrors of Sharia law, to promote this commonsense idea?