10 years later, the Islamist threat remains.
Yet the tactics have changed. Rather than planes, Islamists use mosques as nerve centers for resistance. Rather than terrorists, Islamists use imams and lawyers to drive the point home. Rather than bombs, Islamists use deceit and deception to say one thing while the realities on the ground are far different.
Take for instance Imam Feisal Rauf, the presumed leader of the Islamist faction in the United States. At a March 2011 panel at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. it was Rauf who opened up a direct attack on America's foundational constitutional protections and rights. Rather than allowing Islam to be engaged in the public square critically, Rauf considers any criticism of Islam as "libel" ‐‐ a hate crime.
When I watched this in the audience, I sat there outraged.
I could see the writing on the wall.
Now we know the brazen truth. Rauf opened the Islamist playbook and removed any doubts about the true nature of the Islamist agenda. In short, while keeping up an ecumenical front, Rauf and other Islamists intend to openly use American laws to crush dissent, demanding our laws silence any criticism, concerns, or questions about the Islamist threat.
The list doesn't stop there. The so‐called Cordoba Mosque at Ground Zero? Keep in mind that the Moors, when they conquered Cordoba in the 7th century, converted the Christian cathedral into an Islamic "victory" mosque. For Islamists to spike the football in New York City at Ground Zero with a victory mosque of their own is outrageous enough.
But to be condemned as inciting "hate crimes" by questioning the prudence of such a move? Westerners may consider this to be offensive. Islamists have another term for such a struggle: jihad.
This jihad is being waged on multiple fronts, whether it is in chicken processing plants in Tennessee or in "no go" zones in Dearborn, Michigan. This jihad is cultural, legal, spiritual, and as we saw 10 years ago on September 11th, 2001 ‐‐ manifests itself in violence.
America is not the first nation to be confronted with the Islamist threat. Ironically, it was Thomas Jefferson who inaugurated the first pre‐emptive war against Islamist terror, then in the form of the Barbary Pirates. "Millions for defense, but not one penny for tribute" was our battle cry then. With a firm reliance upon God, we should be willing to meet the forces of Islamist terror fearlessly, and without shame.
