April 21, 2006

Islamist Watch: New Organization Works to Protect the U.S. from the Cancer of Radical Islam

Daniel Pipes has started a new organization, "Islamist Watch:"

Summary: Islamist Watch combats the ideas and institutions of nonviolent, radical Islam in the United States and other Western countries. It exposes the far-reaching goals of Islamists, works to reduce their power, and seeks to strengthen moderate Muslims.

Introduction: The Threat of Lawful Islamism

Islamists ultimately seek hegemonic control via a worldwide caliphate that applies the Islamic law in full. Afghanistan under the Taliban offers one model of what they would establish globally.

Terrorism is one method to advance these projects but it is not the only one. Indeed, the activities of nonviolent Islamists arguably will prove a more effective tactic in the long term. For while the public intuitively understands the threat of terrorism and is mobilized by it, and while states have well-developed institutions (law enforcement, intelligence agencies, the military, the justice system) to protect and fight against it, the activities of nonviolent extremists are not alarming and institutions do not exist to deal with this problem. And how can terrorists impose their will on whole societies?

The Progress of Lawful Islamism

Quietly, lawfully, peacefully, Islamists do their work throughout the West to impose aspects of Islamic law, win special privileges for themselves, shut down criticism of Islam, create Muslim-only zones, and deprive women and non-Muslims of their full civil rights.

Lawful Islamists advance their cause through lobbying politicians, intimidating the media, threatening international boycotts, making predatory use of the legal system, advancing novel legislation, influencing the contents of school textbooks, and in other ways exploiting the freedoms of an open society. They advance their agenda in incremental steps, each of which in itself is minor but in the aggregate point to fundamental changes in society.

Pipes' new organization is taking the lead in the work of protecting the U.S. Constitution and way of life, from the strategy of immigration without assimilation, that radical Islam has used so effectively to put so much of Europe into grave danger. For more on this, see my article earlier this week, "More Dangerous than Terrorism: Immigration without Assimilation."

How Can it Possibly Be Argued that The Iraq War is Taking Too Long?

Many are once again talking about Iraq as a quagmire that's taking us too long to get out of. I just don't get it. We're changing a nation from a dictatorship to a democracy in a part of the world that has no experience in democracy. It's only been a few years. How can it possibly be argued that it's taking longer than it ought to?

Many are saying that the cost in lives of American soldiers is too high. But the number of lives lost is historically low for a war. 58,226 American soldiers died in Vietnam,  versus 2,400 so far in Iraq. Our soldiers are heroes for risking their lives, and we should be proud that such a historically low percentage of them have given their lives to protect America.

For a historic, world-changing event such as this to happen in a few years, with such a historically low number of troops lost, is unprecedented.