Northern Valley Beacon

When Islamic terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania taking 3,000 innocent American lives, they chanted "praise be to god." When they lopped off the head of an American worker in Iraq with a sword, they shouted "god is good." When one Muslim faction disagrees with another, it does not repair to a mosque for a theological debate; it simply machine guns them down--praising Allah while doing so.

Islamic terrorists celebrate a god with an uncontrollable bloodlust, a god who terms--in their minds--anyone of a different faith and world view an infidel that must be killed, a god that requires repression and cruel extermination, a god that rejoices in unimaginable cruelty, vicious destruction, and insane hatred. That god's emissaries are setting the agenda of people on earth.

When the cartoonists for a Danish newspaper drew images of that god's prophet in the form that the Islamic terrorists project into the world, the Muslim nation went into a rage. Other newspapers in Europe reprinted the cartoons. In one of those supreme demonstrations of reason and logic, the offended burned the embassies of the countries in which a free press was exercising its freedom of expression. The cartoons were not the official position of the countries' leaders. But the Muslim nation has expressed its preference for theocratic totalitarianism and expects the countries to expiate themselves with repressions and punishments against their press and their people.

Islam is an ideological vector for a disease whose major symptom is unbridled hatred and mindless killing. Not all Islam is. But we have not noticed anything but feeble assertions of tolerance and humane behavior from those who claim to be of more peacable beliefs.

When the practice of religion is expressed through genocide and mass slaughter, freedom of religion and religioius tolerance become absurdities. Does freedom of religion and religious tolerance mean that we must respect a god that stands for the demented destruction of people that makes Hitler's Holocaust look like a pink tea party? If so, the gross intellectual and moral failure that pervades Islam has spread to the West. We mount huge campaigns and alerts against the looming pandemic of bird flu, but are fearful of being accused of bigotry and intolerance when we acknowledge the mental and spiritual illness that has already killed hundreds and thousands of innocents.

We note that it was journalists, not countries, who have portrayed the realities of Islamic terrorists. We also note that there are some people, among whom are some who have been kidnapped and held hostage by Islamic militants, who say there is no rational and diplomatic way to deal with the rampaging hatred and bloodlust that confronts us. They also say that the Islamic militants should be given their due: we should be told exactly what they are and what they intend.

And they say that the West would be foolish not to remount its nuclear defense and attack system. They suggest, not ironically in the least, that once again our survival may depend upon whether we have the fastest and the biggest nukes capable of destroying our enemies before they destroy us.

This is not a pleasant prospect. But the question of mollifying the embassy burners and making nice to those who cannot tolerate freedom of thought and expression can lead to a massive betrayal of a free people. Intellectually and morally what is taking place in the world is pure dementia. We fought against it in World War II. Maybe we should start treating Islamic militance like we do the bird flu.

Maybe we should get refocused on the war on terror. And maybe we should start dealing with the truth. As bleak as it is.