Islamic mass casualty attacks have been all the rage among the Islamic barbarians. Unfortunately, the current administration has allowed the Jihadi idea to metastasize so that now, instead of taking the fight to the enemy, the enemy is bringing the fight to our homes. This article will examine the implications of the current wave of Islamic attacks and contemplate the possibility that this is a world wide clash of civilizations, requiring a systematic and unrestrained unconventional military response.
When it comes to the prevention of mass casualty attacks, it is very difficult to discuss successful prevention methods, since by definition a successful prevention would not be widely publicized and the projection of what would have been would be impossible to know. However, the presence of police forces in proximity to the event, as well as the presence of firearms in the hands of law abiding citizens, could limit the impact of any potential attacker. Let’s look at three examples. The first is a mass shooting at the Appalachian School of Law in Virginia that was cut short by two legally armed students. On February 12, 2007, a mass shooting event at a Utah shopping center was stopped by an off-duty police officer with a firearm. On December 17, 2012, a mass shooting at a San Antonio, Texas movie theater was prevented by a police officer before the shooter could harm anyone in the theater. While these were not Islamic inspired attacks, the successful civilian response can be instructive. Further, the civilian populace needs to be mentally prepared to resist mass attackers, as was the Christian youth minister Todd Beamer on Flight 93.
There are currently numerous Constitutional restraints to government when attempting to prevent mass casualty attacks. In fact, the entire Constitution is designed as a limitation on government. Some specific provisions stand out as particularly onerous, when one is attempting to design a preventative government system targeting potential attackers. For example, the “right to privacy” stands in the way of preventative surveillance in many cases. While the right to privacy is not explicitly stated in the U.S. Constitution, it is explicitly guaranteed in some state constitutions, and case law has firmly ensconced this right in the minds of the general public. Some have argued that privacy is impossible, given the current state of technology.
The perpetrators of recent mass casualty attacks are generally perpetrated by Islamic Jihadists. The First Amendment’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion, freedom of speech and of the press, as well as the right to assemble all pose substantial barriers to preventing mass attacks by Islamic Jihadis. For example, the collection of these rights would seem to allow for a imam gathering together his forces in a mosque, preaching that Allah would reward suicide attackers, distributing firearms to his followers, and publishing how-to manuals on inflicting mass casualties. Each of these actions has a Constitutional protection associated with it, yet taken together, these acts serve as a loud warning that mass casualty attacks are going to take place.
Understanding the American Constitutional limitations on domestic anti-terror actions, the question of what policies could be effective in battling Jihadist Islamic attackers is a very difficult and complex one. The first step is to stop the importation of Islamic populations into the United States. While deportation is generally a high cost and ineffective response, there is no reason why the country cannot limit or deny entry to high risk groups. No foreigner has a right to emigrate to our country, nor do we have to allow immigration from any country. If we do allow immigration, then we should select for admission those groups that are most compatible with our nation’s heritage, rather than those whom are least compatible. It is a perplexing question of why, for example, the leftist progressives are dead set on importing thousands and thousands of Syrian refugees into our country with no way to vet them for terrorist sympathies and no connection to the United States, while there are thousands, if not millions, of Filipinos lined up waiting to come to America who share our values and have a close connection to our country. The same could be said of the African state of Liberia, which is populated by Christians with strong historical connections to the United States. The unanswered question for the left is: Why pick the least likely to integrate and the most dangerous populations to import as future citizens?
Given the fact that most Jihadist Islamic attackers intend to die in the commission of their act, the application of retributive criminal law to such a person would necessarily be ineffective. Therefore, extralegal actions and warfare are the only possible response that could be effective. Some have advocated that we do nothing and live with the existence of mass casualty attacks by Islamic Jihadists. This line of thinking observes that the world population is very large and that the deaths attributable to Islamic Jihadism are relatively few in number, percentage wise.ii Therefore, the Western World should just ignore the Islamic Jihadist as a fact of life. Unfortunately, ignoring the problem may lead in the long term to either world domination and enslavement by the Jihadist or, alternatively, lead to nuclear war destroying the entire Muslim world.
Those who wish to resist the barbarian Islamic onslaught are generally those who believe that the idea of Western Civilization is worth preserving and the 1500 years of resistance to Islamic invasion should not be casually sacrificed on the alter of diversity, virtue signaling, multi-culturalism, and moral equivalence. The Christian peoples of the West are following the historical examples of Charles Martel in his 732 victory in the Battle of Tours or the 1571 Battle of Lepanto. Early Christians, such as John of Damascus, viewed Muhammadanism as a Christian heresy and its teachings as a perversion of Christian monotheism, designed by Mohammad as a tool of earthly conquest and power. This idea is echoed by modern twentieth century thinkers G. K. Chesterton and Halaire Belloc, who identified Islam as an evil Christian heresy. Much of this history has been systematically eradicated from school curriculums by leftists who are fundamentally hostile to Western Civilization and make a perverse common cause with the Islamic Jihadist.
It is important to understand that the suicidal cry of “Allah Akbar” is not translated as “God is Great” as many of the Western mass media claim, but it is rather more properly translated as “Allah is greater (than your god)”. It is a battle cry of Islamic dominance over the infidel. It is also important to distinguish between Allah and the God of Christ. Although both religions are monotheistic and mass media atheists confuse the issue by a campaign of moral equivalence, they are not the same. Suicide is a mortal sin in Christian doctrine. Murder is a moral sin in Christian doctrine. Christians believe in loving thy neighbor, while Islamists seek to dominate their neighbors with violence. There are many more distinctions, but it is clear that no Christian would excuse the mass killings of innocents in the name of Jihad. Without understanding the history, the West is unable to properly deal with this enemy.
The Islamic enemy knows his history and is following a 1500 year tradition of conquest against the infidel. These Jihadists look to the conquest of the Byzantines and Constantinople (the capital of Eastern Christiandom) in 1453 by the Islamic Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II as an example. Symbolism is not only important, it is a critical recruiting tool and objective of the Islamists. This is expressed in the physical world by the desire of Islamists to build mosques directly on top of religious sites of others. For example, the Al Aqsa Mosque sits atop the site of the Jewish Second Temple. The Babur Mosque was built atop the birthplace of Rama (a Hindu religious site) in 935. Upon the capture of Constantinope, the Hagia Sophia was first desecrated then converted to a mosque. To this day, within the interior of the Hagia Sophia hangs Allah Akbar signage. The desire of local Muslims to build a mosque at the site of the 9-11 attacks follows in this tradition.