Jihad Via Immigration

Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review
– November 19, 2009

As the news stories on the Fort
Hood tragedy accumulate, it is possible to at least
suggest that the shooter acted from a deep sense of
ideological fervor based on his reading of his religion,
Islam.

On Sept. 15, I attended the
Federation for American Immigration Reform`s highly
successful "Hold
Their Feet To The Fire" radio conclave in
Washington, D.C. The event protested the presence of 12
million-plus illegal aliens and featured 44 talk show
hosts from all over America.

There, I had a conversation with my
friend
Peter Gadiel, whose 23-year-old son, James, was
killed on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center in
the 9/11 attacks. Peter told me his hometown of Kent,
Conn., had planned to erect a plaque in James` honor.
Peter had suggested to the town council that in addition
to his son`s name and birth and death dates, the plaque
should include
language
saying that James was murdered by Muslim terrorists.
The council felt that was too stark a description and

refused such language.

As a social liberal but one who
believes in reportorial factualness, I was of course
shocked at the council`s refusal. I hope it will
reconsider. However, I suggest, on the basis of common
humanity and common sense — which have always been
qualities that bring out the best in Americans of all
races, creeds and colors — that Americans better take a
hard look at this fanatical situation.

First, the plain truth: People who
believe in Islam have adopted a faith born in medieval
times, a religion certainly in part born in violence,
which

has not evolved in any substantial way since its
inception. Islam`s benign adherents, who represent that
religion`s majority, are, I am sure, as shocked as we
all are at the dastardly acts of those such as Army Maj.
Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged Fort Hood shooter.

However, the record of native-born
Muslims in and Muslim immigrants to Europe and the U.S.
is

far from reassuring. As with all entrants into the
U.S., we should be extremely cautious about importing
unneeded millions of new migrants of any faith or race
— just as we certainly should not ever be guilty of
kowtowing to the fanatical wishes of the Islamic
fundamentalists to not publish images of Allah in
cartoon form so as to avoid being attacked by those same
jihad types.

You may
recall my dismay at the behavior of my university,
Yale, when the Yale University Press, after
consultations with Muslim clerics, diplomats and
counterterrorism officials,

canceled the scheduled publication in an academic
work of 12 cartoons spoofing Muhammad. The

cartoons had appeared in a Danish newspaper four
years earlier, sparking Muslim protests that resulted in

riots and more than 100 deaths.

We had better begin to recognize
the uncomfortable truth that Islam just isn`t another
religion that benignly promotes peace on Earth and
goodwill toward men, and certainly not toward women in
most Middle East countries.

The recent book by Christopher
Caldwell,
"Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration,
Islam, and the West," suggests Western Europe`s
Islamic immigration situation — it had virtually no
Muslims in the middle of the 20th century, but 15 to 17
million Muslims at the turn of the 21st — is a
cautionary tale for the U.S.

OK, so Hasan was born here and
likely represents the rarest of anomalies of behavior.
But the crux of his motivation is being spread, like a
cancer, through well-known educational channels among
the youngest, most vulnerable people all over the world.
Look at the age profiles of suicide bombers.

Question: If you are a GI, would
you rather be fighting in combat alongside a
comrade-in-arms who is gay or one who is a devout
Muslim?

However, just as our current
immigration policies leave the door wide open for too
many migrants of all races and religions, we must, as
commonsense American citizens, understand that those who
embrace Islam come from a religious background that has
carried its medieval founder`s violent principles
forward into our modern era, as well as his benign ones.

If we expect the Fort Hood
shootings and the other acts of violence to be isolated
incidents, we are not looking realistically at the
straightforward mathematical potential for further, more
frequent violence as Muslims` numbers expand in our
country.

Was the Fort Hood incident an
anomaly or a statistical likelihood?

Donald Collins, a Greensburg native
and co-chairman of the National Advisory Board of the
Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), is a
freelance writer living in Washington, D.C.

Donald A. Collins [email
him], is a freelance writer living in Washington DC and a former long time member of the board of FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His views are his own.