Obama, Islam, & the Distortion of the Past by Toby Westerman

International Affairs

Obama, Islam & Distortion of the Past

Toby Westerman

Only shock, resentment and bitterness can follow U.S. President Barack Obama's uncritical account of Islam as having contributed "so much for so many centuries to the betterment of the world." Whatever the contributions of Islam may be, they are tainted with centuries of aggression and conquest. Americans learned on September 11, 2001, Islam also acts as inspiration to fanatical killers.

Obama bowing to the Saudi Arabian king

Ironically, Obama made his pro-Muslim remarks in a city illustrating both Islam's aggression and its relentlessness. Obama delivered his remarks to the Turkish parliament in Turkey's capital, Ankara. Once a large, prosperous Christian center called Ancyra, Muslim attackers burned the city to the ground in 838 A.D., later rebuilt by the Christian Byzantine Emperor Michael III around 859, but was permanently captured by Muslim warriors in 1073.

The 200 year fight to capture Ancyra was only a small part of Islam's 800 year struggle against the Christian Byzantine Empire which ended with the conquest of the Empire's capital, Constantinople. The Turkish Sultan ruled from Constantinople until the downfall off his empire at the end of World War I. A group of Turkish officers established a secular State with its capital at Ankara.

A second irony: the Turkish government with which Obama met is led by Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, a popular politician widely suspected of attempting to replace Turkey's secular government with an Islamic republic. Erdogan spent a brief time in jail on anti-secular charges in 1999, and his party, the Justice and Development Party (initials in Turkish, AKP) was nearly branded illegal by Turkish governmental officials in 2008.

Years of leftist propaganda in our schools and textbooks have ignored Islam's bloody past, but Obama should be aware of Islamic history. Critics are asking, is Obama willfully blind to the darker aspects of Islam's history, or he is a Muslim true believer?

Individual Muslims may or may not take pride in Islam's violent past, but that reality must be acknowledged. Terrorists who state that their inspiration comes from Islam relentlessly stalk the weak, the innocent, the defenseless. Where is the condemnation of Muslim terrorists from "moderate" Muslims?

Islamic manifestation in London

The authors of textbooks used in America's schools, colleges, and universities, as well as general interest books on Islam carried in national bookstore chains consistently portray Muslim expansion as either inevitable or as a benefit to those who encountered Islam's armies. The "betterment" referred to by Obama, and which Muslim warriors brought to the defeated, included desecrated churches, burned cities, and slaughtered populations. The ruins seen by tourists at the archeological site of Carthage are not attributable to the Romans, who rebuilt the city they destroyed, but to the Muslim conquest of Byzantine Carthage in 697 A.D. Dozens of other Roman-Byzantine cities were destroyed, with their ruins quietly covered by the desert sands after the slaughter ended and the captives were led away.

From the western tip of North Africa and Spain to the subcontinent of India, from Sudan north to the fields of Ukraine, Muslim raiders and armies carried the same "betterment."

Not until the late seventeenth century - 1683 - was the march of Muslim "betterment" into Europe stopped at the walls of Vienna.

Beginning in about the late 17th century, the "toleration" for non-Muslim religions brought by the jihad warriors and praised by the academic "authorities" included restrictions on social and personal behavior designed to make life nearly impossible. A non-Muslim, referred to in Arabic as a Dhimmi, was not allowed to strike a Muslim, even to defend his wife or daughters against attack. New church structures were forbidden, and repairs to already existing churches had to be authorized by Muslim officials. The bells on churches, many of which were already ancient, never sounded again. Non-Muslims did not stand as equals with Muslims in any court case. Non-Muslims were to stand aside if a Muslim approached on the street. Non-Muslims were not allowed to carry weapons, ride horses, and paid a religious tax.

These restrictions still continue in any nation, or region of a nation, under Islamic law (Sharia). Take as an example America's ally in the Middle East and important supplier of oil, Saudi Arabia. Let anyone believing in Muslim "toleration" attempt to read a Bible or say a Rosary in a Saudi park, or let it be known that he or she engages in non-Islamic prayer groups in a private home. The reaction of the Saudi religious police will be swift and very unpleasant.

Catholic Churches burned by Muslims in Bagdah and Mosul

Muslims burned Catholic churches in Bagdah and Mosul - 2004

Sometimes the law is enforced by police, other times by angry mobs, but wherever Sharia law dominates, the lives of non-Muslims descend into fear and oppression. Muslim militants, inspired by the Islamic concept of jihad, or holy war, are active around the world. The United States itself is continually in the crosshairs of Islamic militants, while the U.S. military fights a fight against militant Islam on a scale no one else dares. The Islamic Republic of Iran is determined to annihilate the State of Israel, while various jihadist groups attack from within and without. The Philippine government is also fighting a lesser known, but decades-long struggle against Muslim guerrillas.

In Sudan, the devastation remains of a holy war declared by the central government against the nation's non-Muslim south. During the 22 year conflict, thousands of Christians were captured and sold into slavery by Muslim raiders. Of those carried off, some 35,000 still remain in captivity. The same Sudanese government is waging war against the Darfur region to the west, using many of the same raiding tactics. Although the inhabitants of Darfur are Muslim, the central government treats them as it would a non-Muslims, and, as a result, they are also open to the same tactics of raiding and enslavement.

Many individual Muslims are contributing valuable services to the United States in the professions and other skilled activities, but as long as the jihadists wage war against the United States and its allies the question will always arise, "do you support militant jihad"?

America must take action against militant Islam. The words of a Lebanese Christian woman, now living in the United States and whose family suffered grievously at the hands of jihadists in her country of origin, are the most fitting: "In this war that has been declared on us, these is no substitute for victory." Brigitte Gabriel, author of They Must Be Stopped, urges Americans to "rise in defense of our freedoms, our democracy, and our way of life. I urge you to do so for the sake of humanity throughout the world." (See also: www.actforamerica.org.)

At present, we have no leadership in the struggle against jihadist fanatics. Each one of us can, for the moment, only speak out to our friends and family using clear reason and be as ready as possible for whatever may come. We will be strong and remain confident in a God which does not call for the shedding of innocent blood or for the terror of the weak.

Our eventual victory is inevitable.

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Posted April 13, 2009

Toby Westerman publishes
International News Analysis - Today
An investigative, analytical, and uncompromising weekly analysis of the world situation

Contact T. Westerman at
www.inatoday.com
or P.O. BOX 5182, Rockford, ILL, 61125-0182

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