Corpus Christi History by Murphy Givens

Understanding the enemy

I went back to a book that has been collecting dust in my office for more than a dozen years. I didn't read it when it was sent to me as a review copy, but I read it yesterday because a test we face is to understand our enemy.
   The book is "Holy Terror: Inside the World of Islamic Terrorism" by Amir Taheri, published in 1987.
   The book warns Americans of what to expect from Islamic fundamentalists who are at war with the secular West, especially the United States. The warning has been delivered in far more graphic and terrible terms. But this volume deals with the mindset of those who would destroy us. This we must understand.
   Parts of "Holy Terror" are dated, such as dealing with the Reagan administration's arms-for-hostages deal. But there are also huge chunks that explain what radical Islam is about and why it is a dangerous threat that should not be underestimated.
   As Taheri writes, radical Islamic fundamentalists are willing to become martyrs in Allah's name. These are not mainstream Muslim faithful; they are on the radical fringe. They practice a new brand of terrorism. Their goal is not political, but religious. They seek to create a worldwide Islamic revolution. They see the West, led by the United States, as the ultimate enemy of Islam. It is the ultimate enemy because the Western lifestyle and technological advances are so very attractive. These attractions, they believe, will undermine the faith and if left unchecked destroy Islam.
   Terrorist trainees are instructed with a curriculum that weds religious beliefs with violent tactics. After leaving training camps, these adherents are scattered throughout the world. If Taheri is right, this terrorist movement is partly a product of the United States. He believes that many of the most militant members were educated in this country. They returned to the Middle East to join forces with radical mullahs and fanatical clerics with medieval minds. They form a network of relations that is global in reach.
   A 'barbarous country'
   Their grievances run deep, and go far beyond the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or other nationalist or political goals. Their fight is over culture and religion. The United States is castigated not only for its "unfairness" to the Islamic world, but because of what is interpreted as its defiance of the rules of Allah. The United States is seen as a country of lazy people obsessed with possessions. It is "colonialist, aggressive, self-assured, barbarous, and racist." Western democracy is described as "the greatest confidence trick ever carried off by man" and "will inevitably lead to prostitution as a community's way of life."
   One radical Islamic fundamentalist writer described the U.S. as "a collection of casinos, supermarkets and whore-houses linked together by endless highways passing through nowhere. All that money, all that effort, all those resources are wasted so that idiotic women and shallow men can prolong their lives. You see ancient women who refuse to die at a normal time and who continue to paint themselves and crave youthful lovers right to the edge of the grave . . . The Western man kills without mercy but is scared of death. A civilization whose men are not prepared to die for its ideals is bound to die, and that is the inevitable fate of the West, which has no ideals worth dying for. To eat tons of hamburgers and popcorn, to imbibe oceans of Coca-Cola and whisky, to watch hundreds of hours of stupid television, to copulate mechanically a few hundred times, to be on guard every minute against being robbed, raped or murdered. This is the American way of life."
   These terrorists are not after anything negotiable. They want to destroy us. They vow to "kill the enemies of God who are the descendants of apes and pigs." They seek to destroy American values, the American way of life, the soul of America. After reading "Holy Terror," I understand that we must be relentless in this new war.
   Whatever else we may share in this great and diverse country, we all now share in the tough challenge to make sure there is no place on earth where it is safe for these monsters to hide, train, and wait to carry out their murderous assault on Western civilization. It literally is us or them.
  
   Murphy Givens can be reached by phone at 886-4315 or by e-mail at givensm@caller.com.
  
  

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