Letter: Americans must 'fiercely fight' Islamic extremists around the globe

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Posted: 10/18/07

10/18/07 - To the Cigar,

I have recently reviewed again one of the most instructive documentaries on Islam that I have ever seen. It goes into excruciating detail about the history and development of the religion with specific references to the Koran.

In light of the upcoming "Islamo-fascist Awareness Week" being held at URI and many other schools across the country, I felt it was pertinent to write a brief letter to prepare people and beg of them an open mind if and when attending the events and speakers we will be hosting at the university.

Islamic fundamentalism is a dangerous and threatening faction of Islam in the same vein as any other fundamentalist or fascist instance we have ever known. There have been many instances of religious fundamentalism throughout history, and there still exists elements of fundamentalism in other contemporary religions, but not nearly to the same degree as Islam. The explanation for this is perhaps the fact that Islam - like ancient Judaism - was not "just" a religion.

It was a system; the recipe for a society with structure and codified laws. The Koran itself is similar in this respect to the Jewish Torah, namely, the books Leviticus and Numbers, which contain the laws organizing early Jewish society.

However, few modern Jews or Christians would take all that the Torah says literally. Granted, some fundamentalists might, but that is precisely the point. There are many, many modern Muslims that do take the Koran literally. The reasons for this are beyond the scope of a small letter.

But we need look no further than my favorite example, national socialist Germany, to see what happens when a relatively small group of fundamentalists prey on the ignorant, the down-trodden, and the socially and/or economically oppressed. As all Nazis were German for the most part, not all Germans were Nazis. Not all Muslims are fundamentalists, but all Muslim fundamentalists unabashedly utilize the more extreme and murderous texts of the Koran to accomplish their ends.

While we need to work with and respect our more moderate Muslim friends who include statesmen, businessmen, professionals and workers, we must fiercely fight and strongly stand against all fundamentalists.

Fundamentalists who read the Koran literally; who believe, for example, to their core, that Islam is the "superior" religion and that all people who are not Muslim or who do not accept conversion to Islam must be, at best, subjugated to near-slave status in society. Or, at worst, be liquidated, are extremely, extremely dangerous people and should be dealt with harshly.

As National Socialist fundamentalists before them, the Islamic fundamentalists, or "Islamo-fascists," are especially harsh to those who live among or near them. For early Islam under the leadership of Mohammed, Islam was a religious dictatorship and military state which fought city to city to expand its territory and eradicate or subjugate Jews and Zoroastrian Persians.

At the time, these were your normal, everyday raid and conquer campaigns with a snazzy religious justification. Many religions have played this game in the past. Later, Islam expanded west across North Africa, north through Turkey and Greece into Europe. In these campaigns, they attacked Christian and non-Christian (godless) Europeans.

But modern Islamic fundamentalists believe the same things as their ancient counterparts. They believe they must eliminate non-Muslims, including, and especially, Jews and Christians, from their society. They believe that their "society" stretches as far as it did in the ancient days of their control of Western Europe ... as far as France and Germany. They will work zealously to accomplish their goals. We must at least recognize this danger.

The other concept that westerners do not grasp is that fundamentalist Islam, as a system of government and state, differs little from Nazi Germany. It indoctrinates, preaches hate against outsiders and seeks to unify and impose uniformity in its territories.

There are rules governing marriage, the treatment of women, how to raise children, how to dress, how to live, how to organize a military, how to conduct affairs of state (which doesn't include free elections surprise, surprise).

Islam as set down in the Koran and other Islamic texts, is the recipe not for just a religion, but for an entire society ... an empire. The Koran has been described as Mohammed's great struggle. Sound familiar?

It was thought that Adolf Hitler got many of his ideas, which he sets down in "Mein Kampf" (my struggle), from the Roman Empire. But there are sickening similarities with his visions and fundamentalist Islam, especially the elements of group-think and mob-incitement that is still visible today in the form of thousands chanting "Allahu Akbar" as clerics stand before them preaching hate against Jews, Christians and other "inferiors" who must be conquered or liquidated.

So while we must accept and respect peaceful Muslims, we must always be vigilant in identifying and confronting Islamo-fascists who preach violence against us "inferior" people: democratic Americans, women, gays, Jews, Christians and non-Arab speaking peoples.

We took down the Nazi regime in Germany, which preached the same crap. We uncovered a society that, apart from a small layer at the top, was a peace-loving and good society. Let us show our respect and understanding of Islamic culture by standing against Islamo-fascism, rather than embracing it as "diversity" or "political correctness."

Justin Catalano