Axis of Evil. A phrase that has drawn furious European editorials, predictable Middle Eastern chest pounding and the obligatory liberal American media bleating and moaning.
It’s a brilliantly simple phrase because it accurately conveys some of the gravity of the war in which we have been but which we refused to acknowledge until towers toppled into lower Manhattan. It is brilliant in that it, for the first time, it points to the obvious horror of a marriage between Islamic Jihad and the nuclear capabilities of one of the last standing relics of the old Communist world. If “Axis of Evil” can be criticized it can be only in that it understates the full scope of this struggle against savagery.
The Seventh Century Death Cult, known as Islam, has considered itself at war with civilized Mankind since Mohammad froze the clock and commanded his followers to forcibly convert or kill the infidels. That would be you and me. The writings of bin Laden and the other heroes and martyrs of Islam are loaded with their allegiance to this mission, plans for accomplishing it, blessings – and commands – from Allah for their holy tasks and virulent anti-Semitism, hatred for anything Christian, Western or civilized. Their works recount historical grievances against the Western World that begin with the First Crusade – 900 years ago – and run through a variety of clashes between their world and ours, from titanic struggles down to tribal bickerings that nobody remembers. Each of them has to be avenged and each is an opportunity for a martyr to collect on his promised collection of virgins in Allah-land.
Jihad was not an issue, or an obvious problem from the fall of the Ottoman Empire early in the Twentieth Century until Ayatollah Khomeini. In 1979 he collected and more or less united scattered groups, terrorists and Islamic forces within so-called “moderate” governments and set them all singing from the same Islamic hymnal. Sophisticated, funded with our own money from oil, international commerce, extortion, foreign aid and charity dollars, diverted to terror (so you really think your donation to feed that kid is really feeding that kid? Think again.) Entire populations are raised from birth and trained to want to become suicide bombers the way American kids want to play in the World Series. What we think of as an education is there indoctrination, with the Three R’s limited to what the student needs to know in order to meet Allah and take as many innocents with him as Allah wills.
The tools of human advancement; science, technology, currency and credit, medicine, art and communications – even religion and charity – are warped, distorted and bastardized into tools of death and destruction. Bin Laden is a great example. A personal worth of around a half-billion dollars and how many starving Afghan kids did he feed today? I’d wager that you are worth a lot less than he and the dollars that you pay in taxes and charity fed some of his own (even accounting for what is diverted) maybe even him too.
This war is no less significant to the Human Race than the two wars from which “Axis of Evil” draws its worth. Both the Second World War and the Cold War were battles for the survival of individual freedom and against techno-barbarism. This war is now over 1,300 years old and no longer simmering in the background. It is front and center and here on our own soil.
And the stakes are far higher than in any war we have faced before. This is a showdown between savagery and civilization. Worship of death versus celebration of life. Attempts to appease or divert the enemy will be no more successful than Israel’s foolish attempts at trading land for peace with them. Every tool, advancement or advantage given to, or taken by, them is another welcomed arrow in their quiver.
Mark Williams is a Radio Host, NewsTalk 1530 KFBK, Sacramento, CA.
