PRESIDENT BUSH, SAY THE “R” WORD
By Mike Evans
In his address to the nation on May 24, President George Bush said, “Our terrorist enemies have a vision that guides and explains all of their varied acts of murder. They seek to impose Taliban-like rule, country by country, across the greater Middle East. They seek the total control of every person, and mind, and soul; a harsh society in which women are voiceless and brutalized. They seek bases of operation to train more killers and export more violence. They commit dramatic acts of murder to shock, frighten and demoralize civilized nations, hoping we will retreat from the world and give them free reign. They seek weapons of mass destruction, to impose their will through blackmail and catastrophic attacks. None of this is the expression of a religion.”
It is this mindset that caused Americans to be caught so off-guard on September 11th.
All of this is the expression of religion; President Bush is absolutely wrong!
Why were American politicians and the American public so blindsided by the September 11th attack? Why were the FBI, the CIA, Congress, the Pentagon, the mayor of New York and the President of the United States caught so unaware? They were busy studying the politics of the Middle East, and not the religion of Islamic fundamentalism. As long as President Bush refuses to admit that Ground Zero for the war on terrorism is a religion called Islamic fundamentalism, we will not be able to win the war. It has been said that he who defines the terms, wins the debate.
America has been in Osama bin Laden’s murderous crosshairs since 1998 when he issued a fatwa calling on Muslims everywhere to kill Americans. No one in this country took him seriously when he wrote:
“The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, “and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together,” and “fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God.”
“We—with God’s help—call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan’s U.S. troops and the devil’s supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.”
Yes, Islamic fundamentalism is a religion…and it kills. The enemy is among us, and we can no longer define who that enemy is. Like the frog in the vat of water, we are perfectly happy to take our ease – not realizing until it is too late that the pot reached the boiling point while we were lulled into a false sense of security.
Michael D. Evans is the founder of America’s largest Christian coalition praying for the peace of Jerusalem, the www.JerusalemPrayerTeam.org. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Beyond Iraq: The Next Move.
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