Radical Muslims Want Us Dead

Extreme factions of the Muslim religion want us dead — every American and everyone who embraces a religion different than theirs. We are infidels, heathens and heretics, and they believe it is their mission to wipe us off the face of the earth.

I know it isn't politically correct to publicly discuss how the most radicalized elements of the Muslim faith have targeted Americans for death. I know it is not acceptable to "profile" people based on their country of origin or religious traditions — not even when cold, hard, bloody, murderous facts directly stare us in the face.

What kind of "Alice in Wonderland" thinking keeps this country from stating the obvious? What is the matter with us, as a people, that we cannot readily see and say who our enemy is?

Now, before I'm waved off as suffering from Islamophobia, let's take a look at the two basic types of terror we face today. The first kind is homegrown, and we've suffered through a lot of it lately. It erupts when deranged people get hold of a weapon and start destroying lives in our elementary schools, theaters and on college campuses. These are the random mass murders that evolve from the profound mental illness of our fellow citizens. I've written extensively in this space about the need to identify and help treat that group in advance of their deadly sprees.

The second kind of terror is more insidious. It is carefully and meticulously planned. It springs from a fanatical religious place few of us can really understand. It is uniquely anti-American, and while its perpetrators wrap themselves in a cloak of godliness, their actions are a bona fide war, a cherished duty of jihad against people they don't even know — us.

Radicalized offshoot cults of Islam twice attacked the World Trade Center (in 1993 and again in 2001) and forced down packed passenger jets at the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. One enraged Muslim flexing his jihadist muscles used U.S. military issued weapons at Ft. Hood, Texas, to gun down 13 Americans and wound 32 others. And now, the two profoundly misguided Muslim brother-bombers in Boston. All were murderous assassins who did not target a particular person. They put a bull's-eye on any and all U.S. citizens — men, women and children of any age — and their goal was to kill and spill as much American blood as possible.

In the midst of their rampage around Boston, the Tsarnaev brothers carjacked a luxury SUV and bragged to the Chinese driver about placing pressure cooker bombs at the marathon's finish line. Later, the victim told police the terrorists allowed him to live because, "I am not American." That says it all.

The terror-filled week that played out in Boston grabbed many of us by our collective throat and slammed us against the wall because we had become complacent. We believed it couldn't happen again on American soil. Even in the face of attacks on American embassies overseas (and the still unavenged torture and assassination of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi), we have swallowed pronouncements from Washington that "al-Qaida is on its heels," that the terrorist organization is nearly "decapitated," to use the president's word.

That, of course, is nonsense given what happened in Massachusetts last week. There is also an unconfirmed report from a British newspaper that the FBI is searching for a 12-member sleeper cell linked to the Boston bombers — a cell that "has been waiting several years for their day to come," according to a source close to the investigation. And this week, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced the arrest of two "al-Qaida inspired" suspects bent on derailing a passenger train as it crossed a suspended trestle bridge in Toronto. According to CBC News, the pair had been under surveillance for more than a year and was getting their marching orders from an al-Qaida operative living on the Afghanistan/Iran border. The RCMP now admits they have been monitoring a broad network of terrorism suspects in their country.

Taken together, it seems clear that radical Muslim elements have a toehold right here in North America. They are not radical Catholics or extremist Methodists or fanatical Quakers. The terrorists who fervently want us dead are a splinter group of Muslims that hate Americans so much they will spend years silently organizing and plotting our demise and not care if they die in the process.

This is not a column to condemn or place under suspicion the millions of compassionate, forgiving and loving Muslims in the world. I know that at the core of their belief are love and a tolerance of all people and ideologies. But honest folk must agree that festering within the peace-loving Muslim religion is a rotten core of murderous terrorists.

It is clear that Muslim leaders are unable to police the flock. It is certain that Muslim-dominated countries that get multiple billions in U.S. foreign aid — Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq — aren't helping eliminate the threat, either. That leaves it up to us to fight our own battle against terrorism.

How is that supposed to work if we cannot openly discuss the enemy without fear of being branded as prejudiced? It is not an act of discrimination to mention who they are. These violent Muslims have been out to destroy us for decades.

So, cling to your political correctness if you must. I will adhere to the wise old saying, "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it."

Visit Diane Dimond's official website at www.dianedimond.com for investigative reporting, polls and more. To find out more about Diane Dimond and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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