Sol W. Sanders

For those who lived through the World War II prelude and the Cold War, the current American dilemma dealing with Islam is all too familiar. To the extent historical analogies are valid, countering Islamic radical infiltration resembles nothing so much as a century of struggle against Communism before the Soviet Union, as Lenin would have said, was consigned to history’s dustbin.

In the bitter climate of The Great Depression — for younger readers, do go to that marvelous reportage of John Steinbeck — reform was not only fashionable but critical. The movers and shakers were a strange lot, drawn from all parts of American society and all ideologies. An example was blossoming of the 30s trade union movement, as a veteran labor leader once told me, I think correctly, advanced by three factors: government [the New Deal’s Wagner Act], socialists and Communists [“community organizers” of those days].

As the years go by, us old reprobates are handed more and more proof of the incredible penetration of Moscow espionage. James Jesus Angleton, the intelligence community’s old Cold Warrior stalwart, may have been paranoid but, as the saying goes, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t persecuted. But, perhaps more importantly, the Cambridge University scandals dramatize as no other single episode widespread subversion of Western thought as well as institutions by Stalinists flying under two false flags of reform and anti-fascism.

Why is any of this relevant dealing with today’s Islamicist threat?

Muslim “moderates” and their apologists present Islam as another Abrahamic religion not all that different from Christianity or Judaism. [Do not the latters’ holy books, too, drip with blood and hatred?] The answer, not so simple but enough for this brief apologia: Islam never had its Renaissance, its Reformation, its Counter-Reformation, its haskala, its Enlightenment, its scientific revolution.

Meanwhile, by accident of history and geology, the industrial West has transferred vast resources to primitive Persian Gulf tribal societies. Just oil revenues alone of half a trillion dollars annually finances fanaticism — bereft of its civilizing Persian [Zoroastrian] and Indian [Hindu, Buddhist] agglomerations — to spread hatred with a “we-they” syndrome so virulent no Western psychiatrist could have imagined it. In effect, the West nurtures subversion of our civilization — as so often it helped the Soviets through Russian Communism’s many death defying crises.

Our problem, then, is not so simple as distinguishing between Islam as religion and a political creed. It would be no easier than earlier on sorting out Communist motivation from true “reformism” — or often simple naiveté. Distinguishing between Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s spot-on denunciations of Communist infiltration at the time was difficult when “McCarthyism”, the accusation of slander, was flung about, often, by partisans of Communists appearing before his inquisition that refused to identify their true beliefs and exploited his excesses.

That comes to mind now with charges from Muslim organizations, including unindicted co-conspirators aiding terrorists, who scream “Islamaphobia” when any attempt is made to ferret the real intent of those seeking to subvert U.S. institutions. For those Muslims who take their cue from parts of the sunnah/hadith — sayings and activities of the prophet Mohammed — dissimulation is permitted when dealing with non-believers, even “People of the Book” [Christians and Jews]. It was so with Communists using Marxist “ethics” even against their “social fascist” [social democrat], sometime partners.

That’s why U.S. and state governments are in difficulty sorting out Islamicist tendencies. Much the same miasma as during the long fight against Communism, its state power and its influence as an ideology dogs the current scene. Prisons and the military have succumbed to fanatics posing as chaplains. Our most prestigious universities accept benefice from the Gulf states in exchange for defending their authoritarianism and obscurantism. Mosques and madrass [religious schools] are often financed and encadred by radical preachers sabotaging our values. Our crusaders [pun intended] for freedom of the Internet inadvertently permit terrorist digital recruiting. To a degree, Ron Paul is right suggesting we have reaped a whirlwind we sowed — alas! but with petrodollars and technology transfer rather than the geopolitical offenses he and others pretend.

This has all, of course, been compounded by a president who — for example in his Cairo speech written and poorly researched by a very young man without knowledge of the 1400 years of Islam and eons of Mideast history — serves up misplaced sentiment, logic and politics to further befuddle an already critical issue.

Sol W. Sanders, (solsanders@cox.net), writes the ‘Follow the Money’ column for The Washington Times on the convergence of international politics, business and economics. He is also a contributing editor for WorldTribune.com and East-Asia-Intel.com.

  James Jesus Angleton, John Steinbeck, madrass, Mesmerized by its enemies: U.S. spends trillions of petrodollars to nurture a virulent culture of hate, New Deal, Persian Gulf, prophet Mohammed, Ron Paul, Soviet Union