Wrong on Immigration, but Right on the Islamic Threat

Jon Kyl on Blaming America

There are those at home who are members of what was called the "blame America first" crowd, which is a term coined by my good friend, the late ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick to say that the Islamists hate us because of what we do. They allegedly hate us because we don't do enough to fight poverty, because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because of Iraq, or because of the latest Danish cartoon or whatever.

Of course this is nonsense. The radical ideology that spawns this terrorism has nothing to do with such grievances or poverty. The perpetrators of the plots in Great Britain were doctors, not individuals radicalized by unemployment or poverty-stricken slums. …

Militant Islam seeks not to change our policies but to destroy our very way of life and replace it with a Taliban-like society ruled by Sharia Law and its enforcers.

Militant Islam has declared war on the West. Be very clear about it. It is fundamentally at odds with freedom, with democracy, with the inherent humanity of the individual, with critical thinking, and rational decision-making, not to mention all other religious beliefs. While it might be fueled by grievances, it is not caused by the West, but rather by the very backwardness and ideological rigidity that they would impose on others. …

We should be clear that militant Islam, though bound together by common ideology, comes in various stripes, including:

al Qaeda, responsible for 9/11, which may have inspired the recent terror plots in Great Britain;

Iran's radical regime whose leader vows to wipe Israel off the map and envisions a world without America and which is speeding toward the development of nuclear weapons;

Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia which is funding radical ideology and mosques and madrassas over the world, including here at home;

groups like the Muslim Brotherhood which cloaks its radical ideology in a new veneer of tolerance while its activities directly support terrorist groups like Hamas, and many others.

But state-sponsored testing of the United States and the West is also in full force.

Iran is testing our resolve in Iraq where it is using its Revolutionary Guard and also its terrorist client Hezbollah to train and arm those who are fighting our soldiers.

Iran is testing the resolve of the U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, where it is providing support to al Qaeda.

Syria is testing our resolve in Lebanon where it is assassinating anti-Syrian officeholders, all serving as a conduit for the weapons that are rearming Hezbollah.

Hamas and other terrorist client of Iran is testing our resolve in Gaza, where it launched a successful coup against the Palestinian authority of Mahmoud Abbas. …

[A] successful American response depends on resolve and support of the American people. We must understand the nature of our enemy and its ideology, confronting them head on with full confidence in the rightness of our cause. …

We must not reward evil with retreat from any of the battlefields where the fight is raging, including Iraq and Afghanistan. And we must be willing to support intelligence and enforcement activities, including incarcerating those who have plotted against or attacked us.

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