Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines jetliner carrying nearly 300 passengers and crew members reminds us that Muslim extremists devoted to Jihad, or Holy War, and seeking to kill or convert the world’s “infidels” to Islam, are still trying to kill Americans.
And U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan’s November massacre of 13 people at Fort Hood reminds us that such Islamic extremists are not only operating in places like Pakistan and Iran, but can be “hiding in plain sight” all around us if we are not ever mindful that we are in a state of war.
Because the first and most essential defense is to know the truth about this enemy, The Washington Examiner this week is publishing a four-part series focusing on the nature of the Jihadist threat and what must be done to defeat it.
Monday’s first installment in the series was written by Jed Babbin, editor of Human Events, author of “In the Words of Our Enemies” and other essential reading on the U.S. strategic position in the world, and former deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration. Babbin argues that neither the Obama nor the prior Bush administration has correctly defined the nature or identity of terrorist nations.
Tuesday’s installment was written by Dr. Tawfik Hamid, a former associate of al Qaeda’s No. 2 man, Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri. Hamid is now an Islamic reformer who stresses the danger to America and the West of giving into the demands of the Shariah law sought by Jihadists worldwide.
On Wednesday, David Yerushalmi, a trial lawyer involved in national security matters who is general counsel to the Center for Security Policy, looks at the recent meltdown of the Dubai World wealth fund and what it tells us about the dangers of accepting “Shariah compliant” finance programs.
Finally, on Thursday, Dr. Andrew Bostom explains why Shariah law, as embodied in the 1990 Cairo Declaration, or “Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Islam,” is fundamentally at odds with American and Western concepts of individual liberty and governance. He is the author of “The Legacy of Jihad” and “The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism.”
The Washington Examiner will return to this vital issue often during coming months.
Mark Tapscott is editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner and proprietor of Tapscott’s Copy Desk blog on washingtonexaminer.com.
