Date: 06 Oct 2010
Andy McCarthy: ‘Defensive’ Jihad Is In the Eye of the Beholder//////////////// by Editors on October 5, 2010 ////////////// Former federal prosecutor and National Review Online contributing editor Andy McCarthy reacted to Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad claiming “That’s all I’m doing” is defensive jihad, today at his sentencing:////////// Wholly apart from any jihad against the West, Muslims have been killing each other for 14 centuries, and most of the internecine warfare is over competing scriptural interpretations and claims of apostasy (a capital offense in Islam, according to the most authoritative sharia authorities). Obviously, there is plenty of internal Islamic controversy over what Islam and its law truly stand for. Americans should be very wary of people who claim to know, however well-meaning they may seem. //////////// The point is that, whether they are right or wrong, there are millions upon millions of Muslims who believe exactly what Shahzad believes about the nature of jihad and the demands of sharia. It is of no moment to them that we do not see ourselves as at war with Islam, or that we see the victims of terrorism as “innocent.” They see things as Shahzad sees them, even if they are not willing to go the next step of commiting acts of terrorism, as Shahzad is. //////////// From the perspective of American national security, it does not matter if those Muslims are wrong about Islam. What matters is that there are a lot of them and they constitute a mainstream current of Islamic thought [emphasis added mine]. They have the support of influential Islamic scholars who tell them Islam is under siege, and they don’t care in the slightest whether Western intellectuals (at whom they scoff) or Muslim reformers (whom they regard as apostates) think they have interpreted Islam incorrectly. ////////////// Ground Zero mosque Imam Rauf’s solution to ending the “defensive” jihad being waged on America is replacing our Constitution with Islamic law. His rhetoric about “building bridges” attempts to hide his three decades of advocacy towards our miserable end as a Republic. ////////////// Islamic law, aka sharia law, discriminates against women, gays, and non-believers in all the nations where it is practiced. Imam Rauf seeks an America where there is no freedom of religion or freedom of speech. ////////////// Is advocating sedition under guise of religion protected political speech? Perhaps. Yet our government need not grant those who advocate this sedition either religious or 501(c) tax status. //////////////// 000000000