Three Monkeys

Lots of news last week: Haiti’s earthquake, Scott Brown’s victory, the Pentagon report on the Fort Hood Massacre, and the beginning of the Geert Wilders trial in Holland. Three out of the four stories pertain to Radical Islam. Only Haiti doesn’t, but it and the Massachusetts election drowned out coverage of the last two stories.

One of the many facets of Scott Brown’s upset win was what his Democrat opponent Martha Coakley, said about the Afghanistan’s Taliban in their debate. Even though the Taliban has been killing American soldiers in Afghanistan for years, and at a accelerating rate, Coakley said: “They’re gone. They’re not there anymore.” That is astonishing ignorance in someone vying to become a US Senator during wartime. The scary fact that she almost won makes me wonder: How many other high officials in our government are that stupid? A big clue is in the Pentagon’s report on why Major Nidal Hasan shot forty-something people at Fort Hood. It looks like the answer is quite a few of them are - perhaps even most.

When I was a little boy, I had a recurring nightmare in which I was in the back yard of our suburban Boston home being chased by a monster. My father was cooking at his grille but didn’t even look up. I knew my father could defeat the monster if he would only look and see what was happening, but he never did - and that’s what scared me the most.

Now I’m afraid that way again, only this time it isn’t a dream. The Pentagon report on the Fort Hood Massacre, says columnist Diana West, “is 86 pages long and doesn't mention the words ‘Muslim,’ ‘Islam,’ ‘jihad,’ ‘Sharia’ (Islamic law), ‘Koran’ -- despite the fact that we know, among other things, that the killer, who initiated his massacre with a cry of ‘Allahu Akbar,’ was a Muslim inspired by Islam to perform an act of jihad as sanctioned by Sharia derived from the Koran.”I’m afraid. I’m very afraid. As I wrote last November: “After US Army Major Hasan openly admired Muslim suicide bombers, declared the US an ‘oppressor’ of Muslims, asked an al Qaeda recruiter what he could do “to further the Jihad,” shouted ‘Allahu Akbar!’ while he gunned down forty-three US soldiers. President Obama said: ‘Well, look, we -- we have seen, in the past, rampages of this sort. And in a country of 300 million people, there are going to be acts of violence that are inexplicable.’ Inexplicable? We’re in deep trouble.”

Then, three days after the Christmas Pantybomber burned out his crotch trying to blow up Northwest Flight 253, Obama said Abdulmutallab was “an isolated extremist.” Then, last week, the Pentagon again pretended Radical Islam had nothing to do with the Fort Hood Massacre.

Some of us look for the truth. Some of us run from it. Others of us claim there’s no such thing. Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders went on trial last week for rubbing the painful truth in the faces of his countrymen. He made a film called Fitna in which he quoted sermons made by Radical imams (clerics), and quoted from the Koran as well - juxtaposing these words with images of Radical Muslim attacks. Then he compared all this with quotes from Mein Kampf - Hitler’s autobiography. The similarities were obvious, painful, and apt. No one questioned their veracity. Radical Muslims threatened Wilders with death if he released the film, but he released it anyway - knowing he would have to spend every minute of every day under armed guard for the rest of his life.What did the Dutch government do? Did it root out the radicals in its midst? Did it offer protection to a member its Parliament threatened with death? No. Incredibly, it charged Wilders - one of its own - with hate crimes for “offending” Radical Muslims with their own words! I wish I were making this up, but that’s what is happening. Last week, the Dutch government started laying out its “case” against Wilders. If convicted of “hate speech” for telling the truth, Wilders faces two years in prison and fines of 18 thousand Euro, or about $25,000.

Multiculturalism trumps truth in Holland - and in the rest of old Europe as well. Radical Muslims are killing us, but we mustn’t hurt their feelings. It's as if we had do discuss fighting Hitler's Germany without mentioning the evils of Nazism.

The truth is - there is evil in our midst once again. It threatened western civilization twice during the 20th century in the form of fascism and communism. Both times we ignored it, then appeased it, until it got so bad that tens of millions died before it could be subdued. We listened to wimps like Neville Chamberlain and ignored leaders Winston Churchill until it was almost too late. Then "sophisticated” and “nuanced” intellectuals ridiculed Ronald Reagan for calling the Soviet Union “The Evil Empire.” Then they scoffed at George W. Bush for calling Syria, North Korea and Iran “The Axis of Evil.” Now the USA, the UK and the EU are the three monkeys of “See no evil, Hear no evil, and Speak no evil.”
Those monkeys seem to have originated with an 8th century Chinese proverb, declaring: “If we do not hear, see, or speak evil, we ourselves shall be spared all evil.” But we won’t be spared until we pull our hands away, look Radical Islam in the face, and call it what it is.