A Follow-up to Friday's Post

by Phil Johnson

One more thing about language games and the politics of war and justice...
(First posted 14 July 2005—exactly three years ago today)

have another thought about political correctness and our use of the word terrorism. Someone will doubtless try to frame this as a contradiction of what I posted [Friday], but it's really just the flip side of the same point:

Sometimes the term terrorism itself is employed in a way that deliberately muddies reality. Such as in the expression "The War on Terror."

It irks me that we always speak of the current unpleasantness as a battle against "terrorism." It troubles me that everyone from George Bush to Billy Graham is so keen to insist that Islam is "a religion of peace," as if this fight had nothing to do with Islam but were only about the principle of terrorism. And it drives me insane to see how the mainstream media, the government, and even most Western religious leaders are programed so that they regularly, automatically, and mindlessly intone the same mantra: "The troubles in the world today have nothing whatsoever to do with religion."

In the days when plain-speaking was deemed a virtue, we would have called the strife that now dominates western society what is in reality: a war against radical Islamists and their fanatical belief system. As a matter of fact, the conflict that dominates world news today has everything to do with religion. The aggressors have all been fanatical adherents to one religion in particular.

Here's a clue: It's not the Amish.

Let's face the truth honestly: There is not a great deal of diversity among our enemies in the present conflict. They are all members of the growing jihadist death-cult that cannot be divorced from Islamic fundamentalism. Unless we identify the enemy clearly and focus our energies on defeating that enemy (instead of the vague and ethereal principle we call "terrorism"), we cannot hope to win the war.

Furthermore—as difficult as this is for our secularized, humanistic, postmodernized culture to come to grips with—all religions are not the same. False religion is downright deadly. It is sometimes just as deadly in a worldly and temporal sense as it is in the eternal and spiritual sense. False religion is always evil, though not always manifestly so. But in this case, it is overtly and conspicuously diabolical. Unless we face that fact honestly and courageously, we will never defeat the evil.

This is not a good time in American history for the language police to have the upper hand. It's not an auspicious climate for postmodern sensitivities to color our country's foreign policy. And my expectation is that things are going to continue to get worse for our side in "The War on Terror"—until we wake up and declare war on the Islamofascists, who, after all, are the real enemies here.

Lest we forget:

From the Washington Post, 13 September 2001

AN IMPORTANT NOTE: I want to make something perfectly clear, because I am pretty sure someone will try to twist the point I am making: I'm not calling for any kind of hostility against all Islam. I realize not all Muslims affirm the radical principles of the jihadists. There are indeed many peaceful Muslims. I know some of them personally. My complaint here is not with them. The point I am making in the above post is about their fundamentalist brothers who think they have a mandate from Allah to exterminate "infidels." (It needs to be said, however, that if the genuinely peaceful Muslims had been more outspoken from the start in condemning the radical extremists in their midst, the problem would not be nearly as great as it is today. You can bet that if Pentecostals started beheading apostates—or even if they merely threatened to break the kneecaps of people who disagree with their beliefs—all of Christendom would rise together in unison to condemn them loudly. For whatever reasons—perhaps related to the ease with which radical Islamists issue fatwas—that sort of clear and high-volume protest has not even yet been forthcoming from the Muslim "mainstream.") However, I am not suggesting that because our enemies are driven by religious belief, we ought to wage a "holy war," and advance a different religious cause in favor of Christianity. Biblical Christianity has never advanced at the point of a sword, nor should it (John 18:36). What I am saying is that our adversaries (who are not merely America's foes, but the mortal enemies of all civilized culture) have formed a large and growing jihadist death-cult. Until that cult is either subdued or eliminated, the strife will continue. Those administering the war on behalf of the civilized world need to face up to that fact and plan their strategy accordingly. The jihadists have made it clear that they will not be pacified. They do not fear death, but love it. Their belief system is the problem, even though the hypertolerant postmodern mind is loath to admit it—or to say that anyone's beliefs are "wrong." But if we don't break out of the postmodern miasma and come to grips with reality here, civilization itself will continue to be tortured and tormented by misguided religious thugs acting in the name of Allah. I'm sorry to be so un-PC, but reality itself is not PC. If you doubt me, I can point you to a couple of websites that have graphic photographs of several beheaded victims of the jihad.

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