Jihad in America

A response to Brad A. Greenberg's article in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles in May of 2007. Greenberg's article can be found at www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=17734

The Pew research center recently published a survey on Muslims in America with some startling results. Some I have spoken with looked at this poll and decided that American Muslims are for the most part well adjusted and committed to the American dream. While the survey indicated this might indeed be the case for many, maybe even a majority, the disturbing fact is that it also showed that along with the positive Muslim contribution to American society comes with it an evil which hides beneath the surface of that community, waiting like a jackal, watching, calculating, looking for just the right moment to strike.

It is paramount that Americans do not ignore the dangers that the survey clearly outlines.

No one really knows how many Muslims live in America. Estimates range from two to eight million. But, the statistics from this poll were all based on that low figure. So for our purposes we will use the low end of the estimate.

26% of American Muslims under the age of thirty think suicide bombing is justified in some situations. Let me re-write that so we can all be clear. One in four American Muslims under the age of thirty think that suicide bombing is OK. If you take the time to do the math 26% roughly works out to a bare minimum of 200,000 individuals in America who would potentially support, advocate and might even carry out suicide attacks inside our own country.

Ahmed Billoo is a twenty two year old American Muslim student, who looks about as normal as any other twenty-two year old American. He grew up in an upper middle class home, is respectful to his parents and plays soccer with his friends on weekends. Just like your kid or mine, right? Wrong. Ahmed Billoo supports Jihadi movements around the world. And, while he stops short of advocating using Jihadi techniques himself, he supports others who use it to obtain their objectives. He says depending on the situation, taking one’s life in the name of Jihad while murdering innocent people at the same time is the ultimate sacrifice for Islam and it is a blessing to take innocent people with you when doing it.

Billoo was the focus of an article in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal in which the author Brad A. Greenberg chose to smooth over Billoo’s unsettling comments. Since Billoo hasn’t actually killed anybody himself that we know of, his comments might be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless Billoo’s philosophy is apparently a growing trend among Muslims here in the United States. Greenberg asked Islamic expert Daniel Pipes to explain the phenomenon. "What you have is a low-wage jihad taking place, but people are not paying attention to it. These sentiments are seething, and at any time might erupt." Are we in danger? Dr. Pipes thinks we are.

Billoo, probably sensing the discomfort Americans might have reading his words, softened his position of excusing suicide bombing. "Muslim or not Muslim, we all fear death. Blowing yourself up is not something everyone can do or something that everyone has the courage to do. I'm not saying we should all go around America doing that;” and then qualifies the admission by saying that “Palestine is a different situation.” In other words it’s not Ok to kill Americans, yet, but at this time it is perfectly acceptable to kill Jews. Aside from the fact that killing Jews smacks of twentieth century brutalities we don’t need to go into here, how long I would ask will it be until Billoo’s type will think it is in the American Jihadist’s interest to start murdering Americans on the same scale it now indiscriminately murders men, women and children inside the State of Israel?

I contacted Daniel Pipes and asked him to elaborate on the comments he made in the article as to how the Billoo archetype could happen in a free, affluent America, whether Muslim or not. Pipes did not think that lifestyle had anything to do with the commitment to Jihad which makes it all the more dangerous. “It’s no surprise, given the power of radical Islam and the statistics we have from the UK ; that this rage and bellicosity is unrelated to sociology (poverty, age, etc.).” After all, we now know that the 9-11 killers were not driven through politics but through religion. The obvious conclusion to Dr. Pipes assertions is that Ahmed Billoo, and all like him are exactly the kinds of Muslims we should be taking a hard look at. Why are we not doing that?

Some have argued moral equivalencies while discussing the merits of this poll. Moral equivalency always seems to make an appearance in discussing the rights and wrongs of the Muslim world. We who live under the Christian Judeo concept which has brought democracy and freedom to all who are willing to struggle for it need to send a statement to those who make such equivalencies, that it is not acceptable to plan, target or execute acts of war which deliberately murder innocent women and children. The Achmad Billoo’s of the world need to be condemned, not tolerated.

I shudder at the day when America and the rest of the West rejoices with the Muslim world dancing and throwing candy in the streets at the brutality that has become to be known as Jihad. The beheading of journalists on the Internet, the blood sport of blowing up pizza parlors, indeed the wholesale slaughter of 3000 Americans while innocently sipping their morning Java must never be accepted as "just warfare." Taking a glass-half-full approach to the Pew Research findings dangerously flirts with such notions. This survey is a wakeup call. We must turn this around before it is too late. Not to will be end of history as we know it.