AMERICAN JIHAD

by Alan Adaschik

Jihad  (ji-had)  1. A holy war waged against infidels.  2. A holy struggle or striving by a Muslim for a moral, spiritual, or political goal.

In the minds of most Americans, the enemy we are fighting in our wars in the Middle East is clear and well defined.  It is anyone who uses a weapon or assists in the use of weapons against us or our interests.  It is also clear that we are the good guys and those who oppose us are the bad guys.  End of story, God bless America and pass the ammunition.  Unfortunately, in the real world things are not so simple.  War is a terrible thing and inevitably, many good people on both sides of a conflict are caught up in it and suffer accordingly.  This being the case, if we are going to continue to fight our wars in the Middle East, Americans should know who we are fighting and why.

Many Americans think our wars in the Middle East are wars against terrorism.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Terrorists are criminals who murder and kill for political reasons.  They know no borders and swear allegiance to no government.  Thus they are international criminals whose motivations are to influence events on the world stage.  This being the case, the most effective way of fighting these people is to prevent them from achieving their goals.  They should be treated like the criminals they are and denied the recognition and influence they so desperately crave.  Understanding this, it should be clear that the wrong way to fight terrorists is to invade an innocent Arab nation for contrived and surreptitious reasons.  So doing undermines the moral authority of the war being conducted and as a matter of course, changes it from being a war on terrorism to a conventional war being fought to wrongfully impose our will on an independent nation.

In order to understand what is going on in the Middle East we have reach back to biblical times.  In the Old Testament, the Jewish people were chosen by God as his own and to solidify his relationship with them he established a covenant such that if they obeyed his laws, he would bless and keep them.  Eventually, the Jews ended up being the slaves of Egypt and God, in keeping with his covenant, sent Moses to free his people from bondage.  Having accomplished this, Moses led the Jews through the wilderness for forty years before finally bringing them to the land promised by God; the area of the world we once called Palestine and now encompassing the state of Israel.  The Jews thrived and prospered in Palestine, but not for long because eventually, they came under Roman rule which was an iron-fisted dictatorship.

Once again, the Jews were an oppressed people and they prayed for the arrival of the prophesized Messiah who they believed would deliver them from Roman tyranny.  Eventually, Jesus Christ was born and many believed he was the Messiah, but contrary to what many Jews hoped at the time, Jesus failed to speak out against Roman rule.  Instead, he preached that all men were the children of God, that we should turn the other cheek when smitten, and should love each other as we do ourselves and this included the Romans.  Instead of fighting the Romans, Jesus believed his followers should concern themselves with their relationship with his Father in heaven and not with the lot in life within which they were cast.  For these reasons, many Jews rejected Jesus Christ as the Messiah, but despite this, Christianity thrived and became one of the world's major religions.

Christianity in its fundamental construct is on a higher plane than Judaism.  Judaism is a behavior orientated religion such that an individual finds favor with God by following a plethora of rules and laws.  The crux of Judaism is that if you obey God's laws, he will bless and make you prosper in this life on Earth.  In Contrast, a Christian lives his life so as to be worthy of eventual salvation which is a gift from God.  The only requisite for being saved is to acknowledge Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.  In other words, it is not how you behave which matters, but instead, what you believe is true in the deepest recesses of your heart.  Judaism is a religion of do's and don'ts while Christianity is a religion of conviction.

By the end of the fourth century, Christianity dominated the land promised to the Jews and the Jewish people were dispersed throughout the known world.  Christianity maintained its dominance within the Holy Land for approximately one-thousand years.  During this time, in the guise of Roman Catholicism, Christianity became a state sanctioned religion which, similar to Judaism, emphasized behavior as the pathway to heaven.  The perversion of Christianity through its takeover by the ruling authorities set the stage for Islam which came upon the scene in the Middle East in the sixth century.  Mohammed was Islam's prophet and Muslims believe he was the next one in line following Jesus Christ.  However, from a Christian's perspective, this is not the case because of the belief in Christ's divinity and the fact that Islam, like Judaism, is a behavior oriented religion.  Fundamentally, the only significant differences between Islam and Judaism are their supporting cultures and the specifics of the behavior they espouse.  Therefore, from a Christian's perspective, Islam is not a step forward but instead, one back toward a religion similar to Judaism.

Over time, Islam grew to dominate the Arab world and became one of the world's major religions.  However, because of circumstance Palestine was sacred to Islam which means that the same piece of real estate is sacred to three major religions.  The status quo in the world at the latter part of the first millennium was that the Jews were spread throughout the world, Islam was in control in Africa and the Middle East, and Christianity dominated the Western world but also maintained a toe hold in Palestine.  For reasons which should be obvious, in 1076, Muslims captured Palestine and occupied it as their own.  To a true Christian, a development like this means nothing, but to the state sponsored Christianity being practiced at the time, this abomination demanded retribution.  Incredibly, in the name of Jesus Christ who is glorified as being the Prince of Peace, the Western World launched the Crusades to recapture the Holy Land and restore Christianity's "lost honor".  These idiotic wars persisted for approximately two-hundred years.  After this amount of time, the Crusades failed to achieve their goal and ended up accomplishing two things; thousands upon thousands of people needlessly suffered horrible deaths and a deep seated hatred of the West was instilled in the world of Islam.

Approximately, two-hundred years after the end of the Crusades, in 1516, Martin Luther entered the scene and realized that the Christian religion as it was being practiced in the guise of Roman Catholicism was a perversion of Christianity and not in keeping with the ministry of Jesus Christ.  With this knowledge he launched the Reformation and true Christianity finally returned to the world.  For the first time since early Christian times, people realized that it is the individual who determines and is responsible for their relationship with God and this is not a function of government or even the Church.  People began to realize that no government should rule with God's authority because when it does, corruption becomes the order of the day and Satan's interests are being served instead of God's.  One only has to look to the Spanish inquisition to understand the truth of this statement.  The Reformation and the resulting return of true Christianity set the stage for Europe's march to freedom which occurred over the next two-hundred years.

In 1776, the United States, which was a magnet for freedom loving people from all over the world, won its independence from England through the Revolutionary War.  This is common knowledge, but what most Americans do not know is that our war of independence was also fought to free us from the system of banking which, at the time, dominated the Western World.  This point was clearly made by Benjamin Franklyn when he said, "the inability of the colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of King George III and the international bankers was the prime reason for the Revolutionary War."  Most Americans also think we won the Revolutionary War because we defeated England in 1776.  However, what most Americans do not know is that in 1913 the international bankers whose forebears we fought against, finally triumphed with passage of the unconstitutional Federal Reserve Act.  This evil development surrendered control of our economy and government to these international criminals.  Evil is an appropriate word to describe this development because passage of the Federal Reserve Act meant that the United States of America was no longer a Christian nation.  The money changers were now in charge and Christian thinking and principles took a second seat to them.

The twentieth century was the most insane in all of history.  The 1^st World War broke out because Europe was divided into political factions which viewed each other as enemies.  One side was dominated by Germany and the other by England and France.  With the help of the United States England and France won the war and the victors foolishly imposed a debilitating peace upon Germany.  The humiliating aspects of this armistice helped fuel Adolph Hitler's rise to power and this megalomaniac, among many other horrible things, tried to rid world of Jews because he believed they were an inferior race of people.  Fortunately for all of mankind, the Allies defeated Germany and the Axis powers in a 2^nd World War.

While all of the above was transpiring, the Jewish people began migrating back to Palestine, the land promised to them by God.  The Arabs in residence, initially, had no problems with this because the numbers of those emigrating were small and they had little impact on the local population.  However, at the close of World War II, in the aftermath of Hitler's Holocaust, the trickle became a deluge.  Arab resistance to this onslaught began to grow and concurrent with the establishment of Israel in 1948, full scale war was raging.  War between Israel and Islam has been the status quo ever since and recently, the United States became an active participant in these wars in the guise of our war on terror.

Where does all this leave us?

From the point of view of the Arabs or Muslims, Palestine is sacred and rightfully belongs to them.  It was won by them in 1076 AD and has been their real estate ever since.  For two-hundred years, they spilled rivers of blood fighting the Crusaders to keep Palestine in their possession.  The Jews have not maintained a significant presence in the area for the past two thousands years and therefore, have no legitimate claim to the Holy Land even though they believe it was once promised to them by God.  From Islam's perspective, the Jews abandoned the Holy Land in ancient times and to claim they have a right to re-occupy it now to create the nation of Israel is absurd.  In contrast, from the point of view of the Jews, the Holy Land was given to them by God and this gift transcends time and circumstance.  Thus the fundamental issues which fuel the ongoing Arab/Israeli war are that the returning Jews believe they are merely re-occupying the land which God has given them and the Arabs view the Jews as an invading army intent upon occupying and stealing land which belongs to Islam.

It is truly unfortunate that the history of the Jewish people is one of rejection and intolerance from the nations within which they lived.  It is even more unfortunate that a madman like Adolph Hitler was able to use the Jews as a scapegoat in his rise to power and then attempt to settle the Jewish question through genocide.  In light of these terrible events and circumstances, it is easy to understand why, at the close of World War II, most Nations supported the creation of the state of Israel.  However, in retrospect, was doing this the right thing to do?  It certainly was if you are a Jew, but if you are a Muslim, it is a slap in the face and a very bitter pill to swallow.  The fundamental issue at play here which is still being ignored today is should a majority of Nations be able to impose its will on a minority just because they have the power to do so.  The answer to this question should be obvious, but unfortunately, we do not live in a world where the truth and what is obvious has any bearing at all.  

From the point of view of the United States, it is absurd for a nation so constituted to support and facilitate the establishment of a religious state anywhere in the world.  The United States is a nation conceived and established by Christians.  These devout and pious individuals clearly understood that God and government do not mix and when they do, tyranny is the inevitable result.  The Founders fervently believed that reason should be the foundation of our laws and that the laws of a nation should never be what those in power say God wants them to be.  This is the principle which this Nation used to stand for and obviously, it is the principle which should guide us in dealing with other nations.  Unfortunately, the United States no longer lives up to any of the ideals expounded by our Founding Fathers.  This being the case, not only are we supporting Israel in its war against the Arabs, we are presently actively engaged in two wars of our own which are being fought for Israel's benefit.

Principles are far more important than circumstance and the latter should never be allowed to override the former.  This truth is sacrosanct to a Republic, but the opposite is the case for a Democracy where how people think trumps all other considerations.  Unfortunately, as clearly understood by the Founders, what most people think is usually wrong.  The United States of America is no longer a Republic.  It stopped being one in 1913 when the international criminals behind the Federal Reserve solidified the hold they had upon this Nation.  This is why we not only choose sides when wars break out, but as the world's self-appointed policeman, we embrace such wars as its own.

Incredibly, as a nation, we mistakenly think it fitting and proper to exercise the "god like" prerogative to choose which people we will be favored and which will not.   The ultimate irony of our present situation is that most Americans think it is the Muslims who are fighting a Jihad against us.  The truth is that we played a significant role in rekindling religious war in the Middle East and are fighting to enforce the decision to create a Jewish state in an area of the world which is sacred to Islam and has been under Muslim control for the past one-thousand years.  Therefore, our fight is as much a Jihad as the one being fought by Muslims and the horrible truth is that neither side will be a winner no matter what the outcome.  The only winners in this fiasco are the international criminals who profit from these wars and who are using the threat of terrorism as a tool to trash our inalienable rights and as means to enslave all of humanity.

Postscript:

After World War I, the victors laid the seeds for World War II by punishing the losers.  At the close of World War II, to preclude this from happening again, the allies took great pains to treat the vanquished nations of Europe fairly and included them in the restoration efforts.  This was all well and good for our former enemies in Europe, but unfortunately, we did not extend this same kind of favorable treatment to the nations of the Middle East.  Instead, similar to what happened to Germany following World War I, we imposed upon the Arab world a peace which, for them, is a bitter pill to swallow and a slap in the face.  The tragedy of this situation is that by so doing, we have sown the seeds of World War III.  We are presently fighting the opening battles of this dreaded conflict and the only thing certain is that our way of life will not survive this conflagration.  The environmental degradation being wrought by an active war piled on top of the degradation being caused by over-population and over-exploitation of our planet's resources will be the end of life on Earth as we know it.  In the final analysis, we should not disparage the terrible fate in store for us because it is a fitting tribute to our ignorance and stupidity.