Writing for the California Post, the new west coast edition of the New York Post, James Gagliano notes a disturbing pattern in recent unpleasant incidents here at home. He cites the attempted bombing of anti-Iran protests in NYC, the murder of an ROTC prof in Virginia, and the ramming/shooting attack of a synagogue in Michigan.
Note the common thread: All these attackers were either naturalized citizens or their offspring.
We steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that the terror threat within our borders is stoked from the outside, inspired by those who hate us and wish us dead.
Make no mistake — this is asymmetric warfare, and Iran is not its only driver.
The sooner we recognize that radical Islam has been at war with the West for far longer than anyone reading this has been alive, the sooner we can begin to better confront this threat.
Ah, there it is in that last sentence, the recognition of the thing most want desperately to forget. It’s the Long War - Samuel Huntington’s 1992 Clash of Civilizations.
We in the West want to forget but they won’t let us, as 9/11 should have reminded. Intermittently hot and cold, it either began with the Crusades or continued with them.
It lives in the founding documents of Islam, and periodically flares up, as now. My mental model for it is quasi-medical. Islam treats Western culture as an irritating foreign object.
Periodically it generates ‘antibodies’ and ‘white blood cells’ like the IRGC, ISIS, Hamas, al Qaeda, the Houthis and Hezbollah to attack and destroy the irritant (us, non-Islam). ‘Infection’ or ‘allergic reaction’ results, we then call it “war,” they’ve always been clear about that name.
Christianity and Islam are both Abrahamic schisms. That they went in different directions is no surprise, the first was founded by a preacher, the second by a soldier. We seek coexistence, they seek “Death to the Great Satan.” It’s “love thy neighbor” vs. “convert or die.”
