Today in London, Louisiana’s Republican governor said what has, to date, been the unsayable about Islam’s supremacist ideology known as shariah and the holy war, or jihad, it demands all of its adherents to engage in or support.
Bobby Jindal warned forthrightly that “A so-called religion that allows for and endorses killing those who oppose it is not a religion at all, it is a terrorist movement.”
Such straight talk has been all but absent from America’s national discourse, as politicians and the public alike have sought not to “give offense” to Muslims, or been silenced by threats of being tarred as “Islamophobes.” Grounded in reality and ever-more-warranted by the rising tide of jihadism, Mr. Jindal’s insights are creating new space for the kind of conversation that has been long overdue in this country, and the West more generally.
Indeed, it speaks volumes about the current state of this issue, as well as about the character and promise of the governor himself, that a man widely perceived to be an aspiring presidential candidate would be willing to set himself apart in this fashion and at this time. The American people are ready for the truth. They know they haven’t been getting it from either President Obama or the Loyal Opposition. And, especially in the wake of the murderous Paris attack on Charlie Hebdo’s headquarters and staff – and the teachable moment it represented about the threat shariah represents to our freedom of expression – politicians need to understand that being cowed by the jihadists is a formula for repudiation at the polls.
Now, it behooves Mr. Jindal and others, like Newt Gingrich and Joe Lieberman, who have in recent days called for a major course-correction in order to ensure that we defeat the global jihad, to offer an alternative approach. One option, which has the advantage of having been tested and proven successful against the last totalitarian ideology that sought our destruction, Soviet communism, has just been unveiled by the Center for Security Policy: the “Secure Freedom Strategy.”
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