Contributing Authors

The Jihad attacks on September 11, 2001 spurred the U.S. to embark on the global War on Terror and invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq under Bush costing over a trillion dollars and thousands of life. The war continues under Obama under a new label, the so-called Overseas Contingency Operations, but involving the same cost in resources and life. But Jihad still thrives on. So, what's needed to be done??

This article appeared in Political Islam blog.

On September 11, 2001, a war was brought to our shores by a band of men, bound by a militant ideology, in an act of mass murder. The response by the United States was a so-called "War on Terror", a reflex that has proved to be as ineffective as it has been costly. 

We have spent more than a trillion dollars on invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. More than 5,000 American soldiers have died in the last eight years, and tens of thousands of American soldiers have been wounded.

What has this flood of blood and money bought us?

There has been no sustainable victory for the United States. There is no strategic victory; there is no political victory; there is no moral victory. And there is no peace. Islamic terrorism continues around the globe unabated.

The Obama administration lately wants to avoid any taint by the phrase "War on Terror", papering it over with even more ambiguity, calling it now an "Overseas Contingency Operation." It's still the same losing war, just as costly, just as ineffective.

The Bush and Obama administrations' "War on Terror"-by any name-has failed for a simple reason. It is because there is no such a thing as war on terror. Terrorism is a technique, a method, a weapon, a means to an end. Terrorism is not an enemy that can be named or identified, much less fought effectively. A "War on Terror" is a war on shadows, a war on nothing and on no one. It is a fool's errand.

Yet there is a war raging. It is a war that already had raged for 1,400 years before it was brought to our shores, a war that has laid waste to entire nations, cultures, and civilizations. The war is Universal Jihad: the eternal worldwide war on all infidel nations.

Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt were Christian nations before Christianity was supplanted by Political Islam. Afghanistan was Buddhist, Iran was Zoroastrian, and Pakistan was Hindu before Radical Islam consumed their civilizations and cultures.

The long-running Israeli and Palestinian conflict is not some unique standalone dispute over real estate or factionalism or any of the other wrong reasons given for it. It is simply another front in Universal Jihad's imperialistic war for the minds and souls of man. There has never been a lasting peace there because Political Islam has no interest in making peace with infidels-and every man, woman, or child anywhere in the world who is not Muslim is branded as infidel.

The crisis in the Middle East never ends because Political Islam never yields to another ideology. It does not believe in or permit of peaceful co-existence. The problem is not Jews or Israel. The only thing keeping the conflict in endless, irresolvable foment is a universal supremacist ideology that demands the conquest of Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Chinese, the West and sub-Saharan Africa.

The purpose of Universal Jihad, its mandate, its raison d'etre is conquest of the infidels and their nations-all of them-whether by conversion, domination, or death. In Political Islam, there is no fourth choice. It does not countenance any form of permanent peace with infidels.

Where Muslims are weak demographically and politically, they will propose truce. But we must understand the difference between truce and peace. Truce is a temporary ploy to buy time until one is stronger. Peace is lasting mutual respect. Muslims care not for peace, ever, with infidels, who are seen as inferiors. Where Muslims are strong they wage Universal Jihad, a worldwide war against the infidel. Jihad is the scriptural imperative of Political Islam, and the infidel is fair game.

For Universal Jihadists, therefore, any tactic, any means, any weapon is fully justified, so terrorism and mass murder are considered to be perfectly valid methods in attaining their theological and political goals.

The Lockerbie mass murderer was given a hero's welcome recently in Libya because in Islam's Universal Jihad he is a war hero.

The September 11, 2001 mass murder in the United States was a holy act, not only sanctioned but also celebrated.

The doctrine of Universal Jihad has a clear global goal: the supremacy of Islam everywhere in the world. It demands theological, political, and cultural supremacy-Islamic Imperialism-over the entire world. There is no room for political pluralism.

In Political Islam, there is no valid law other than the Islamic law, Sharia. The constitutions of liberal democracies are nothing more than the folly of fallible men and not worth the paper and ink wasted on them. Universal Jihad is a war on the cornerstones of democratic principles: individual rights and freedoms. It is a declared war on the very existence of democracy and the freedom of mind in the world.

Islamic Imperialism is the greatest imperialist force the world has ever seen. Until recently, the Western Hemisphere has been largely isolated and protected from Universal Jihad by geographical and technological barriers. Today, all of that has changed.

The United States merely is among the latest nations to be targeted for attack and invasion by Universal Jihad. It is infantile to believe that the Universal Jihadists have brought their 1,400 hundred years war to the West because of America's support of Israel. Universal Jihad predates the birth of the United States and of Israel by a thousand years, and already has conquered much the Middle East and parts of Europe.

America is falling prey to the same overt and covert strategies and tactics. Terrorism has been only one of those tactics.

Demographic conquest is the most permanent form of conquest. The infiltration of both legal and illegal Universal Jihadists to Western Europe and North America is fundamentally altering the very fabric of Western civilization. Political Islam is a State within a State no matter what nation it enters.

Political Islam views the world as being divided into two eternally opposing camps: Darul al-Harb (Land of Hostility, governed by the infidels) and Darul al-Islam (Land of Peace, ruled by Muslims). Any land that is not Islamic and not ruled by Muslims is considered Land of Hostility. Universal Jihadists have a theological obligation to conquer non-Muslim nations by any means and supplant the governments of men with Islamic theocracy. Hence, there is no such a thing as assimilation of Islam into a host society.

What the Western mind has failed to grasp is that in Islam, separation of church and state is categorically, scripturally, emphatically, and dogmatically impossible.

That is why the inherent imperialism of Universal Jihad is a greater threat to liberal democracies than Nazism and Communism combined. Unlike Islamists, Nazis and Communists lacked a transcendental metaphysics and global demographic strength. Nazism was defeated within ten years of its rise to power in Germany, and Communism has collapsed because of its own internal contradictions; post-Communist Russia and post-Nazi Germany became liberal democracies.

Not so the nations and civilizations conquered by Universal Jihadists.

A thousand years ago, the Indian Hindus were in the same predicament as is the Western world today. Their epistemologies were too rational, their metaphysical views too abstract and embracive. Their concept of non-violence even against those who wanted to annihilate them and their way of life was their greatest flaw. It was a fatal flaw. The Western world's present approach is reminiscent of the ancient Hindus.

The current crisis between the West and the doctrine of Universal Jihad is epistemological; it is a war of rationalism and intellectual freedom against virulent theological dogma. But it is a war. It was declared 1,400 years ago. Now it has been brought to America's shores.

Universal Jihadists have been winning through eternal patience and persistence engendered and empowered by their transcendental metaphysics, and their central belief that the entire world was meant to be governed by Islamic theocracy. What they lack in technology, they make up in demographic strength, geographic diversity, ideological clarity, and a fanaticism that is only "business as usual."

Compounding the threat is widespread ignorance among the rank and file. Of the purported 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, 90% do not speak Arabic, yet Islam's most lionized theologians claim that the Quran cannot be translated into any other language. By their measure, 90% of Muslims cling to the ragged edges of a dogma that they cannot hope to fully understand.

At stake are our intellectual and spiritual freedoms, and the most cherished principles of democracy. To preserve them, we must win this war not of our making. The alternative is unconditional surrender. Universal Jihadists are the product of militant ideologies and not vice-versa. Unless and until we confront that ideology for what it is, logically and persistently, all of our efforts are, and will continue to be, futile.

American politicians of both parties have failed or refused to define the true nature of the enemy and its intentions. The enemy is not Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas, Islamic Brotherhood, or any of the hundreds of Islamic fundamentalist groups from Algeria to the Middle East to South Asia to Indonesia. Each of those is merely a tentacle of the same voracious beast called Universal Jihad. The very fact of the multitude of factions is nothing more than another strategy of Universal Jihadists to disperse and confuse and weaken the infidel by making him fight too many enemies on too many fronts. And it is working.

The only real enemy is Universal Jihad in all its manifestations. It is an existential crisis that threatens equally every non-Muslim nation, no matter what their culture, heritage, philosophy, or form of government.

The current military campaign by the United States and an ever-shrinking handful of its allies in the failed "War on Terror" (by any name) are beyond ineffective; it is suicidal. For eight long years it has squandered billions of dollars and thousands of innocent lives attacking the wrong enemies, while leaving the real seats of power of Universal Jihad unscathed, and even embracing them as "allies" and trading partners.

The war in Afghanistan is escalating, with the last two months alone having been the two deadliest months in the eight long years of U.S. involvement there. Yet Afghanistan is only a client state, a proxy, for Pakistan, one of the nations in the triumvirate that is the Empire of Universal Jihad. It is Pakistan's clandestine agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), that rules Pakistan. Using Saudi money, the ISI created Taliban and Al-Qaeda. It is Pakistan's ISI that fosters Afghanistan's chief exports of heroin and terrorism, and that supplies refuge for Universal Jihadists. Yet we embrace Pakistan as an "ally."

The Seats of the Empire of Universal Jihad are Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan. These are Command Central. These are the declared enemies of democracy and of fundamental human rights and freedoms across the globe. Unless and until they are recognized, named, and treated as such, Universal Jihad will continue to ravage every non-Islamic nation and culture everywhere around the world into perpetuity.

The war being waged against humanity and democracy by Universal Jihadists can be won decisively. We can find a lasting and comprehensive solution to the greatest imperialistic threat Western civilization has ever seen. We have billions of willing allies in every place on the globe. But our success, our victory is predicated upon knowing and naming the real enemy, knowing the scope and reality of the threat, and taking decisive and directed action.

I maintain:

War against Universal Jihadists can be won globally in less than five years.
It can be won for less than one billion dollars.
It can be won without any more loss of American or Western Life.

In order to win this war that has been declared against us through no fault of our own, the first requisite is to acknowledge that it is an ideological war. It is the totalitarian Islamic theocracy against fundamental human rights and freedoms and against every democracy in the world.

It's also necessary to recognize that causes of poverty, illiteracy, and misery prevalent in Islamic nations are over-population, suppression of intellectual freedom, hostility to critical thinking, and a dictatorial theocracy as the form of government. Colonialism or Zionist or Anglo-American conspiracies are not the cause.

The conflict between Universal Jihadists and the West is philosophical. Strength is necessary to bring and maintain order, but force alone can never prevail. Reason, empiricism, and the scientific method are our greatest weapons against the religious fanaticism of Political Islam's militant theocracy.

Non-Islamic nations must correctly classify the doctrine of Universal Jihad as a subversive paramilitary political movement whose core ideology, of record, demands the overthrow of the existing forms of governments. Civilized nations recognize that such subversion, in times of war, constitutes treason.

And Universal Jihad is a declared war. It is a war of Islamic theological exclusivism against pluralistic democratic traditions. They are mutually exclusive. Islam's Sharia is the antithesis of individual intellectual and spiritual freedom. It stands in direct opposition to the very existence of any constitutional democracy, and to the very right to existence of any other religion or belief.

Therefore, in order to prevail in this war against the rest of mankind, we must do the following.

• Build a global united alliance of nations against Universal Jihad. Jew and Gentile, Anglo-Saxon and Slav, Hindu and Buddhist, Norwegian and Nigerian-all have been victimized by Jihad. Never has any barbaric imperialism so universally threatened mankind without regard to national or ethnic or philosophical or geopolitical boundaries. Whatever our differences, in this war we are allies unified by a common ruthless enemy that will not rest until we and our cultures and nations have been conquered through conversion, domination, or death. United, we cannot be overcome.
  
• Systematically remove all advocates of Political Islam's Universal Jihad from every nation of the Western world-which, by their own definition, is Darul al-Harb (Land of Hostility, governed by the infidels). The claims and requirements of Literal Islam's mandated theocracy call for overthrow of the American and Western forms of government in a declared war, and the supporters of Universal Jihad have committed and condoned acts of war on our soil against our people and our nations. That is treason.
  
• As a united alliance of nations against Universal Jihad, cut off all trade and diplomatic ties to the Empire of Universal Jihad: Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. Enforce these sanctions until their governments publicly, formally renounce and disavow Universal Jihad by official proclamation.
  
• As a united alliance of nations against Universal Jihad, use the combined resources of all affected nations to demilitarize, secularize, and democratize the Empire of Universal Jihad.
  
• As a united alliance of nations against Universal Jihad, demand and exact compensation from the Empire of Universal Jihad for having supported global terrorism for at least the past half-century.

If any of these steps to victory seem draconian or undemocratic, pause to reflect that they are far more humane and civilized then the strategies and tactics of Political Islam and its 1,400 years war that has decimated entire civilizations and murdered countless millions. These steps are far more humane and civilized than dropping atomic bombs on civilian populations. These are not some "Modest Proposals" in the tradition of Swift. These are sober, attainable and necessary steps that must be taken if the rationality and freedoms gained by mankind over thousands of years of social evolution stand any chance of surviving the Universal Jihadist's onslaught of barbarism and mass murder to the end of totalitarian rule of the world.

To survive at all and preserve our cherished rights and freedoms, our cultures, our religions, our civilizations, we must declare an ideological war against Universal Jihadists. We must do so now. They long ago declared war on us.