The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) went into predictable rant
mode and denounced critics of Dr. Omeish as "Islamophobes" (can't they come
up with something better than this hackneyed, overused word?). After every
terrorist act, or comment about killing and destroying infidels and their
nations, CAIR and their fellow travelers tell us that what we have seen and
heard is not really what was intended. Sure. Some of their best friends are
infidels.
Former Pakistani President Benazir Bhutto, a moderate Muslim, was in
Washington last week. I asked her how concerned the United States should be,
especially when we see and hear radical talk from people such as Dr. Omeish.
Speaking of the radicals, she told me "They are infiltrating (the United
States and England). What I am hearing is that they now want to buy people
off (and) plant people in intelligence and the military." Bhutto described
the radicalization of Islam, which she said is virtually unchallenged in the
Islamic world: "When I was a young girl, my Islamic teachers said everybody
can have their own religion. Now they say you cannot (even) talk to others
about their religion. You used to be able to marry anyone who is from the
Abrahamic tradition - people of the Book - but (Muslims) are now taught you
can't marry anyone (who doesn't have your) interpretation (of Islam)."
Bhutto says the West is losing the war against the radicals. On Oct. 18, she
plans to return to Pakistan from exile in order to fight them and she wants
to see a debate within Islam and more support for building mosques and
publishing books based on moderate interpretations of Islam to counter the
radicals.
If I were an enemy of America and the West, my strategy would be what Bhutto
says is now happening: infiltrate important structures within which I could
work to damage and destroy the West. Dr. Omeish uses the language and
expresses the intensity of others who wish to overthrow America and Israel.
One could give this movement and their intent a label. Call it "the jihad
way."