Thomas Wictor

I remember 9/11 as though it happened yesterday. My mother woke my brother Tim and me up by standing in our garden and shouting, “Terrorists have attacked the World Trade Center, and the Twin Towers have collapsed!” The very next day, American politicians took to the airwaves to defend Islam.

Why?

If I were president or prime minister of a non-Muslim nation, I would simply present the facts.

“Yesterday two Muslim men attacked the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and murdered twelve people. They shouted ‘Allahu akbar!’ as they committed this crime, and then they went out on the streets and screamed, ‘Our prophet is avenged! We have killed Charlie Hebdo!‘”

I would not—under any circumstances—present disclaimers or caveats.

1. “Islam is a religion of peace.”

2. “The vast majority of Muslims don’t support terrorism.”

3. “We must not let these crimes influence the way we think about Muslims.”

4. “The criminals don’t represent Islam.”

Non-Muslims have no responsibility to become PR firms for Islam. In the wake of attacks by Muslim terrorists, governments have a responsibility to protect innocent Muslims from retribution. However, that’s as far as it goes. If Muslims want non-Muslims to believe that they’re peaceful, tolerant, and humane, THEY have to make the case.

On August 11, 2014, Australian terrorist Khaled Sharrouf tweeted a photo of his seven-year-old son holding a severed human head in Syria.

David Johnston, Australia’s defense minister, said he was “revolted” by the picture that is “a shocking misrepresentation of Islam.”

“I’m very upset by this sort of thing completely coloring our view of Muslims. I think anybody who knows and understands the Muslim community, they are, by far, very peace-loving,” Johnston said according to ABC.

Call me crazy, but I’m more upset by Muslim beheadings than I am about said beheadings coloring our view of Muslims. Why is the defense minister sticking in his oar to defend Islam? Are Muslims passive children who need everyone to stand up for them? And what’s Johnston’s evidence that the beheading is a shocking misrepresentation of Islam?

When you encounter the unbelievers on the battlefield, strike off their heads until you have crushed them completely; then bind the prisoners tightly.

—Sura 47:4, the Koran

I will cast dread into the hearts of the unbelievers. Strike off their heads, then, and strike off all of their fingertips.

—Sura 8:12, the Koran

Then [the Banu Qurayza Jews] surrendered, and the apostle [Mohammed] confined them in Medina in the quarter of al-Harith, a woman of B. al-Najjar. Then the apostle went out to the market of Medina (which is still its market today) and dug trenches in it. Then he sent for them and struck off their heads in those trenches as they were brought out to him in batches… There were 600 or 700 in all, though some put the figure as high as 800 or 900. As they were being taken out in batches to the apostle they asked Ka’b what he thought would be done with them. He replied, “Will you never understand? Don’t you see that the summoner never stops and those who are taken away do not return? By Allah it is death!” This went on until the apostle made an end of them.

—Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah

The core texts of Islam sanction beheadings, and Muslims have carried out this form of killing for centuries. They behead helpless prisoners, and they do so with glee and vast enjoyment.

This is an issue for Muslims to address. Non-Muslims must stop defending Islam from itself. The pathological defenders of Islam would have you believe that if we admit that some Muslims commit atrocities in the name of the religion, it means that all Muslims do so. That’s called the “fallacy of the excluded middle.” All or nothing. One extreme or the other. It’s how petulant teenagers argue.

It’s utterly proper and truthful to admit that some devout Muslims—real Muslims, not actors or robots—are currently engaging in a war against non-Muslims, and they’re doing so in the name of their religion.

There are many reasons why so many non-Muslims leap to defend Islam. At the top of the list is paternalism. We can’t be mean to these poor little aboriginals. Current Secretary of State John F. Kerry expressed this condescension perfectly.

We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance.

This is breathtaking in its stupidity. Terrorists are neither the focus of our lives, nor are they a “nuisance.” People who can burst into your office at any time and murder you because they’re angry over CARTOONS are more than a nuisance.

Another reason so many people defend Islam is because Muslims traditionally have a disdain for the mercantile class and Jews. Look around you. At this point in time, which two groups are the focus of utterly unhinged hate? Capitalists and Jews. Once again things are not as they seem. Too many of those defending Islam actually view Muslims as proxies in the war against capitalism and Jews.

In France most police officers are unarmed. I didn’t know that until yesterday. At the same time, the French police have actual special-operations units that undertake missions in conjunction with the military. The Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale (GIGN) is part of the French armed forces. One of the world’s premier counterterrorism (CT) units, it operates both domestically and internationally.

Recherche Assistance Intervention Dissuasion (RAID) is the national police counterpart to GIGN. Its area of operations is inside France.

Groupes d’Intervention de la Police Nationale (GIPN) are SWAT teams that belong to the uniformed patrol branch of the national police.

France long ago saw the need for such ferocious warriors. Why, then, must the nation continue putting up a false front and sending UNARMED police officers to calls of mass shootings? What purpose does it serve if you’re going to deploy the police special forces anyway?

Herein lies the danger of unthinkingly defending Islam regardless of the atrocity committed. ALL French police officers must be armed. Here in California I recently saw a deputy sheriff pull up to a convenience store. He had a handgun on his hip, another in an ankle holster, and a shotgun and an assault rifle in a vertical rack next to his seat.

If every French cop had such an arsenal at his or her disposal, those two inbred terrorists wouldn’t have attacked Charlie Hebdo.

You can either bemoan reality, or you can accept it. Non-Muslims need to simply relate facts. No more editorializing. If Muslims really are peaceful and tolerant, they need to convince the non-Muslim world. It’s time for them to put on their big-boy pants and start cleaning up the catastrophes caused by their coreligionists.

The only thing I want my government to do in reaction to this crisis is to kill terrorists.