There are two primary sources of terrorism in America today. Number one: Islam, in its fundamentalist version, is a primitive religion of hostility and violence that’s goal is to conquer the world by holy war. Number two: our constant meddling in Mideast affairs since the end of World War II has created intense hatred toward us in all Muslim countries. Exacerbating this is the neoconservatives’ militaristic crusade since the first Gulf War to establish hegemony throughout the region. This has created blowback.
To the extent that fundamentalist Islamic scholars have gained sway with the intelligentsia of Mideast countries over the centuries, they have created primitive level cultures. But our role in America cannot be to save the heathens of humanity from their rejection of reason with the butt ends of our rifles. Our role should be one of “benign neglect.” Simply leave them alone. We should be leading the world to freedom through the shining light of example by restoring the vision of the Founders and demonstrating what a truly free country is.
But under no circumstances can we ever condone the grotesquerie of terrorism. We need to vigorously retaliate when we are attacked by its perpetrators. However, our retaliation must be accompanied by rapprochement with Mideast countries whom we have wronged over the decades. Neoconservative military occupation of Muslim lands and the attempt to sledgehammer Western democracy into thousand year old theocracies is not a formula for rapprochement. It is the formula that Imperial Rome pursued in this very region, and it brought down upon them undying hatred and devastating costs in both money and human lives.
A Five Point Terrorism Policy
The solution to this is to implement a “Terrorism Policy” that will recognize the above realities. Hopefully the next president will be insightful enough to do so. Here are five important pillars that should be part of a patriot policy on terrorism:
Pillar #1 – Ban immigration into the U.S. from all Muslim countries combined with a strict vetting of all visas to Muslims, as Donald Trump advocates. But under no circumstances do we “register Muslim Americans” as Trump has suggested. Such dictatorial hyperbole has no place in America. Such a ban does not mean that we cease to do business with Muslim nations. It means we need to restore the “National Origins” immigration policy that prevailed in America prior to 1965, we need to greatly tighten the granting of visas to people from Muslim countries, and we need to reduce our overall immigrant intake from the current 1,000,000 annually to 100,000 annually. This will create more stability in the process and allow us to pick and choose more precisely who comes into our country as immigrants and as visitors.
This is not “unconstitutional” as our absurd establishment pundits are squawking about. Citizens of foreign countries do not have the same rights as American citizens under our Constitution. There is no such thing as a “right” to come to America as an immigrant or as a visitor. There is a “privilege” to become an immigrant or a visitor if the American people wish to bestow such a privilege upon you. That is all.
A Pew Research Center poll in 2013 shows that 27% of Muslims worldwide are “unconcerned with extremism” in their faith, with double digit support in many Muslim countries for violent Jihad. Until these percentages lower dramatically, it is the height of irrationality to open our borders to tens of thousands of Muslim immigrants every year. There is no way to discern whether any of them are “sympathetic” or prone to “becoming sympathetic” to violent Jihad and the suicide bombing of infidels. See my article, Is Muslim Immigration a Boon or Bane?
Pillar #2 – Organize a military coalition – comprised of the Iraqi Kurds and forces from Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc. – to attack and destroy ICIS in the way we organized the 1990 coalition of NATO countries to retaliate against Saddam Hussein. Provide this Mideast force with all the weapons and bombing necessary to make it effective. But we do not put American troops on the ground. If the “moderate Islamic leaders” are not willing to organize themselves with the support of our weaponry and strategic bombing to fight the cancer of ISIS, then we cannot help them. It is their neighborhood, and thus their responsibility. Their willingness to construct such an army will be their testament that they wish to enter the modern world and live among other nations as peaceful, progressive people.
Pillar #3 – Announce to the world’s terrorists that we will be implementing the “Black Jack Pershing” execution and burial policy for all terrorists who attack America in any way and are killed or captured in their efforts.
Legend has it that General “Black Jack” Pershing eliminated Muslim terrorist attacks in the Philippines in 1911 by executing the perpetrators with bullets soaked in pig fat and then buried them face down so they could not see Mecca and covered them with the blood and entrails of pigs. According to Islamic belief, because pigs are unclean, such an act will prohibit any Muslim from going to heaven. Pershing let several of the terrorists he captured return to their comrades to tell then what had happened. This ended all terrorist attacks upon Pershing’s army.
Is this true history or legend? It doesn’t matter. It would be effective in lessening the enthusiasm of many Muslim radicals in the U.S. from committing terrorist acts. Their acts of martyrdom are pointless unless they result in bringing them eternal life with 72 virgins. We need to fight effectively against these lunatics. This is one way to do so.
Pillar #4 – Terminate the Iran Nuclear Deal that the Obama administration orchestrated. Yes, the agreement is supposed to be a fait accompli and must now be implemented. But there are certain conditions of the agreement that must be met by Iran in order for it to be continued. I’m sure a resourceful Trump administration and a patriot Congress swept into office in 2016 can find sufficient loopholes to justify the legal and moral recision of the agreement. Until Iran ceases to fund the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah organizations, we should refuse to trade with them.
Pillar #5 – Pull our troops and bases out of any Mideast country that does not want their presence and suspend all attempts to impose political democracies upon Islamic nations. This is the rapprochement part of the policy, which must accompany our organization of an Islamic coalition army to fight ISIS. It is vital to establishing the moral high ground. It is our recognition that American interventionism over the past 70 years in the Mideast has been wrong. We must let the Islamic nations know that we do not wish to make them into Western nations. If they choose to be theocracies, that is their prerogative. If they wish to emulate our political system, that is a choice only they can make.
We Are Not a Country of Empire
This means we end our attempts to establish militaristic hegemony in the Mideast as neoconservatives have been attempting to do since 1990. The Mideast is a swamp of ungovernable tribal factions, long standing ethnic hatreds, and barbaric religious squabbles. It has been this way for thousands of years. We need to simply leave them alone to learn by their own mistaken beliefs, while protecting ourselves from their violent prone factions.
We are not a country of empire, says Patrick Buchanan. We are a country of peace and freedom. “So let us set about creating a new impenetrable shield for the Republic, crafting a new foreign policy rooted in the national interest, so America may pass through the turbulent decades before us, serene and secure, and men will look back, one hundred years hence, and say, that, yes, the twenty-first century, too, was an American Century.” [A Republic, Not an Empire, p. 390.]
Nelson Hultberg is a freelance writer in Dallas, Texas and the Director of Americans for a Free Republic www.afr.org. A graduate of Beloit College in Wisconsin, his articles have appeared in such publications as The American Conservative, Insight, Liberty, The Freeman, The Social Critic, The Dallas Morning News, and the San Antonio Express-News, as well as on numerous Internet sites.
He is the author of The Golden Mean: Libertarian Politics, Conservative Values
Email: NelsonHultberg (at) afr.org
