The Redhunter

Muslim extremists on the Internet and in mosques openly call for jihad against the United States and Europe. In May, Muslim organizations gathered in front of the American Embassy in London to protest against the United States and Britain.

They burned British and American flags and threatened violence, including another September 11 attack. They chanted, "USA, watch your back, Osama is coming back" and "Kill, kill USA, kill, kill George Bush" and "Bomb, bomb New York" and "George Bush, you will pay, with your blood, with your head."

If this protest, with its threats of violence and assassination, had been conducted within our own borders, the protesters would have been ripe subjects for sedition prosecutions -- and rightly so. Sedition laws do not outlaw dissent; they outlaw advocating the violent overthrow of our government and violent opposition to our war effort.

Such prosecution would certrainly drive extremist civil rights types into fits of apoplexy. But we need to understand that they will oppose even the mildest of actions, so there it little point in trying to win their favor.

However, as Blankley points out, a declaration of war would actually work in favor of civil liberties. All we would have to do is put a "sunset clause" in the declaration of war whereby it would need to be renewed every two years or so.

The only place where I disagree with Blankley is his call for a national identification card. I'm still not convinced that this would have significant advantages of state-issued identification.

Europe Again

In part I Blankely explained the danger to Europe posed by it's burgeoning Muslim population. Today he returns to this theme, explaining that "the best strategy to fend off and reverse the Islamist threat is to strengthen the alliance between the United States and Europe". Well...yes, I would say that would help, but it's not a complete answer. Perhaps Blankley expands on this in the book. Newspaper excerpts are by their nature brief and exclusive of detail.

In closing, he reminds us that it would be unwise to write off Europe, as some of us in the states are at times tempted to do:

But a defense of the West without the birthplace of the West -- Europe -- is almost unthinkable. If Europe becomes Eurabia, it would mean the loss of our cultural and historic first cousins, our closest economic and military allies, and the source of our own civilization. This is a condition Americans should dread and should move mountains to avoid.

It bears repeating: An Islamified Europe would be as great a threat to the United States today as a Nazified Europe would have been in the 1940s.

Even before Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt understood that a Nazi-dominated Europe would be more than a fearsome military and industrial threat. It would be a civilizational threat.

Now we face another such threat in insurgent Islam.

Indeed we do.