George Massay is a minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Did Bush lie? Yes, he did. Every time following 9/11 that he said Islam is a religion of peace—and there were several of those times—he lied.

Did he lie about Islam intentionally? Not really. He simply expressed the hope held by millions of non-Muslims, or more accurately, infidels, that jihad is just an awful dream, a nightmare, from which we can awaken to a world of peace. It is the same naiveté that assumes one can separate terrorism from Islamic faith—it can’t be done. As Samuel Huntington observed, “Wherever one looks along the perimeter of Islam, Muslims have difficulty living peaceably with their neighbors”—a classic example of academic understatement.

The widely held view that, if only there weren’t a George W. Bush or if only America were not a “superpower,” a peaceful world would be possible, has to ignore some hard historical facts regarding Islam’s relentless military conquests over the centuries. These utopian views are only a little less far fetched than the naïve ideas that if the Palestinians had a state, or if Israel ceased to exist, the mess in the Mideast could be resolved.

Did President Bush lie about Saddam’s possession of weapons of mass destruction?

To the extent that he believed they existed, he certainly did not lie. What he did was to accept what every intelligence agency in the world, including the French and indeed the U.N, thought was the case. And one thing cannot be denied. The invasion of Iraq made certain that Saddam would not be employing WMDs. Even those who, in spite of all the atrocities committed by this brutal despot, nevertheless remain sanguine about him, know he won’t be using them any more.

That Saddam had had WMD and, furthermore, had used them is not in doubt. Nor is there any question that he stone-walled the inspectors suggesting that he did indeed have something to hide. Is it beyond the realm of possibility that before and during the much delayed invasion of Iraq there was time for Saddam to get rid of evidence of WMD? Obviously, he did have sufficient time; but, even then, was not able to get rid of all of it.

Some WMD’s were uncovered after the invasion, but not enough to convince skeptics that they were a significant threat. Interestingly, what has been uncovered by the Iraqi Survey Group (ISG) is that during the cynically conceived Oil For Food program when top U.N. officials and many, particularly Europeans, were robbing the program blind, Saddam was pocketing more than enough to have his WMD program ready to launch full speed when sanctions were lifted. In the case of anthrax, it could have been up and going within a week. (An operational supposed-fertilizer factory, directed by Dr. Rihab, “Dr. Death,” described as “the most dangerous woman in the world,” was more than ready. And anthrax was just one of a host of deadly weapons, including smallpox, Saddam had at the ready once sanctions were lifted.)

Is Iraq a mess now? Yes, it is. That is hardly surprising. So is the entire Middle East. But Bush did not create that mess. It was a boiling cauldron of conflicts long before he came into office, and it will be far into the future. As long as the world is deeply dependent on Middle East oil, for good or ill, we shall be involved—either as victors or as the vanquished. Disengagement is not a possibility.
T
he view widely held in France and other Western European countries that America and Israel are their enemies may be fatal for the remains of what can barely be called Western civilization. The Islamic world, as it has done for over a thousand years, is going to continue to promote the West’s destruction, even as many in the West use their freedoms to destroy freedom.

As the Islamic jihad spreads—and it is spreading rapidly all around the world—it is not going to end with genocide against the Jews. We forget at our peril that in the Islamic faith it is not only Jews, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists who are infidels, but so too are the irreligious and/or atheistic intelligentsia. And, if you are the wrong kind of Muslim (Sunni vs. Shia), indiscriminate terrorism will be employed; or, if you are a black Muslim in Sudan, Arab Muslims will slaughter you—with Osama’s blessing. This should be a sobering thought for many in Europe and elsewhere.

The idea that the European Union, in coalition with Muslim states, could form a super-power, Eurabia, to act as a counter-force to American hegemony was a vain dream, but doubly so now that the EU is in severe disarray. Eurabia, however, could and did undercut American efforts to use force against Saddam and the Taliban.

Now that Arafat’s corrupt terrorist Fatah has been rightfully discredited and is out of power and Hamas, blatantly terroristic, is in power, all the millions and millions poured into Arafat’s coffers by France and the EU, plus the United States and even the Israelis, in order to earn points with the Muslim oil states, are worthless. And Chirac’s to-the-bitter-end support fSaddam Hussein is also proving to be an investment with only negative returns. Not surprisingly, the Europeans are doing it again, and now incrementally the U.S., this time with Hamas.

It is unfortunate for the Western heritage that, in addition to the widespread anti-American and violently anti-Jewish manifestations in Europe, a sizable percentage of Americans and a surprising number of Jews feel that the U.S. and Israel, by their very existence, are the principal contributors to whatever is wrong or bad in the world. These are people who are determined to join the highest order of beings in the Western scheme of things today—”victims.” Frequently, they seem hell-bent on pushing their fellow Americans and, in Israel, their fellow Jews to embrace the policies of appeasement, surrender, and defeat. In doing the mea-culpa bit they feel virtuous. But where they plan to live—if they live—when their dreams are realized is unaddressed and unanswered.

Few touted diplomatic triumphs illustrate the virtues of victimhood better than the Oslo Peace Accords. Isn’t it ironic that after all these years of effort there is no peace and there are no accords? The Road Map goes nowhere except to defeat for Israel and by association, the United States. A Palestinian state controlled by a fascist Hamas will soon have an airport and a seaport, resulting in the likelihood of an exponential explosion of global terrorism. With Israel neutered, if not eliminated, Europe and even neighboring Islamic countries will have good reason for trepidation.

Among the voices speaking against Israel are those coming from liberal churches. If their disinvestment-in-Israel campaign, led by the Presbyterians and Anglicans, has the desired effect, the time before there was a Hamastan and a liquidated Israel will be remembered as a better time—difficult, but not absolutely without hope. The question of how such blatant anti-Semitism reared its ugly head in name-brand churches should be disquieting to all who view the church as a force for good. For those who view Christianity as a source of evil—well, they are not entirely wrong.

The self-important church bureaucrats who are promoting disinvestment in Israel think they are being prophetic. They see themselves as being on the side of the poor and the oppressed and working for peace and justice. What they are actually doing is promoting the worst of the anti-Semitic tendencies that have long been present in Western societies and the church and giving their blessing to the rabid endemic Muslim hatred of the Jews. True, there is a certain ecumenical quality to all of this, but it is ecumenism gone amok.

At the very time Islam ratchets up its declared war against the infidels, the great institutions of the West are in a state of advanced disintegration. The Left, deeply entrenched in the universities, the courts, and in many churches, regularly attacks devout Christians and Jews while at the same time endorsing Muslim goals.

Into this intellectual and spiritual vacuum comes Islam, yet again—militant and ruthless. What the jihadists see are the empty cathedral-mausoleums of Christianity waiting to be occupied or razed. Except as a source of tourist revenue, they will scarcely be missed and under a caliphate, not even remembered.

Today, when there are more Muslims worshipping at mosques in Britain than there are Christians worshipping in churches, the role of Christianity there is virtually finished. Of course, given that many in the Anglican Church think of evangelism as persuading people to become homosexuals or at least accepting homosexuality as a superior part of the divine order, does one not have to ask just what is worth saving? Add the support for abortion-on-demand to extolling the virtues of homosexuality, and the few remaining Christians congregants are being taught to faithfully commit suicide. Unfortunately, this dead-end thinking is not limited to the Church of England.

On the continent, Belgian Roman Catholic bishops, to pressure their government into welcoming illegal immigrants, are approving the use of 30 churches as dormitories for the illegals, most of whom are Muslims. The squatters show appreciation by turning the churches into mosques. This does not seem to bother the bishops. One wonders what kind of attack on the church and what kind of invasion of the country would bother them.

Few incidents illustrate better the effete character of Europe than the cup-in-hand Danish Lutheran church delegation that traveled to Egypt, their tickets paid for by the Danish Foreign Ministry, to apologize to senior Islamic clerics for the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. It was the perfect group to receive an apology because some of these Muslim clerics have justified suicide bombings and jihad against infidels.

If they had been up front, the bishops would have first apologized for being such wimpy descendents of the Vikings. Then they should have stated that, while they were high dignitaries in the Danish Lutheran Church, they have virtually no congregants on whose behalf they could speak. And, if truth be known, a high percentage of those few they do have are old women. Aside from being a nice government-financed junket and a wonderful press opportunity for Islam, the journey to Egypt was little else than an example of bishops sucking up to imams. It is worth noting that during the Nazi reign in Germany, when Hitler was carrying out genocide on the Jews and other minorities, he did not have to jail one single German bishop. The tradition continues.

If the central issue surrounding the Iraq invasion is whether Bush lied—a question that by its very nature tends to condemn Bush and exonerate Saddam—there are other more pressing questions. For example, can a fractured Europe survive with its political correctness, effete secular hedonism, and rapidly aging and precipitously declining native population? What chance is there of winning in a struggle with head-chopping, terroristic-suicidal bombers— Islamic fanatics who are multiplying like rabbits?

Are Europe’s problems caused by Israel? Today, many in France and rest of Europe, along with a huge percentage of Muslims worldwide, believe that the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was actually a Jewish plot. Is it much of a step from this position to the view that the intifada riots in France are instigated by Jews? That sort of thinking was present in Germany and all over Europe before World War II. Could it happen again? The recent vicious attacks on Jews in France and elsewhere in Europe are ominous signs.

Academics may argue about whether or not the State of Israel should have been established or, better put, re-established. But, once the state became a reality with the support not only of the United States, but of France and Britain, and when millions of Jews were driven out of Muslim lands immediately following its creation, those nations that helped to form Israel had a moral obligation to defend it. This view has dropped off the radar. Nevertheless, another holocaust for the Jews, should it occur, will have horrendous consequences for the world—not just for Jews. It never ends with the Jews. That is only the beginning.

If Bush told less than the truth when he said Islam is a religion of peace, he is not the only one deceiving himself. Because of his leadership position, however, his misidentification of the enemy has especially serious consequences. Even though he has repeatedly said that terrorism, not Islam, is the enemy, terrorism is simply a method, a technique. The enemy is the culture, politics, and faith that create, sustain, and justify indiscriminate bloody terrorism. That source is Islam. Against a West blindly committed to political correctness, diversity, and comfort—comfort at all costs—Islam’s embrace of terrorism works.

The hope of many in the West that democracy would make possible more open and more tolerant societies in the Middle East underestimated the total intolerance of Islamic culture and faith. Even though there have been a few amazingly heroic Muslims who, at great risk, have spoken out against the terrible intolerance of the faith, they are very much the exception. Now that Hamas has been “democratically elected” to implement sharia and with the same having happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and coming soon to Egypt and Syria, not to mention Turkey, democracy is dead on arrival.

If, as abundant brutal and tragic evidence shows, Camus was correct that the real drive of the 20th century was toward slavery, what would his insight be about the direction of the 21st century? Would he think that the drive to slavery is lessened as Leftists attracted to Communism regularly join hands with Muslim fascists to form a united front? Not to worry—an answer to that question is on the way.

George Massay is a minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). This article was written as a letter to a French friend.