Is isolationism the answer to terrorism?

A recent survey in England revealed that 79% of Muslim youth had a greater alligiance to their Muslim faith than they did to England. I suspect that you might find similar results in other western countries where Muslims have settled. Young Muslims tend to identifiy with other Muslims who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, etc. rather than with their own country. In the same way that Hezbollah is embedding themselves within the civilian population in Lebanon, terrorist are embedding themselves within population centers throughout the world.

These unsettling statistics indicate that no one is safe from a terrorist attack. I get a lot of email from viewers of this website. Some of it I publish, but most of it I can't and won't because it is not appropriate for a family oriented web site. I must say, however, that if the email I receive is any indication of the sentiment of the American people, there is a lot of distrust and suspicion of Muslims in general. There are a lot of internet articles floating around showing Muslim rallies in London and elsewhere proclaiming their goal to defeat the infidels, meaning us.

There is no question that there is a world war being waged with the Muslim terrorists. While we know that the majority of Muslims are law-abiding citizens with no connection to the terrorists, how is one to know who is a terrorist? Basically, we can't. I guess I would be more sympathetic to the plight of those Muslims who are not terrorists if they would rise up and proclaim their opposition to the terrorists and their tactics. But there is no organized Muslim opposition to terrorism that I know of.

We can't afford to have Muslims in our country smugly enjoying our liberties, while at the same time demanding special allowances for their religious presentations (veils in public, treating females as second class citizens, off limits to mosques where terrorist activities are being planned, no profiling at airports, no jokes or cartoons about their imams or the Koran, allegiance to Islamic edicts as superceding our system of law, etc), with no plans whatsoever for integrating with our culture. When World War I broke out, most people of German descent in the United States were viewed with suspicion and loathing. In contrast, their reaction was to make an effort to de-Germanized themselves such as no longer speaking or teaching German to their children in order to be accepted as Americans. Recent events indicate that many Americans have similar feelings toward Muslims. However, there does not seem to be a rush by Muslims to change this attitude. Is it because of their allegiance to their religion over their allegiance to a country?

In many Arab nations, policy is dictated by Muslim clerics. Those Muslim mullahs have complete control over their followers and yet refuse to condemn the suicide bombers who are causing so much grief throughout the world. Their lack of condemnation implies a tacit approval of terrorism. Instead of helping Muslims to become integrated with other cultures, the mullahs encourage their followers to remain apart from nonMuslims rather than being accepting of other life styles. This allows the mullahs to retain control of their subjects, most of whom are uneducated and blindly follow the edicts of their religion.

As a terrorist tactic, suicide bombers are not a new phenomenon. During World War II, the Japanese had their kamikaze attacks on American battleships in the Pacific and the Nazis made airplane suicide attacks on American bombers towards the end of the war. Both were the result of a desperate enemy trying to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Now we have Muslims fanatics who are desperate enough to blow themselves up in crowded areas taking innocent people with them. As long as thse acts are condoned by the Muslim world, we must seek a way to put pressure on Muslims to change their stance and take an active role in preventing terrorism. One way to apply pressure is to consider isolating ourselves from Muslims. This means not only the banning of Muslim immigration and travel to the United States, it also means deporting all Muslims who are not citizens. Is this an acceptable policy or does it further erode the freedoms we enjoy as an open society?

Our country has already set a precedent for isolating certain groups when Japanese-American citizens were sent to concentration camps during World War II even though they were American citizens. That was not right. But is it not ok to keep out foreigners who fit the profile of a potential terrorist?

I have discussed the premise of this editorial with people who I feel are responsible and intelligent and they are of the same opinion as I. Desperate times call for desperate measures. We are fighting a war with no visible front and the enemy is all around us. This calls for different tactics from previous wars. The problem with those who want to appease the enemy is that they believe that the terrorists think like we do. They don't! They have a different culture, a different religion, and a different mindset of which we are unfamilar.

There were no German or Japanese immigrants during World War II. Why we should treat the Muslims any differently if they refuse to join the fight against terrorism themselves? Just as the Germans were deluded by Adolph Hilter into believing that they were the super race and the Japanese were deluded by their Emporer that they were the chosen people who would take over the world, so the Muslim clergy is deluding its followers into believing that we are the infidel and must be killed. If that philosophy does not change, its going to be rough sledding ahead.