Murdering CARE

What kind of justification can they give for murdering Margaret Hassan, the Iraqi director of CARE International, a humanitarian group providing aid? The terrorist’s demand was that the British troops leave Iraq in 48 hours. If they did this, they said, she would be turned over to Base of Jihad, a group affiliated with al Qaeda. But you and I know they never intended to do anything else than kill her.

Hassan was born in Ireland and had a duel citizenship with Britain and Iraq. She had lived in Iraq for thirty years and was married to an Iraqi, Tahsin Hassan. She devoted her life to helping the poor, particularly children. What kind of justification is there in the murder of such a woman, representing such a cause?

There is none. There can be none. It is one more example of the pure evil represented by the Third Great Jihad being waged by countless Islamic groups. Thus far, according to Reuters, more than thirty foreign hostages have been killed in Iraq. Not combatants, not soldiers, just those unfortunate enough to represent nations that have sent their troops to liberate Iraq or who found work there in order to send money home to their families.

Until everyone, not just Americans, but everyone understands the depth of evil the Jihadists represent, we are all at risk of mindless murder. We dare not forget that. We dare not forget the 3,000 Americans who lost their lives on 9-11. We dare not forget Dutch filmmaker, Theo Van Gogh. We dare not forget the Muslim ethnic cleansing occurring in the Sudan. We dare not forget the long history of Arab hostility to the existence of Israel. We dare not forget the Taliban in Afghanistan. We dare not forget the Jihadist slaughter of thousands in Algeria. We dare not forget the slaughter of school children in Beslan, Russia. I could fill whole pages with the names of those murdered in the name of Islam.

We dare not forget Margaret Hassan whose life was devoted to humanity’s highest ideals of concern for the less fortunate and the children. She pursued this mission during the three decades that Iraq was ruled by one of the cruelest dictators of the modern era.

And it means nothing to those who would drag Iraq and the entire world back to those Dark Ages.

All this was foreseen by one of Islam’s earliest caliphs, Uthman Ibn ‘Affan in the year 35 or 36 after the passing of Mohammed. A mob from distant regions of the emerging Islamic empire, from Egypt and Iraq, entered his home intent on killing him. “If you kill me, you put the sword to your own neck, and than Allah will not lift it from you until the Day of Resurrection. And if you kill me, you will never be united in prayer, and you will never divide the booty amongst you, and Allah will never remove discord from amongst you.” He was right. But they killed him anyway.

On February 23, 1998, a group calling itself the World Islamic Front, led by Osama bin Laden, issued a statement in which they quoted their prophet Muhammad saying, “I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but Allah is worshipped, Allah who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders.”

The prophet got it wrong. The single emotion common to all Muslims, whether Arab or not, is humiliation. The single burden they share is the scorn of those who look upon Islam and see the slayers of Margaret Hassan and all the others who have been killed in the name of Allah.

“Moderate” Muslims may issue all the condemnations they want. It is not that good and decent people are Muslims, but that Islam itself is the problem. It is more than a billion people, willingly or not, who are at war with five billion other people.

World leaders have been at pains to say we are engaged in “a war on terror.” No, we are engaged in a war with Islam because Islam has been engaged in a war on everyone who is not a Muslim, while killing quite a few who are.

Try this. Substitute the word Buddhists for Muslims and ask yourself if we are at war with Buddhism? Substitute Hindus. Substitute Christians. We are not at war with these great faiths. We are at war with Islam.

As the Caliph predicted, the discord between Muslims has never ceased. The contempt that Shiites feel for Sunnis and vice versa marks the divide within Islam, but the belief that Islam is the only religion that should be allowed to exist on the face of the earth is common to both.

The mob is at your door. Unless it is defeated, no one is safe.

Alan Caruba is the author of “Warning Signs” and his weekly commentaries are posted on www.anxietycenter.com, the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center.

© Alan Caruba 2004

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