Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson recently claimed that using the term “Islamic extremism” when talking about ISIS, would be to concede that “what they are doing occupies legitimately some form of Islam, which is about peace.” About peace? Really?
Even in an age when political correctness is de rigueur, claiming that Islam is about peace is, by any other descriptive, fiction. While many who consider themselves Muslims may not feel a need to violently propagate their beliefs, the question isn’t about them, so much as it is about their religion.
As America’s second-in-command of responsibility for the Nation’s security and the safety of its people, and given the daily slaughter human beings in the Middle East get treated to, it would be right to assume that he has cursorily given the Koran a view. It would also not be a stretch to assume that his boss would have lent the Koran a few minor perfunctory glances. Alas we would be assuming too much.
Johnson and his bosses, Obama/Jarrett, are selling us, them, with, “we understand what this depraved terrorist organization is doing is no part of your religion.”
Ayatollah Khamenei vehemently disagrees. Obama, Jarrett and Johnson should look into the Ayatollah’s apparently newly published 416 page proclamation describing his strategy for the destruction of Israel, and just as chillingly, he explains why.
The “why” contradicts and negates everything you have been told by this Administration about Iran’s leadership, including every pitch Obama has used to promote its deal with Iran — that deal that you’ll never fully read or see, . . . you know, that very deal that guarantees the Ayatollah Khamenei will have his nuclear power.
Khamenei’s “why” should also concern all of the European Union, China, Russia and even India. Khamenei boasts of Iran’s success in bringing international fatigue toward Israel, resulting from attacks on Israel by Iranian proxies. He actually believes that Israeli Jews will feel forced to move to the U.S. Not to Europe evidently, where they are no longer welcome. He supposedly envisions ‘liberating’ Jerusalem. Israel has every right to be concerned, however, he is apparently coming for parts of Europe, China, Russia and India, based on his assertion of “well-established Islamic principles.”
“A land that falls under Muslim rule, even briefly, can never again be ceded to non-Muslims.” It appears that Khamenei sees himself as international conquistador of all lands that Muslims have ever inhabited, even as minorities. Even as minorities? “What matters in Islam is ownership of a land’s government, even if the majority of inhabitants are non-Muslims.” This does not say, “other than in North America.”
In this year, 2015, this thinking, pronouncement and writing by the supreme leader of any nation should imbue any observer with apprehension, concern, or something resembling alarm, . . . but no, not this Administration. It pulls out all stops to sell Americans the concept that Khamenei should have his trigger on nuclear power.
A constituent of the vast baby boomer generation with a career which has been fortunate to know the ponderous corporate worlds, as well as the intimately pressurized, and invigorating entrepreneurial domains of high tech and venture capital, I have harvested my share of mistakes meandering through corridors of enterprise from Silicon Valley, to London and endless, colourful, sometimes praetorian points in between. The voyage has provided an abundance of fodder for a pen yielding to an inquisitive keyboard, a foraging mind, and a passionate spirit.
Whether political or business or social or economic or personal, is it not all political? It is a privilege to write, and an even greater privilege to be read by anyone, and sometimes with the wind at my back the writing may occasionally be legible. I do not write to invite scorn, nor to invite respect, but if I get really lucky the writing can stimulate thinking. I also write for the very selfish purpose of animating my own processes, and engaging the best of what life offers. Above all, whether biting fire or swatting shadows, I am grateful to be gifted the freedom to write and publish whatever flows down to the keyboard. To all those who enabled this freedom, and to all those standing guard to preserve it, I am indebted.