The Enemy is Violent Totalitarian Islamism

*Violent totalitarian Islamism*, as represented by Islamic State, Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Iranian Mullahs and others, is a threat to all peace-loving peoples of the world.

While people of other religions and/or political ideologies can and do commit violent acts, there is an unmistakable frequency, tempo, and pattern of Islamist-inspired violence in the world today that only the ideologically blinkered and willfully blind refuse to see.

Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, a Muslim who served as the General Manager of Arab news channel Al-Arabiya said,

“It is a fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.”

For many liberals/intellectuals like President Obama, Hillary Clinton and the like, *violent totalitarian Islamism* is the problem they refuse to name. Instead, they employ euphemisms such as ‘radical extremism’ or simply ‘terror’ which confuses the means *violent totalitarian Islamists* use with the ideology/religious doctrines they hold that motivates and inspires them to commit acts of violence in the first place.

Every society has their share of bigots and xenophobes, but those who deny and/or refuse to recognize that *violent totalitarian Islamist* groups are inspired and guided by distinctly Islamic history, jurisprudence, tradition, and texts they consider sacred, go so far in their desire to avoid ‘backlash’ against peaceful Muslims living in the west that they deny what Ray Charles could see.

We must call the enemy by its name, *violent totalitarian Islamism*, while standing true to our principles of freedom, equality, tolerance, and open inquiry, etc., while welcoming and joining freedom-loving Muslims of good will to the fight to destroy the common enemy, *violent totalitarian Islamism*.

This is where conservatives and liberals who believe in and stand up for the Classical Liberalism championed by the principles set forth in the Constitution of the U.S. need to stand up and speak out against the crude demagoguery of the Donald Trumps of the world.

The war against *violent totalitarian Islamism* will not be won relatively quickly like World War II was. Rather, it will be a generational war spanning years or even decades, requiring political leadership and determination that heretofore hasn’t been seen from the political class in our time. It will require political parties and people across the political spectrum to work together to defeat the common enemy.

In 2012 President Obama campaigned for reelection by claiming he ‘ended the war’ in Iraq. Obama pulled out most all U.S. troops from Iraq, against the advise of his military/intelligence/diplomatic staff, which created the vacuum that Islamic State filled.

Obama apparently never learned, forgot, or doesn’t care about a fundamental concept of war: the enemy gets a vote.

One may not like war (who does?), but putting one’s head in the sand or swimming in that river in Egypt in the face of a determined enemy would be the height of foolishness.

To paraphrase an apocryphal saying attributed to Leon Trotsky: You may not be interested in *violent totalitarian Islamism*, but *violent totalitarian Islamism* is interested in you.