We are clearly living in a very politically correct era in this country, and the political correctness serves to blunt our collective consciousness as Americans and undermine our national security. Nowhere is this fact more undeniable than in our relations with Muslims, particularly through the media and pop culture. Muslim groups consider themselves victims of anti-Muslim discrimination, saying that they are portrayed largely in a negative fashion, as terrorists and as being largely evil. In some cases, this is how Muslims are portrayed, but Hollywood has bent over backward, as have the press and politicians, to avoid the stereotype of the Islamo-fascist terrorist, going as far as even airing clips of Keifer Sutherland talking about how the Islamic terrorists depicted in 24 are not representative of the whole Muslim population.
The problem with this attitude of sensitivity, inclusion and the absence of a judgemental society is that we are bending over backward so far in the name of tolerance that we lose sight of the true picture. The fact of the matter is that we are currently in not just a culture war, but a battle for humanity against Islamic terrorists who hate everything about us and seek nothing less than to destroy Western Civilization. It's time we call an apple an apple, Muslims, and no other group of people, are engaged in a global terror campaign. Muslims are blowing themselves up with suicide bombs, Muslims are hijacking planes, and Muslims are flying them into buildings. Of the 19 9/11 terrorists, 19 were Muslim, and of the financiers, all were Muslim. Now, Muslims are the victims, because our popular culture depicts them as terrorists. That makes no sense.
The one thing that is glaringly absent from these Muslim groups which portray themselves as the oppressed victim, is a complete condemnation of jihadist terrorism, as well as full cooperation of Imams in Western mosques with our governments in identifying and rooting out terrorists within their ranks. Where are the Muslim leaders in cooperating with us? The answer is nowhere, and many of these Mosques throughout the West are being used as breeding grounds for developing homegrown terrorists. John Walker Lindh is an American example, as was the sleeper cell uncovered in Lodi a couple years ago. Additionally, the reason we can no no longer bring a bottled water on a plane is because homegrown terrorists from a British mosque thought that would be a neat way to blow up a plane, and the reason we need to remove our shoes everytime we go on a plane is because another Western Muslim tried to bring down a plane with a shoe bomb. Sure the vast majority of Muslims may be peaceful, but being peaceful is not good enough, they need to be cooperative, or the level of scrutiny for Muslims everywhere should continue to increase. More than 2/3 of all Muslims identify with their religion before their country, and that is a fact that needs to be considered. Profiling is simply common sense, and because the vast majority of our terrorist enemies are Muslims, it only makes sense that the Muslim community should be placed under a higher degree of scrutiny. Common sense dictates that the American Muslim community try to distance themselves from the terrorists, and the proper way of doing so is through full, transparent cooperation with authorities, and condemnation Islamic terrorists, instead, they have, as is so common these days, adopted the oppressed victim stance.
The bottom line here is that Muslims are getting a pass from the media and Hollywood to avoid creating a stereotype, yet they portray themselves as victims anyhow. Rather than whining about their portrayal, Muslims should be proactive, cooperating with authorities and making it impossible for terrorists to hide within the larger Muslim community, and adopting a zero tolerance attitude to Islamo-fascist teachings. If we continue to allow political correctness to force us to avoid profiling and to blind us from the facts, we will put ourselves into a very vulnerable and precarious position in the war to preserve our values.
