The American Spectator

This week marked a new chapter in the War on Terror. Events here and around the world have sharpened the differences between those who support American and greater Western culture, and those who are pledged to its destruction.

Across the globe, our TV screens and newspapers have once again been filled with scenes of outraged Muslims; a redundant term that is as wearisome to type as it is to witness. Excepting the daily violence and bloodshed wrought by its most avid practitioners, it seems nearly everything offends a significant sector of the Muslim world.

This week’s outrage centers on a favorite target of both Western liberals and those pledged to jihad, Pope Benedict XVI. These two seemingly opposing sides — hint, one is dedicated to the extermination of the other — have teamed up to denounce a citation made by the Holy Father in an academic address at the University of Regensburg where he was once a professor.

p>The resulting violence and threats are far from new. Calls for the death of the Vicar of Christ hearken back to the centuries-old Islamic dream of stabling their horses in St. Peter’s Basilica. An example of their latest : br> /p>

We tell the worshipper of the cross (the Pope) that you and the West will be defeated, as is the case in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya. We shall break the cross and spill the wine….God will (help) Muslims to conquer Rome….God, enable us to slit their throats, and make their money and descendants the bounty of the mujahideen.

br> Curiously, the Pope is accused of bringing this on himself by pouring fuel on the jihadi fire. Yet only ten years ago, Ramzi Yousef’s associate Abdul Hakim Murad said after he was arrested by Filipino authorities, “two Satans that must be destroyed: the Pope and America.” No, pope-bashing by Islamists is nothing new.

And neither is the patently false claim that their depredations are and were a result of the Christian Crusades. This revisionist tripe will be summarily rejected by anyone willing to pick up a history book that predates the 20th century. For in that recently concluded epoch the seeds of Western self-hate were sown, the fruits of which are now apparent, especially in Europe.

Closer to home, the jihadists were given support in their efforts to win hearts and minds by some useful idiots who, if this country were defeated by Islamists, would be the first to taste the steel of their swords. Gay rights activist Rosie O’Donnell said, “Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have separation of church and state.”

Proof of this scurrilous statement is of course nowhere to be found, and were the subject matter not so grim, it would be comical. It blows the mind that those who tremble at the slightest perception of a crack in their imagined wall between church and state, should continuously alibi for the bloody supporters of Sharia, which advocates death for those who choose to follow man-made law.