Our failure of will as reported in The Grand Jihad

Chapter 21 of Andrew McCarthy's book The Grand Jihad is perhaps the most discouraging of all, which says a lot considering how much of the book frightens and discourages me. McCarthy uses this chapter to show the power of Islamists at work in Minneapolis, revealing how weakly we are responding to aggressive actions.

There are something like 100,000 Somalis living in Minneapolis, where they are making great political and legal strides. Unfortunately, these strides are often at the expense of traditional American values. For example, Somali taxi drivers began refusing service to passengers carrying alcohol. This soon expanded to other situations that their sharia law looked down on -- passengers accompanied by dogs and even some people who appeared overtly homosexual. What did the authorities do? They should have told those people to find another job. However, they responded by engaging the cabbies on the finer points of sharia. They suggested it was the consumption of alcohol not its transportation that was a problem.

There are plenty more grim examples of Americans going out of their way to appease Muslims in the Minneapolis area. There's the story of Tyler Hurd, a college student prone to seizures who attended school in the company of his service dog. He was required because of one of his classes to do field work at local high schools. There he encountered Somali students who, because of their faith, taunted the dog and finally threatened to kill it. The student complained to officials at his college. What do you think they did? Did they protect the student and told his antagonists to get lost? No. Instead, the school waved his remaining training hours, giving him credit for the course without doing the work so that they could avoid a confrontation with menacing Muslims.

Want another example? A high school senior had written a paper complaining that Muslim students were not required to adhere to various school rules. The school, of course, should have protected his right to say this. But he and his mother were told he was going to be suspended because school officials feared he would be attacked. After a few days the boy returned to school and was mauled by a gang of at least 20 Somali students. He had to be hospitalized for head injuries.

What else is the state of Minnesota doing to accommodate Muslims? Well, it's using its charter school law to operate an Islamic public school, a benefit accorded no other religious group. It costs taxpayers in St. Paul nearly $4 million per year to keep this school operating.

But, we might say, this is just Minneapolis and Minnesota. It's just some local fluke, but the rest of the U.S. is standing firm against Islamist inroads. I wish that was true. But no, Islamicization is seeping into the learning process as well in many other places. History and social studies textbooks routinely indoctrinate our American children of middle and high school age that the prophet of Islam was a trader who "taught equality" and was animated by the desire to "help the poor." The texts also go on endlessly about the contributions of Islam to the arts and science. For example, students are told that music and particularly singing was part of Muslim Spain's musical culture which undoubtedly influenced later musical forms in Europe and North Africa. But then later the text admits this music is lost, so who knows how much influence it really had. Are there any references to the way Islam spread by the sword? You can probably guess the answer is no. The references now says Islam" moved peacefully with traders." The faith is brought to seemingly willing populations and spontaneously spreads throughout the Middle East to people who simply become Muslims. Tolerance is continually referenced. One textbook says "another factor in helping the Arabs in the spread of Islam was their tolerance for other religions." Nothing is said of second-class citizenship or enslavement or its continued piracy. Students are never told that sharia, which blends the state and religion, is far removed from Western traditions of religious freedom. Nowhere are punishments mentioned for petty offenses -- stoning, decapitation, dismemberment.

There are other inroads as well. In increasing numbers, troubled American banks who would like some of that Islamic oil wealth, have set up sharia advisory boards. Why? To avoid Islamic injunctions against interest as well as certain forms of risk and investments in industries whose operations transgressed Muslim law. These industries include ones dealing in pork, alcohol, investment funds, and others. Many of their sharia advisors for these financial dealings turn out to be vehemently anti-western clerics. These schemes legitimize and regularize sharia as part of the American legal and banking systems.

This is a good time to stop. I'm discouraged and disappointed at the American responses to Islamic inroads. But we can't just shut our eyes. We need to take action this November and make sure the people we elect will stand up to Islamic fundamentalists and their attempts to impose their fanatical ideas on our American culture.