How Long Before.....

  Just how long will it be, pray tell, before Islamic mosques in the United States begin to sound the clarion call to "Jihad", right here at home, over some perceived slight of Muslim sensibilities by American culture? And just how long will it be before Americans are faced with the same sort of foreign injected, homeland based Islamic terrorist organizations that have plagued European democracies for decades? How long before our security as a nation and our peace of mind as a people begin to slip away? How long, indeed.\line History teaches us that when and where non-Islamic societies have come in contact with Islamic culture, conflict ensues. This could be explained away in a Medievil context, when an aggressive and abusive Chritianity also bore fault. But contemporary Islam continues to embrace the 7th Century, and its contacts with non-Muslims are oft times incendiary. Consider: Armenia's fight for survival with Azerbijian; The Balkin Wars pitting Christian Croations, Serbs and Macedonians against Islamic Bosnians, Kosovars and Albanians; Israel and all of its surrounding Muslim neighbors; Russia and Chechnia; Europe and the Ottoman empire; The U.S. and Iran; The U.S. and Iraq; The Infidel and the Believer. Needless to say, precedent strongly suggests incapatibility. And yet, on our shores, we're seeing a massing and expansion of this same dangerous and diabolical religious force, one that seems particularly vulnerable to radical interpretation, invariably leading to fundamentalist fervor, fire and brimstone, and embraced by mainstream Islamists. Are we ready for this in our midst? Is not our country's Judeo-Christian based democracy ill suited and ill equipped to combat virulent religious ferocity? The Founding Fathers, after all, de-institutionalized religion precisely to de-claw it. How, then, do we fight a religious war, if it came to that, without the tools to do so? With Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson? And how do we even address this problem without being deemed "racist, culturally intolerent and politically incorrect"? Very upfront, I'd say. This is not the time to politely tiptoe around these issues that have, seemingly, become issues only since Sept, 11, when, in reality, they have festered for decades. What we need is a serious, sit-down "family" discussion to decide whether we Americans want to endure, in the future, what Israelis endure daily. Once this theological virus spreads, it will be extremely difficult to control, as we're seeing. Consequently, we must be vigilant of this ideology that preaches one thing, but does another. Of neighbors who would harm us over our beliefs. Of an intolerant religion that satisfies its own hyper-gender-centric ego lust by encouraging violence and destruction against "non-believers". And we should be particularly vigilant lest Islamic mosques in the United States begin to sound the clarion call of "Holy War" to their followers, as they do in Muslim countries. I don't think we should take that chance. That's an evil genie in that bottle. And remember, the Ottoman Empire lasted 500 years.