William J. Bennett - The Fight of Our Lives: Knowing the Enemy, Speaking the Truth, and Choosing to Win the War Against Radical Islam

THE
FIGHT
OF OUR
LIVES

THE
FIGHT
OF OUR
LIVES

Knowing the Enemy, Speaking the Truth &
Choosing to Win the War Against Radical Islam

WILLIAM J. BENNETT
AND SETH LEIBSOHN

2011 by William J. Bennett and Seth Leibsohn

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version.

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ISBN 978-1-59555-029-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011920640

Printed in the United States of America

11 12 13 14 15 QGF 6 5 4 3 2 1

Dedicated to the men and women
who volunteer to wear our nations uniform,
and to all those who support them,
their mission, and their families.

The names of those who in their lives fought for life

Who wore at their hearts the fires center.

Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,

And left the vivid air signed with their honor.

STEPHEN SPENDER

But the best of all is to let him read no science but to give

him a grand general idea that he knows it all and that

everything he happens to have picked up in casual talk

and reading is the results of modern investigation. Do

remember you are there to fuddle him.

SCREWTAPE, FROM C. S. LEWISSTHE SCREWTAPE LETTERS

Our diversity, not only in our Army, but in our country, is a

strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity

becomes a casualty, I think thats worse.

ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF GENERAL GEORGE CASEY,
SPEAKING AFTER U.S. ARMY MAJOR NIDAL HASAN
MURDERED THIRTEEN AND ONE UNBORN CHILD AT FORT HOOD

If the chance loss of a battle, that is, a particular cause, ruins

a state, there is a general cause that created the situations

whereby this state could perish by the loss of a single battle.

CHARLES DE SECONDAT, BARON DE MONTESQUIEU

CONTENTS

T his is not a book intended to detail every mistake, error, and lapse of judgment we have made in the war that radical Islam has declared on America and the West. Nor is it a book that can describe every threat against us. Nor is this book meant merely as a criticism of President Barack Obama. The truth is we have criticisms of both this and the previous administration, as we have certain praise for both as well. And most recently, President Obama deserves credit for increasing drone attacks in Pakistan and directing a surge in Afghanistan (even as his political base opposed it) and, later, for placing General David Petraeus in charge of our efforts there. Across several other major planes, however, the story is much less encouraging. Over the summer and fall of 2010, as we were completing this manuscript, we grew frustrated with the inability to keep up with the news items from the terror front, knowing that by the time this book hit the bookstores, many more events would have taken place.

Just a sample: As we were working on final edits, the news broke that terrorists from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had attempted to place bombs on cargo airliners headed to the United States. The day before, the news from the war front was in Washington, D.C., where it was revealed that one Farooque Ahmed (who lived in Ashburn, Virginia) was arrested for plotting to blow up Metro stations in the Washington area. Just the week before that, the nation was in an uproar over NPRs firing of contributor Juan Williams for his statement made on Fox News: [W]hen I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.

Williams said his fears stemmed in part from the statement delivered in federal court by Faisal Shahzad (the Times Square bomber), during his sentencing hearing in early October. It was in open court in New York City that Shahzad told the judge and the world, In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful, this is but one life. If I am given a thousand lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah fighting this cause, defending our lands, making the word of Allah supreme over any religion or system. He continued:

[B]race yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me only a first droplet of the flood that will follow me. And only this time its not imperial Japan or Germany, Vietnam or Russian communism. This time its the war against people who believe in the book of Allah and follow the commandments, so this is a war against Allah. So lets see how you can defeat your Creator, which you can never do. Therefore, the defeat of U.S. is imminent and will happen in the near future, inshallah [Allah willing], which will only give rise to much awaited Muslim caliphate, which is the only true world order.

Just prior to this event, ABC Newss Christiane Amanpour hosted a special forum attempting to resolve the question Should Americans Fear Islam? The show would have been nearly unremarkable and forgettable save for one of Amanpours panelists, the British-born former president of the Society of Muslim Lawyers, Anjem Choudary. There, Choudary stated to the world: [T]his idea that you have moderate Muslims and you have radical Muslims, you know, its complete nonsense. A Muslim is the one who submits to the command of the creator. If he submits, he is a practicing Muslim. If he is not, then he should be practicing. He continued on, to state his view of what Islamand hestands for when asked by Amanpour if Americans should fear Islam: We do believe, as Muslims, the East and the West will one day be governed by the Sharia. Indeed, we believe that one day, the flag of Islam will fly over the White House.

Just prior to this episode, in September 2010, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the United Nations in New York City, saying, among other things, that the notion that al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11 was merely a theory and it was equiprobable that some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order to save the Zionist regime... The majority of the American people as well as most nations and politicians around the world agree with this view.

And even since all of this, as this book was going to typesetting, a series of other incidents unfolded: The first Obama-ordered terrorist trial of a Guantnamo detainee who was moved into our civilian court system, a test case if you will, was found not guilty on all but one of almost three hundred criminal charges based on his complicity in the 1998 African embassy bombings; a nineteen-year old Muslim immigrant in Oregon was arrested after attempting to detonate a bomb at a Portland, Oregon Christmas tree ceremony; a U.S.-born convert to Islam was arrested for attempting to set off a bomb at a military recruitment center near Baltimore; Sweden was targeted by a terrorist bombing attack aimed at Christmas shoppers in Stockholm; and nine Muslims were charged in Great Britain in a plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy there (all of this, after the end of combat operations in Iraq had been announced and a great number of troops had been withdrawn from there).