The news is abuzz with the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo and Jewish bakery murders by Islamic terrorists.  Yes, I said it, Islamic terrorists.  But now, let’s consider why that needs to be said, despite the incredibly whiney protestations by the politically correct crowd and so many liberals and other assorted individuals and groups.  First and most important, the individual perpetrators were in fact Muslims.  They said it themselves.  The authorities have verified it.  Witnesses have verified it.  It is settled, whether President Obama says it or not.

Second, they were by self-description as well as actions and words, part of a radical Muslim movement, one that teaches a hatred of the West and a desire to destroy it if it cannot be converted.  The means by which to accomplish that end have been clearly articulated for decades—terrorism.  This terrorism includes, calls for, death to Westerners and even to other Muslims considered too moderate.  The Muslim Brotherhood began this line of attack way back around 1928 and it has never been repudiated by any of the defined Muslim terrorist splinter groups.  In fact it has been re-emphasized.

Now of course relative to the entire Muslim population, these people are a fairly small number, maybe 1%, maybe 10%, but still relatively small.  But that still puts their numbers in the millions.  That is more than enough to constitute a threat.  The remainder of Muslims present a puzzle.  Though not terrorists themselves, a significant number support terrorism or have nothing negative to say about.  Perhaps many are too busy eking out a living in their mostly poor nations—made that way by their selfish and oppressive rulers who will not allow widespread human flourishing and individual freedom.  There are to be sure liberal or “Westernized” Muslims, but it seems they are a pretty small number by comparison.  So we are left with a population that tolerates its own terrorist groups within its religion.  I don’t see many Christians doing that with the very few extremist Christians who have perpetrated violence.   Those days are long gone in Christendom.

Finally, this is Islam.  Some commentators, whom I charitably label ignorant, have tried to say that thee terrorists are not Muslims, that Islam is a “peaceful religion.”  I beg to disagree.  They most certainly are Muslim.  Just as every religion has its extreme positions, unorthodox positions, so does Islam.  Unfortunately, the position of these radical Muslims has also sanctioned extreme violence to make its point.  It may be a deviant form of Islam but it is still a form of Islam.

Let’s be specific.  The Muslim terrorists call for jihad (holy war) and it is not the “inner struggle” form of holy war that some Muslims say the term means.  The Quran itself uses that term and the concept (when the term itself is not used) in the outward and violent form the overwhelmingly majority of the time it is used.  The terrorists call for the imposition of Sharia Law when and if they gain control of an area—and they have implemented that goal is places they control.  Women are second class citizens at best, effectively slaves at worst, and that, they say, is approved by the Quran.  You see, these positions are based on interpretations of the Quran and those interpretations are affirmed by many religious leaders who themselves are formally part of the religion of Islam.  And that isn’t Islam, of a sort?  If you say it isn’t then you don’t believe that any deviation from the “mainstream” of say Christianity is still Christianity, in at least a broad sense.  So if you are a Calvinist and think Arminians are wrong then they also aren’t Christians, and visa versa.  That is pretty bizarre.

By that way, as Rich Lowry, in a nice piece on Islamic terrorism, notes, “According to the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, 74 percent of Egyptians support making Sharia the law of the land, and of those, 70 percent favor corporal punishment for crimes such as theft, 81 percent favor stoning for adultery and 86 percent support the death penalty for converts from Islam.”  (National Review Online, January 14, 2014).  So it isn’t as if what the terrorists believe is all that far from popular belief.  It is just that the terrorists will kill for those beliefs.  Or rather, they will kill you if you don’t accept their beliefs.

Mr. President,  liberals of the world, and truly moderate Muslims, wake up.  We must stop making excuses and determine how to deal decisively with this extreme movement within Islam.