Patience for The Long War

J. Michael Sharman

            Dr. Jerry Falwell’s funeral is today. He probably died just as he would have wished: at work, in his office, on the campus of the college he founded, Liberty University.

A friend of his, Pastor Mark Jarvis, said one of Dr. Falwell’s most memorable quotes was: “You do not determine a man's greatness by his talent or his wealth as the world does, but rather by what it takes to discourage him.”

Lt. Col. Chris Lozano, 47, a Marine reservist who just got back from a seven-month tour in Fallujah, wants Americans to act like a great nation and not be discouraged with the Iraq war. But, Lozano says, “The media are very focused on the immediate battle, and not on The Long War.’ There's a reason we call it 'The Long War,'" he says. "It could last 50 to 100 years. It's the war against radical Islamic fascism. The frustrating thing about the media — and the general public — is that they have a short attention span and are unwilling to understand the true nature of the threat."[1]

Mohammed Fadhil, a dentist in Baghdad, wrote an op-ed piece in the May 10 New York Daily News urging us all to not grow weary in the fight: “It is up to us to show tyrants and murderers like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah, Syria's Bashar Assad, and their would-be imitators who seek to control Iraq's people and wealth that we, the people, are not their possessions. The world should ask them to leave our land before asking the soldiers of freedom to do so.” [2]

Dr. Fadhil compares today’s struggle with that of the World War II and the Cold War: “The cost of liberating Europe in the last century was enormous in blood and treasure. In fact, it took half a century of American military presence thereafter to protect those nations from subsequent threats. If that made sense during a Cold War, and it did, then I don't understand why anyone would demand a pullout from Iraq (and maybe later, the entire Middle East) when the enemies are using every evil technique, from booby trapped dead animals to hijacked civilian aircrafts, to kill innocents.”[3]

Jerry Falwell would say amen to that. In his September 30, 2002 interview for the October 6 edition of 60 Minutes. Dr. Falwell said: "I think Muhammad was a terrorist. I read enough by both Muslims and non-Muslims, [to decide] that he was a violent man, a man of war."

Almost immediately, the spokesman for Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khameini issued a fatwa for Falwell's death, saying that Falwell was a "mercenary and must be killed," and, "The death of that man is a religious duty...." [4]

For many radical Moslems, the death of any Christian is a religious duty.

On April 18, 2007 five young Muslim men in the Turkish province of Malatya went to a Bible study being held at the office of Zirve, a Christian publishing company, and killed two Turkish converts from Islam, and Tilmann Geske,  a German Christian who had lived in Turkey for 10 years. The murderers tied them to chairs and used their cellphones to video-record the three-hour long torture.[5]

The Turkish assassins admitted they were all “faithful believers” in Islam, and that the killings were motivated by “nationalist and religious feelings.”

Tilman Geske’s widow, Susanne Geske, expressed forgiveness in a Turkish television interview, saying: “Oh God, forgive them for they know not what they do.”[6]

The Islamic murderers were expressing the worst of their faith, as it was written in the book of their faith, the Hadith, at Vol. 1, no.2.025.

Susanne Geske was representing the best in Christianity, as it was written in the book, of her faith, the New Testament of the Bible, at Luke 10:27.

Jerry Falwell, in his 2002 60 Minutes interview, gave this distinction between the two faiths: “In my opinion … Jesus set the example for love, as did Moses. And I think that Muhammad set an opposite example.”[7]

Which faith would you rather see spreading throughout the world?

Which faith do you think is more committed to The Long War?

By J. Michael Sharman Click here for bio and archived articles