J. Michael Sharman

Would you feel differently about The Long War against militant Islam if its latest victim were the boy or girl next door?

Banaz Mahmod was one of The Long War’s victims.

Her family thought Banaz, a 20 year-old Iraqi immigrant living in England, was becoming too Westernized. They said she had shamed her family by using hairspray, and by ending an abusive marriage they had arranged for her. She then magnified their shame by falling in love with a man who didn’t come from the same Iraqi village her family had left behind when they moved to England.

To defend the family’s honor against the shame brought on it by Banaz, her father Mahmod Mahmod, 52, and her uncle Ari Mahmod, 51, called a family meeting and planned her killing.

Banaz was then strangled with a boot lace, stuffed into a suitcase, and buried in the family’s backyard garden. A British jury convicted Mahmod of murder on June 11 after a three-month trial.

This, unfortunately, is not an isolated or extreme case in England. More than 100 homicides are currently under investigation over there as potential "honor killings" among Britain’s 1.8 million Muslims.[1]

“The Long War”, Navy Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani said in his commencement address to the National Defense University graduates, “is, in my view, much more challenging than the relative certainties of the Cold War in which I grew up professionally. In those good old days, so to speak, we faced an identified enemy and a well-understood threat. Today, our enemy wears no uniform and defends no borders, avoids the responsibilities of government, flouts the laws of armed conflict, and employs technological know-how and operational agility informed by a ruthless intent, while at the same time sowing the seeds of doubt in our populace.” [2]

And sometimes that enemy kills its daughters because the girls use hairspray or date the wrong people. Other times the enemy brainwashes its sons into believing that their best career goal is to be suicide bombers.

A glowing May 31 news report on Hamas television station Al-Aqsa TV showed 5 year-old boys participating in a kindergarten graduation ceremony at the Islamic Association in Gaza dressed in military camouflage and masked in balaclavas, wearing black vests and carrying toy AK-47s.

As the little girls danced around dressed as pretty little butterflies, the boys did military-style maneuvers as they were asked, "What is your most lofty aspiration?" Their little voices shouted in reply. "Death for the sake of Allah.” [3]

Would you feel differently about The Long War against militant Islam if you knew that a half million Moslem militants were living right here in America?

The Pew Research Center estimates there are 2.35 million Moslems living in America, but it concedes that estimate may be low. The Pew Research Center asked a representative sample of those American Moslems the question: “Can suicide bombings of civilian targets to defend Islam be justified?”

The survey found that most American Moslems are opposed to the Islamic jihad,[4] but that a very sizable minority believes suicide bombings are justified.

Twenty-two percent of the overall U.S. Moslem population said suicide bombings against civilians were at times justifiable in defense of Islam.[5] That means that approximately 517,000 American Moslems believe that there are circumstances in which it is right, good, and permissible to intentionally kill innocent civilians and oneself to defend the integrity of the Islamic faith.

For the young American Moslems the percentages are even higher. Thirty-one percent of American Moslems under thirty said suicide bombings against civilians could at least on occasion be justified, and 15% of them said the bombings could OFTEN be justified.

           The Long War is no longer over in Yemen where the USS Cole was bombed. It is no longer limited to Beirut, Lebanon where the U.S. Embassy and the Marine Barracks were bombed. It doesn’t just happen only in hijackings of international flights or cruises like those of Kuwait Airways Flight 221, TWA Flight 847, and the cruise ship Achille Lauro.

          The Long War is not occurring just in  places such as Somalia, Bahdad, Kabul, the Twin Towers, or the Pentagon. Its victims aren’t just kindergarten boys in Palestine or young immigrant women in England.

         The latest victim of The Long War is the boy or girl living nearby or next door to you, right here in America.

            Now, do you feel differently about The Long War against militant Islam?

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