PrintApril 7, 2010
An Islamofascist Reading List for President Obama
There is nothing more horriblethan the murder of a beautiful theoryby a brutal gang of facts.- La Rochefoucauld
Fresh from the battlefield of solving America's healthcare conundrum, President Obama has gamely refused to let the sun set upon his dogged determination to single-handedly transform life's realities into hallucination.
Today we receive the latest good news out of the Obama Administration that the twin problems of Islamic jihad and Islamic fascism no longer threaten the world -- the President is banning use of such terminology from National Security documents, briefings, and interoffice post-it notes.
Like Vonnegut's Tralfamadorians in Slaughter House Five (whose response to war was ignoring it, and whose only form of reading a book filled with symbols which represented pleasant thoughts and events), President Obama resides in a comfortable world of politically correct delusion, convinced cheap rhetoric is more powerful than the haute couture of suicide vests and murderously transformative, politically-based theological zeal.
Both the President and 300,000,000 Americans (not to mention Europeans, Australians, Indians, Central and South Americans, etc.) would be better served if, rather than alienating Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Obama instead turned to combating the doctrinaire nightmare quite explicit in its 14-centuries-long quest to replace Western Civilization with Islam and sharia.
Herewith, a suggested reading list to get the President and his advisors started.
Faith, Reason, and the War Against Jihadism - A Call to Action (2007), George Weigel
Knowing the Enemy - Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror (2006), Mary Habeck
Islamic Imperialism - A History (2006), Efraim Karsh
The Al Qaeda Reader (2007), Raymond Ibrahim, editor and translator
The Legacy of Jihad - Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims (2005), A.G. Bostom, editor
While Europe Slept - How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within (2006), Bruce Bawer
Why I am Not a Muslim (1995; 2003), Ibn Warraq
World War IV - The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism (2007), Norman Podhoretz
The Trouble With Islam Today - A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith (2003), Irshad Manji
The First Crusade - A New History: The Roots of Conflict Between Christianity and Islam (2004), Thomas Asbridge
The Crisis of Islam - Holy War and Unholy Terror (2003), Bernard Lewis
The Political Language of Islam (1988; 1991), Bernard Lewis
What Went Wrong - The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East (2002), Bernard Lewis
Religion of Peace? - Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't (2007), Robert Spencer
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (2005), Robert Spencer
America Alone - The End of the World As We Know It (2006), Mark Steyn
After reading the above, then the President may wish to peruse either of the following translations - and do so with a less sophist apologist eye.
The Koran (or Quran, canonical text established c. 651-2 A.D.; original translation 1956; current, 2000), N. J. Dawood
Al-Qura'ān (or Koran) (original translation, 1984; "contemporary" translation, 2000), Ahmed Ali
