My Thriller novels feature horrifying threats and high concept evil set a few years in the future.
Some of these threats (and much of the violence in the real world) come from Islamic Jihad. Increasingly, Thriller writers are finding the real world crashing into their novels, and are even coming under political attacks because of this.
Here is a scene from my novel Raven’s Run, due out in the Fall of 2014.
“A promising young army major had visited his Arab friends for dinner, only to find the bodies of the entire extended family neatly laid out in their front yard with their severed heads carefully placed next to the bodies. The mother, father, and three children were all dead, plus the wife’s aged grandmother and sister who’d lived with them.
Josie helped the special ops teams find the jihadist death squads who’d killed the family and, more important, the ones who had given the orders, all the way up to a top AQ leader hiding in a cave in Pakistan hundreds of miles away. That one had rated a special air strike that brought down a mountain.”
These words are fiction, from my novel intended to entertain. But the story that inspired it comes from a friend who served in Iraq commanding an Army Engineering unit.
His mission was repairing destroyed power stations, schools, waterworks, sewage plants, and the like. This National infrastructure was a main target for terrorists. Much like crashing airliners into office buildings, such attacks spread terror and made people feel helpless.
My friend’s Army unit was under constant attack for the “sin” of trying to repair a shattered country. He often used Iraqi contractors, and one night he was invited to dinner at the home of one who with a good work ethic who had become a friend. When he arrived, he found bodies of his friend and his friend’s family as is described in the scene above.
My friend was never sure, but he thought he might have accidentally helped the bad guys target his friend. How? He’d given the kids some candy. Perhaps the jihadists noticed.
I spent some time working in the Middle East (pre 9/11/2001), in Egypt. I found the Arabs to be nice people, and perhaps the best hosts I have experienced anywhere in the world. They live in a harsh world and if you are their guest, they treat you well and are honor bound to protect you.
I was there at a time when Cairo was on the “dangerous places list” and Americans were advised not to visit. Unfortunately, that warning from the State Department went up just as I was leaving on my engagement. I had taken an advance and promised to go, so I did.
When I arrived, it was a bit “spooky.” My host company told me to never go anywhere without having their Arab Employees with me. I did so, felt safe, had a good visit, and learned a lot.
(No, I would not go back in the post-Benghazi Obama era. Interestingly, Egypt, a nation of Muslims, has the Muslim Brotherhood flagged as a terrorist organization and is putting them in prison. Obama, conversely, has Muslim Brotherhood agents at high levels in his Administration. Hillary’s Deputy Chief of Staff had close family connections at high levels within the Muslim Sisterhood and Hamas.)
The book Lone Survivor describes a more intense encounter in Afghanistan, one where an entire SEAL team was destroyed. The sole survivor, Marcus Luttrell, lived only because a Pashtun Village took him under their protection. As a matter of honor the village elder and his family put their lives on the line to protect him. The entire village put itself at risk to protect a stranded visitor.
I am not an Islamophobe, but I do think the conflict with jihadist Islam is fundamental, and something that America has not (both political parties)handled well. As the good Doctor says below: “It is not a territorial conflict. This is a civilizational conflict, or rather a war between civilization & barbarism.”
Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a mistake, but Obama’s “Arab Spring” and denial has that entire part of the world in flames. Link.
The jihadists are winning, America is at risk, and regional war, or worse looms. We need better leadership, and a public awareness and mind set that has less political correctness and more ability to deal with terrorists.
Bluntly, jihadists exist to kill. They kill each other, and they kill infidels. They have been doing this for over 1,000 years, so legalist process or conventional warfare is, in my opinion, not likely to deter them.
***
It is really hard for western society to understand this kind of thinking. It is counter to civilized understanding.
The Arab Mentality… From an M.D. at Hadassah Hospital in Israel
From: Dr. Arieh Eldad:
I was instrumental in establishing the Israeli National Skin Bank, which is the largest in the world. The National Skin Bank stores skin for every day needs as well as for war time or mass casualty situations. The skin bank is hosted at the Hadassah Ein Kerem University hospital in Jerusalem where I was the Chairman of plastic surgery.
This is how I was asked to supply skin for an Arab woman from Gaza, who was hospitalized in Soroka Hospital in Beersheva, after her family burned her. Usually, such atrocities happen among Arab families when the women are suspected of having an affair. We supplied all the needed Homograft for her treatment. She was successfully treated by my friend and colleague, Prof. Lior Rosenberg and discharged to return to Gaza.
She was invited for regular follow-up visits to the outpatient clinic in Beersheva. One day she was caught at a border crossing wearing a suicide belt. Her mission was to explode herself in the outpatient clinic of the hospital where they saved her life. It seems that her family promised her that if she did that, they would forgive her.
This is only one example of the war between Jews and Muslims in the Land of Israel. It is not a territorial conflict. This is a civilizational conflict, or rather a war between civilization & barbarism.
Bibi (Netanyahu) gets it, Obama does not. I have never written before asking to please forward onwards, so that as many as possible can understand radical Islam and what awaits the world if it is not stopped. Dr. Arieh Eldad
Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs
I get this question all the time, “What can we do?” “How can the jihad be stopped?”
I thought it was time I re-ran the AFDI 18 point platform in defense of freedom (first published on Reuters here). We developed in post strategy sessions after our Freedom Congress at the UN on September 11, 2012 (as devout Muslims were attacking our embassies in Libya and Egypt).
Here is the plan to saving America …. and the West. Join us.
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“American Freedom Defense Initiative Announces Platform for Defending Freedom In Wake of Boston Jihad,” Reuters, NEW YORK, April 24, 2013
The human rights organization American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) has unveiled an 18-point platform for preserving and defending free societies. The Platform for Defending Freedom is the fruit of the International Freedom Defense Congress of the international group Stop Islamization of Nations (SION), which was held in New York City at the UN Millennium Plaza Hotel on September 11, 2012, and is rendered urgent in the wake of the raging global jihad.
AFDI Executive Director Pamela Geller said in a statement: “After deliberation and consultation with our international SION President’sCouncil and our colleagues, we have developed these eighteen points to help freedom fighters focus on solution to the threat at hand. At the International Freedom Defense Congress, which was held across the street from the United Nations in New York City, representatives of European nations, as well as India, Israel, Malaysia, and Egypt’s Coptic community were present. World-renowned authorities in legal strategy and political action addressed the attendees.”
Geller continued: “Now we have formulated this Platform for Defending Freedom as a tool for counter-jihad activists and a set of principles to unite the counter-jihad movement in the wake of the Boston jihad bombings. We need to press our politicians and parties to accept these goals and pursue political action to make them reality, and we will rate politicians on the basis of these points. We plan now to form an international group of politicians and activists committed to these principles in countries across the globe.”
AFDI calls for the U.S. and other non-Muslim governments to recognize officially that Islam is a political movement and so not solely religious in the strict sense of the U.S. Constitution. AFDI recognizes that Islam in it mainstream theological formulations and its dominant form throughout its history, not “extremist Islam” or “hijacked Islam” or “Islamism,” but Islam in the Qur’an and Sunnah as understood by Islamic jurists and theologians, can and should be regarded as an authoritarian and supremacist political system as well as a religion, and thus that Muslim groups should be subject to all the scrutiny and legal requirements of political organizations, without being able to shield their political activities behind the protection of religious freedom.
– AFDI denounces the crippling rules of engagement under which our soldiers are forced to labor. They should be given the freedom to defend themselves and protect their comrades.
– AFDI calls for profiling of Muslims at airports and in hiring in professions in which national security and public safety could be compromised.
– AFDI calls for immediate investigation into foreign mosque funding in the West and for new legislation making foreign funding of mosques in non-Muslim nations illegal.
– AFDI calls for surveillance of mosques and regular inspections of mosques in the U.S. and other non-Muslim nations to look for pro-violence materials. Any mosque advocating jihad or any aspects of Sharia that conflict with Constitutional freedoms and protections should be closed.
– AFDI calls for curriculum and Islam-related materials in textbooks and museums to describe the Islamic doctrine and history accurately, including its violent doctrines and 1,400-year war against unbelievers.
– AFDI calls for a halt of foreign aid to Islamic nations with Sharia-based constitutions and/or governments.
– AFDI denounces the use of Sharia law in any Western court or nation.
– AFDI advocates deportation hearings against non-citizens who promote jihad in our nations.
– AFDI calls for an immediate halt of immigration by Muslims into nations that do not currently have a Muslim majority population.
– AFDI calls for laws providing that anyone seeking citizenship in the United States should be asked if he or she supports Sharia law, and investigated for ties to pro-Sharia groups. If so, citizenship should not be granted.
– AFDI calls for the cancellation of citizenship or permanent residency status for anyone who leaves the country of his residence to travel for the purpose of engaging in jihad activity, and for the refusal of reentry into his country of residence after that jihad activity.
– AFDI calls careful investigation of Muslims resident in non-Muslim country who have obtained naturalized citizenship or permanent residency status, to ensure that that status was not obtained under false pretenses.
– AFDI calls for the designation of the following as grounds for immediate deportation: fomenting, plotting, financing, attempting or carrying out jihad attacks; encouraging or threatening or attempting to carry out the punishments Islamic law mandates for apostasy, adultery, blasphemy, fornication or theft; threatening or attempting or carrying out honor murders, forced marriage, underage marriage, female genital mutilation, or polygamy.
– AFDI calls for the U.S. and other free nations to have jihad, as it is traditionally understood in Islamic jurisprudence to involve warfare against and subjugation of non-Muslims, declared a crime against humanity at the U.N., or to withdraw from the U.N. and have its headquarters moved to a Muslim nation.
– AFDI calls for legislating making illegal the foreign funding of Islamic Studies departments and faculty positions in our universities.
– AFDI demands the repeal of U.N. resolution 16/18 and any other resolutions that might limit the freedom of speech.
– AFDI calls for all Muslim chaplains in prisons and the military to be thoroughly vetted, and dismissed if they have ties to any Islamic supremacist group, or if they advocate jihad.
– AFDI calls for the development of energy policies that will free us from dependence upon oil from Muslim countries.
Through SION, AFDI establishes a common American/European coalition of free people determined to stand for freedom and oppose the advance of Islamic law, Sharia. Islamic law is not simply a religious system, but a political system that encompasses every aspect of life; is authoritarian, discriminatory, and repressive; and contradicts Western laws and principles in numerous particulars. SION respects Muslims as fellow human beings and rejects Islamization as a comprehensive political, religious, cultural and social system of behavior and ideology.
AFDI and SION stand for:
– The freedom of speech – as opposed to Islamic prohibitions of “blasphemy” and “slander,” which are used effectively to quash honest discussion of jihad and Islamic supremacism;
– The freedom of conscience – as opposed to the Islamic death penalty for apostasy;
– The equality of rights of all people before the law – as opposed to Sharia’s institutionalized discrimination against women and non-Muslims.
– See more at: http://pamelageller.com/2013/04/american-freedom-defense-initiative-announces-platform-for-defending-freedom-in-wake-of-boston-jihad.html/#sthash.1QHaWsCn.dpuf
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