A Letter to CNN

A reader forwarded us a copy of this letter he recently sent to CNN, concerning Christiane Amanpour’s recent series of features called “God’s Warriors”:

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A Letter to CNN
by D.L. Perry

From the onset, it was obvious that no serious analysis had been undertaken with Amanpour’s ‘God’s Warriors’, broadcast this week on CNN. Conveniently packaged into a consumer-friendly trilogy, the politically-correct presentation of morally-equivalent religious fundamentalism — in Judaism, Islam and Christianity — only served to obfuscate the greatest geopolitical danger the world faces.

The threat comes not from some abstract form of victim-driven terrorism, which might arise from any one of the “Abrahamic faiths”. It comes from within the global Islamic umma, from a revival of aspirations for an Islamic empire under sharia law. Central to this is jihad: holy war against the unbelievers for the ultimate purpose of reinstalling the caliphate. This is exclusively Islamic; there is simply no comparable threat to civilisation from Judaism or Christianity.

Jihad is not a modern phenomenon — it dates from Muhammad’s lifetime. Jihad is the sixth pillar of Islam. Did Amanpour mention this? Of course not. She failed to inform viewers that jihad is the only theologically-sanctioned form of violence from within the three so-called Abrahamic faiths. It is not a perversion of Islam — it is clearly sanctioned in the Qur’an, and the Hadith (the “traditions of Mohammad”). It is not comparable with the Crusades or any other historical wave of imperialism — it is Islam’s internal motor, not a historical contingency. And is not a product of recent American or Israeli policy — it is thirteen centuries old.

Jihad is central to the hugely influential writings of Qutb and Maududi, the modern Jihadist writers of the early 20th Century. They call for a jihad as a return to the fundamentals of Islam, not as a deviation from it. And these are often quoted, along with verses from the Qur’an and Hadith, by Jihadists today to support acts of terror.
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So to whitewash, in the way Amanpour did, the current spate of killings, insurgencies, and religious persecution against non-Muslims across the surface of the planet, and perpetuate the myth that Islamic terror is all a backlash against the actions of the West (and Israel), is not only wrong, it is truly disgraceful. Amanpour clearly demonstrates that she knows nothing about Islam, and by distorting the history of the Middle East conflict with such moral equivalence, she only serves to perpetuate the prevalent anti-Israel climate and our blindness to the rising tide of Jihadism. God’s Warriors cannot be considered as authoritative reporting or counted on to add anything to the debate on the “Clash of Civilisations” or the “War on Terror’.

Even if you ignore Islam’s 1300 year history of conquering and subjugating non-Muslims, including Jews, the anti-Semitism embedded in the Qur’an and Hadith, and the fact that the “Palestinians” (a people fabricated after the 1967 war for Arab political ends) have rejected numerous chances to create a state in co-existence with Israel — the comparison of “radical” settlers (“Jewish God’s Warriors”) and jihadi groups such as al Qaeda (“Muslim God’s Warriors”) is truly abominable.

A cursory glance beneath the headlines across the globe is enough to suggest that terrorism is not some abstract evil that is unleashed in retaliation to the grievances caused by the West, but is in fact a problem of Islamic origin. I say “beneath” the headlines since we just cannot trust the mainstream media, including CNN, to even explore this as a possibility. It is deemed too politically incorrect. But with Western media like this, we do not even need to worry about the lies and anti-infidel hatred being pumped out through media outlets in the Islamic world.

CNN ought to pioneer a proper investigation of the emerging World War with Jihadists. CNN owes it to its Western audience to confront the uncomfortable reality, beyond the soundbite analysis, that faces the civilised world.

Such an investigation is unlikely any time soon.