Religion of peace

We applaud President Trump's desire to bring our troops home from Afghanistan, but the news the White House had planned a secret meeting with Taliban leaders and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at Camp David prompts us to republish a column from July 30, 2018 explaining why negotiating with the Taliban is folly.

The war in Afghanistan isn’t a regional or tribal conflict, it isn’t a war on “terrorism,” it isn’t a war on narco-warlords (even though 90% of the worlds illicit opium originates there); it is a war between the values of Islam and the values of the Western Enlightenment, and if you refuse to understand it and fight it on those terms the war in Afghanistan will never be over and certainly never be won.

In these times of persecution and sacrifice we here at CHQ wish you the blessings of Christmas and the certainty of the peace of Jesus Christ.

For sixteen years American leaders have failed to grasp the essential lesson of 9/11: Islam is a religion of peace only in the sense that the world will enjoy peace only after the Ummah encompasses the whole world, and all its peoples have the peace that living under Islam allegedly bestows.

We understand Ambassador Dermer’s wish for a future for Muslims that is tolerant and peaceful – it is a view we once shared after traveling extensively in the Islamic world and living among secular Muslims. However, it is a dream that is fast disappearing because the forces of “militant Islam” are not perverting Islam as some have suggested, rather they are following its tenets to the letter.

The Christian message and the story of Christ's journey on Earth begin and end with the word "peace." In these troubled times when Christians are being tested and when part of that test is parsing the truth from the multitude of lies about the moral equivalence between Christ’s message of peace and the violence and depravity of another “religion of peace,” we urge you take to heart the certainty of the message of peace Christ bestowed upon us.