The Greatest Threat to America

What is the biggest threat to America?  What is our greatest problem?  Russia?  Nuclear war?  Domestic terrorism?  Inflation?  Debt?  Al Qaeda?  I recently attended a talk by John Guandolo, US military veteran, retired FBI Field Officer, and expert on Jihad and Sharia Law; he contended that it is none of the above.  We are our own greatest problem.  A healthy body, he said, can remain strong under a lot of stress and turmoil, but as soon as it becomes sickly and weak, anything can take it down.  He then compared said body to a nation: well-founded and united nation can withstand many heavy blows from the outside, but we have forgotten our founding principles and divided ourselves into factions.  America is weakened, and is therefore vulnerable to the threat of civilizational jihad.

The core of Guandolo’s lecture addressed “civilizational jihad in America.”  The Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, is a Muslim civil liberties advocacy organization that is headquartered on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.  In other words, CAIR is the North American jihad, and the same in nature as Al Qaeda, Hamas, ISIS, or the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or Syria.  Guandolo pointed out that all are Islamic extremist groups that differ only in tactics: their goal is to establish a global caliphate, and they are doing it by infiltrating American social and moral structure.  Abdurahman Alamoudi, the leader of the largest Muslim organization in North America, was a personal advisor to President Clinton and is, according to Guandolo, largely responsible for deciding what is taught about jihad in American public schools.  Muslims in America frequently state their intentions outright—and we do nothing.  Guandolo warns that their talk isn’t just saber-rattling or fear mongering; they mean what they say and we ought to take them seriously.  Most frightening of all is that the latest FBI threat assessment did not include these guys!  The folks at the very top of our government, and so on down the line, either don’t know, don’t care, or are actually welcoming Islamic jihadists into the very core of our nation.

I left the lecture the other night feeling, frankly, rather crabby.  I wasn’t exactly afraid—it’s hard to shake in your shoes about something like this when you’re safe and secure in the Colorado Christian University bubble—but I was certainly infuriated.  My beloved America is being destroyed from the inside, and I don’t know what to do about it!  Then it hit me—the words of John Guandolo himself at the very beginning of his lecture: the greatest threat is us.  In the words of Abraham Lincoln, “America will never be destroyed from the outside.  If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”  This country is destroying itself, and sometimes it seems rather hopeless.  I just have to keep doing what I’m doing: learning how to better communicate to my generation so that I can help lead our country through this spiritual and moral storm.  And I can pray, because praying is not the least we can do—it’s the most we can do.

Remembering Patriots Day

I was too young to fully understand what was going on, but I remember seeing the images on the television screen; my parents didn't want me to see, but I clearly recall tip-toeing down the stairs late at night and peering over the railing to look: the flames, the smoke, the imploding skyscraper, the terrified faces.  My family was at my grandparents’ vacation home in Canada, enjoying the woods, the lake, the off-roading, the fishing, the countless games of marbles, the mosquito bites… By the eleventh of September, we were preparing to head home; but we couldn’t, for obvious reasons—well, not so obvious to me, aged five, or my brother, three years my junior.  We stayed in Canada to celebrate my brother’s second birthday on September 16^th, and both of us were thrilled to have more time with our grandparents.  All I understood was that someone had done something terrible to America, and the doors to the country were closed.  I realized years later that my life, my brother’s life, and the life of every American, were changed that day; but at the time, in childlike innocence—or ignorance—I wasn’t afraid or angry because, except for those seemingly distant images on the screen, my own little world remained undisturbed.

CCU's Main Campus

I could use today as an excuse to give a detailed analysis of the history and motives of Islamic Jihad under Sharia Law, scare your pants off with some troubling facts about civilizational Jihad in America, lay out a practical policy approach to defeating terrorism at home and abroad, or relive that horrific day from a historical perspective; instead, let’s simply consider why that day was so significant.  Flags fly at half-mast across the nation.  The quad at Colorado Christian University’s main campus is filled with tiny American flags—2,977 flags, in honor of the 2,977 Americans that perished on this day thirteen years ago; the weather is appropriately dreary here in Lakewood, Colorado.  Why do we honor this day?  Why did we go to war in the Middle East to avenge the 9/11 attacks?  What are we fighting for?

In December of 2001, Congress designated September 11 “Patriots Day.”  Think about what that means.  Everyone likes to put on their red, white, and blue—their “patriotic” colors—on Independence Day, go to the parade, barbecue, and watch fireworks, but how many really know what it means to be a patriot?  Patriotism does not mean, “my country, right or wrong,” and certainly not, “my government, right or wrong.”  Patriotism means believing in the principles upon which this country was founded, and fighting to keep them foremost in the governance of our nation.  By that definition, true patriots seem hard to come by these days. 

America was not founded on Christianity.  Not all of our founding fathers were Christians, as some might claim.  But please do not contend that this nation was not founded on Christian principles. A small government intended simply to uphold rule of law, economic policies that promote opportunity and encourage individual responsibility, separation of church and state—not to protect the government from religion but to protect religion from the government—and a citizenry with virtue, information, and a voice to protect personal freedom: these are America’s core characteristics, and the common threads are personal morality and a belief in the inherent worth of every individual.  The cornerstone of America is an objective moral standard—a kind of moral standard that is found only in Christianity.  Christianity is the only belief system that values people for people, and without that, what is liberty, justice, equality, or the pursuit of happiness?  Those values are what made America mighty.  That is why we fight.  That is why we remember Patriots Day.