With no fanfare whatsoever, Donald Trump signed an Executive Order on December 20, 2017, effective at 12:01 AM, December 21, 2017, that gives the Attorney General of the United States, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of the Treasury, the power and the authority to prohibit the forces of radical Islam from ever gaining a foothold on U.S. soil, as they have throughout the countries of western Europe. The Executive Order is titled, “Executive Order Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption.”
In its preamble, the Executive Order states as follows: “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) (NEA), the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Public Law 114-328) (the “Act”), section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (8 U.S.C. 1182(f)) (INA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,
“I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that the prevalence and severity of human rights abuse and corruption that have their source, in whole or in substantial part, outside the United States, such as those committed or directed by persons listed in the Annex to this order, have reached such scope and gravity that they threaten the stability of international political and economic systems… The United States seeks to impose tangible and significant consequences on those who commit serious human rights abuse or engage in corruption, as well as to protect the financial system of the United States from abuse by these same persons. I therefore determine that serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.”
The most significant of the above citations is 8 USC 1182(f), which states: “Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.” The powers are clear and unambiguous; they require no clarification.
In a June 18, 2016, column, provocatively titled, “Radical Islam – The Final Solution,” I quoted Oklahoma’s junior U.S. senator, James Lankford, who was responding to my suggestion that, if we are ever to deal with radical Islam on a non-violent basis, we must first agree that Islam is not a “religion” in the same sense that Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, etc. are identifiable religions. He said, “The First Amendment to the Constitution protects the right of all Americans to practice the religion they choose, or no religion, without fear of government interference or retribution.” He went on to explain, “Religious liberty is vital to a free nation. The First Amendment to the Constitution states, ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ Disruption of religious liberty for one person endangers the liberties of us all.”
What the senator was suggesting, without actually putting it into words, is that all non-Muslims in America should view the language of the First Amendment as a suicide pact. To the contrary, if we in the west are to protect our children and grandchildren from the horrors of a worldwide Islamic caliphate, we must first dispense with the cruel fiction that Islam is just another religious denomination, subject to all of the legal protections afforded legitimate religious sects.
Islam is not a religion, subject to First Amendment protections. Rather, it is a complete political, legal, economic, military, social, and cultural system, masquerading as a religion. Wherever we find them, Muslims refuse to assimilate into host country cultures, insisting that they be allowed to exist as a separate culture within a culture, not subject to the laws of their host countries. In order to accomplish their ends, they rely on anti-western directives of the Quran to preach the overthrow of host governments, by force and violence if necessary.
If we are ever to find an acceptable solution to Islamic jihad we must begin by identifying Islam for what it is. Abandoning the political correctness of the far left, it is imperative that we begin by officially defining Islam, not as a religious denomination, but as a brutal 7th century culture totally foreign to and incompatible with 21st century Western values and cultures. Unfortunately, Roman Catholics and other Christian denominations are evolving at a snail’s pace in their approach to Islam. For example, the Vatican II Council Declaration on Non-Christian Religions declares, “Since, in the course of centuries, not a few quarrels and hostilities have arisen between Christians and Moslems, this sacred synod urges all to forget the past and to work sincerely for mutual understanding and to preserve as well as to promote together for the benefit of all mankind social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.”
“Not a few quarrels and hostilities?” “Forget the past?” Does any evidence exist that Muslims are willing to forget the past? This is in sharp contrast to a statement made by Pope Benedict XVI in his Regensburg Lecture of September 12, 2006, a statement that was not well received in the Muslim world. Benedict quoted the 14th century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus, who said, “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
Yes, as Pope Francis has suggested, we should first ask for reciprocity from the Muslim world, but asking is not the same as demanding, and it’s time that political and religious leaders in the Christian world demand that non-Muslim denominations be allowed to establish churches and synagogues throughout the Muslim world, signaling that serious repercussions… including an outright ban on mosques in Christian nations… will follow if reciprocity is not granted. Nothing less will suffice.
Needless to say, the response from the Muslim world has not been what the Vatican might have hoped for. Instead of reciprocating, in kind, radical Islam has pursued a brutal, unrelenting jihad against the Christian world. A 1991 Muslim Brotherhood document, titled, “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America,” states that the Brotherhood “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated, and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
Accordingly, the first step in coming to grips with the Islamic threat is to officially declassify Islam as a protected religion in the hearts and minds of western populations. Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, and Presbyterians do not stone female rape victims to death; they do not behead those who are of a different faith; they do not throw homosexuals from tall buildings; they do not place their enemies in steel cages and lower them into tanks of water, or spray them with gasoline and burn them alive; they do not capture large numbers of women and young girls and sell them into sex slavery; and they do not sexually assault women and girls in public places because they think their style of dress is an open invitation. No, these are atrocities that are unique to the Muslim world. They are not, and can never be, protected religious practices.
Just days ago, it was reported that a Muslim immigrant in Finland raped his Finnish girlfriend, then strangled her, doused her with gasoline, and burned her alive. Such incidents, and worse, are daily occurrences in countries around the world where Muslim immigrants seek refuge.
The next and final step in dealing with the Islamic threat is for western governments to codify opposition to Islamic jihad. As recently as the 1950s our country has taken steps to protect itself from domination by foreign ideologies. For example, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (the McCarran-Walter Act), Section 212(a), enacted two years prior to the Communist Control Act of 1954, provides no less than 31 criteria under which “classes of aliens shall be ineligible to receive visas and shall be excluded from admission into the United States.”
Included among these, Section 212(a)(28) of the Act denies access to all aliens “who are anarchists, or who have at any time been members of or affiliated with any organization (such as Islam or the Communist Party USA) that advocates or teaches the overthrow of the government of the United States by force, violence, or other unconstitutional means.” This is precisely what Donald Trump has suggested, and it is precisely this statute that President Carter cited in his Executive Order of April 7, 1980, in which he invalidated the visas of all Iranians in the country and prohibited the issuance of new visas to Iranians for the duration of the Iranian hostage crisis. Unless we defeat radical Islam in the deserts of the Middle East and in the streets of Europe in the months and years ahead, they will surely confront us at the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument, and in the streets of America. If that comes to pass, western civilization will be lost forever. We cannot bequeath to our children and grandchildren the prospect of fighting, in their time, a bloody battle that should have been fought and won in our time. By reasserting his powers and duties in his new Executive Order, president Trump has essentially said, “Game on, Mohammed!” to the radicals of the Muslim world. Now all we need is an attorney general and an FBI director who are willing to enforce the law.
Paul R. Hollrah is a retired government relations executive and a two-time member of the U.S. Electoral College. He currently lives and writes among the hills and lakes of northeast Oklahoma’s Green Country.