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By Bassam Michael Madany

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”  -  George Santayana

The year 2014 marked the 100th anniversary of the Great War; the war that was meant to end all wars, but turned out to be as prelude to a more devastating WWII. Three years later, two other anniversaries: “The February Revolution,” when the Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government. That was followed by “The October Revolution” when a Bolshevik (Communist) government was established under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin. The Civil War followed between the Red Bolshevik and White anti-Bolshevik armies, ending with the defeat of the White Russians and the rise of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

For the rest of the twentieth century, the Communist triumph in the former Russian Empire led to the rise of Communist regimes in Europe (after WWII), in South-East Asia (Vietnam), and in the Far East (China and North Korea). While the USSR imploded in the 1990s, Marxist regimes still exist in China, Vietnam, and North Korea. However, in both China and Vietnam, the dictatorial aspect of their regimes remains in place, but their economies no longer follow Marxist economics.

What has puzzled me about the triumph of Communism in the USSR was the spectacular speed by which the Soviets spread their ideology through “The Communist International” (Comintern) in just two years following the October Revolution. The Comintern was intended to “fight by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie for the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the State.” In the following lines, I’ll restrict myself to the activities of the Comintern in the USA.

At this point, I should mention that the purpose of my article is not primarily to give a lesson on Communist aggressiveness and expansionism during the past century, but to draw lessons that would highlight the similarities between the Marxist Challenge of the past, and the renewed Islamic Challenge on the global scene, that has intensified in the twenty-first century.

By the mid-twenties, the Communist Party of the United States had been organized, and began its subversive activities during the difficult economic times of the Great Depression. During this era, the USSR established secret underground organizations whose task was to infiltrate governmental and cultural circles and initiate direct acts of espionage.

The infiltration gathered momentum during President Roosevelt’s Administration that lasted from 4 March, 1933 until his passing on 12 April, 1945. Almost every branch of the Federal Government had someone who was helping himself or herself to classified documents in order to hand them to Soviet agents. The most celebrated case was the Whittaker Chambers-Alger Hiss Affair in 1948.

If it were not for the conservative members of the House of Representatives, the Americans who had betrayed their country would have never been convicted for their crimes. The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) carried long hearings to ferret out the truth of the allegations of Whittaker Chambers, (a former Soviet agent who had seen the light and left the Marxist Utopia) who claimed under oath, that Alger Hiss, who held a high position at the Department of State, was a member of an underground spy-ring working for the USSR.

The country was shocked by these revelations; but many in high positions came to the defense of Mr. Hiss, including the Assistant Secretary of State, Dean Acheson! There were calls by the Democrats in the House to discontinue the work of HUAC; if it were not for Richard Nixon, a junior member of the House from California, nothing further would have happened. There were some moves in the Justice Department to charge Mr. Chambers with perjury for alleging under oath, that Alger Hiss was a Soviet Spy.

Alger Hiss, in his attempt to clear himself of the charges that Mr. Chambers had made, went to the length of denying that he had ever known or seen him. What saved the case was the fact that some years before, Alger Hiss had brought some micro-filmed documents from the Department of State to the home of Whittaker Chambers; they were intended to be given to the Soviets. By that time, Mr. Chambers had lost faith in Marxism; so instead of completing the task, he hid them in a large cleaned-pumpkin at his farm. It was these documents that were used to convict Alger Hiss on 21 January, 1950, of “having perjured himself in regards to testimony about his alleged involvement in a Soviet spy ring before and during World War II, but he steadfastly protested his innocence during and after his incarceration.” For his crime, he spent only four years in jail!

Liberals continued their defense of Alger Hiss until the case was finally closed with the fall of the USSR. During the early 1990s, the Stalin-era KGB files were made available, and they definitely proved that Alger Hiss was a paid agent of the Soviet Military Intelligence.

As mentioned above, my detailing the story of Soviet infiltration of US government agencies and the giving classified documents to Soviet agents is meant to show that, almost fifty years later, these same agencies failed to recognize the immensity of the Islamist threat to America. This applies equally to Canada, and to Western Europe. This threat is aimed the very foundations of the American Way of Life. Islam can accomplish its goal by claiming that it is just a religion whose followers must enjoy the same rights and privileges that members of other religions enjoy.

The truth is that of all the major world religions, Islam is the only faith where religion and politics, mosque and state, are fused in one indivisible entity, and that it harbors an imperialistic motif.

In spite of all the incontestable facts of history, both ancient and modern, most politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, parrot the mantra that Islam is a peaceful religion. The trouble isn’t in the adjective “peaceful” but in the noun, “Religion.” The Islamic “religion,” has never operated merely as a religion, like Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Shinto. No sooner than Muhammad settled in Medina in 622 A.D., an Islamic State came into being, with its army, its lunar calendar, and its distinctive vocabulary! Just glance at the flag of Saudi Arabia: Two Swords and the Islamic Credo: “La Ilaha Illa Allah, Muhammad Rasool Allah.” Within one hundred years after the death of Muhammad in 632 AD, the Islamic Empire stretched from Western India to southern France.

Prior to WWII, Muslims lived almost exclusively within Daru’l Islam. After the war, due to the lack of manpower in Western Europe, Muslim men were invited to work in the factories of France, West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. Before too long, these workers bought their families to join them, and within six decades millions of Muslims now live in these countries.

During the first sixty years of the twentieth century, the United States Immigration Law favored immigrants from Europe; while quotas for people from the rest of the world, allowed only a few numbers to settle in America. That changed drastically during and after the Kennedy administration. As a result, large numbers of immigrants from Islamic countries have settled in the US. Unlike other immigrants from South Korea, India, and sub-Saharan Africa, Muslims do not assimilate. They bring with them, in their cultural-religious baggage, a robust allegiance to the Ecumenical Islamic Ummah. Therefore, a Muslim’s ultimate allegiance is to Islam, no matter where he lives. Muslims love to proclaim: “Al-Islam Hua al-Hall,” (Islam is the solution!) Unfortunately, it hasn’t solved any of the problems that plague their homelands.

Muslim immigrants have formed political action organizations like CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) and ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) headquartered in Plainfield, Indiana. They are extremely active seeking to silence any criticism of Islam. Recently, CAIR took the initiative to force Brandeis University to dis-invite Ayaan Hirsi Ali from giving the commencement address and receive an honorary doctorate. The irony is that Brandeis is a Jewish University that feared the charge of Islamophobia, should it have allowed a former Muslim lady to tell the truth about Islam!

As an indication that some American-born Muslims fail to evidence a genuine love for their country, I mention three examples: Major Nidal Hassan, and Anwar al-Awlaki, and Mohammad Youssef Abdulaziz.

Major Hasan was an American-born Muslim, whose Palestinian parents came to the USA to find a better life. I’ve always wondered about his name! Why did his parents name him ‘Nidal” (Struggle) It’s a rare name for a Muslim boy. Usually, Muslims give their sons Islamic names: Muhammad, Ali, Hasan, Hussein, Abdallah, etc. Nidal attended grade school, high school, joined the US Army that put him through medical school. He became a major in the army, and must have sworn allegiance to the Constitution when he was commissioned as an officer. It appears that none of all those experiences filled his psyche with love for America! When he perpetrated his horrible crimes at Fort Hood, it was reported that he shouted “Allahu Akbar” words that have become a militaristic war cry chanted before a Muslim attacks Infidels! When Major Nidal was in the Washington, D.C. area, he mouthed some hostile words about non-Muslims. Political Correctness prevented his colleagues to bring his strange behavior to the attention of the higher authorities. Even then, they might have failed to consider his inordinate anger a sign of something terrible brewing in his brain.

Another sign of the authorities blindness to the re-Islamization of Major Nidal’s mind, was his closeness to Anwar al-Awlaki, the former Imam at Dar el-Hijra mosque in Falls Church in Virginia, who once preached to two of the 9/11 hijackers. Al-Awlaki praised the murderer by saying on his blog, “Nidal Hasan Did the Right Thing.” This American-born Muslim cleric was well-educated and had pursued doctoral studies at George Washington University. He left the U. S. in 2002 heading first to England, and from there, he traveled to his parents’ homeland, Yemen. He kept busy in his terrorist activities, and guided Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber in the planning of his murderous plot. In 2009, he helped the man who attempted to bring down the Detroit-bound plane by suggesting that he hide explosives in his underwear! Eventually, he was killed in Yemen, by a U. S. drone strike in September, 2011.

Muhammad Youssef Abdulaziz, who though not American-born, had benefited greatly from living in his host country, manifested his ingratitude in Chattanooga, Tennessee, by gunning down in mid-July, 2015, four Marines, wounding three others, one of whom died early Saturday,18 July, 2015 .

As long as the media, our cultural elites, and our representatives in the national government manifest short-term memories of the past, and appear that they haven’t learnt much from the history of the Communist infiltration and spy activities in the 1930s and 1940s, they remain ill-equipped to deal with radical Islam that has been waging unconventional wars against us, at home, and overseas. Unless we change our understanding of the true nature of Islamism, our future will be fraught with unforeseen dangers, since the Islamist worldview is both imperialistic and Utopian; that makes it an extremely “flammable” combination.