The Juan Williams Firing

By Joel C. Rosenberg
JoelRosenberg.com

That National Public Radio fired liberal commentator Juan Williams this week for publicly expressing on the Fox News Channel his anxieties about Muslims in America is appalling, but not surprising. NPR has long been hostile to the views of evangelical Christians and conservatives (example, example, example, example).

Now, apparently, they are even hostile towards liberals who express personal sentiments on a conservative TV program. But the dustup is important not simply because it exposed once again the left-wing bias of NPR and demonstrated yet again why the network should not receive a dime of public funding. It was important because of the chilling implications over free speech in this country.

[UPDATE: Here is the full 6 minute clip of Juan Williams' discussion with Bill O'Reilly on Monday in which Juan carefully describes the difference between moderate Muslims and extremists]

Are we really not allowed to say in a post-9/11 world that Muslims traveling on planes make some Americans uneasy? What else are we not allowed to say? Should we not discuss the threat of Radical Muslims to Judeo-Christian civilization? Are we not allowed to discuss, as Juan Williams did on the Fox show, that the Times Square bomber told a U.S. federal judge that the defeat of the U.S. is “imminent” and Americans should “brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me only a first droplet of the blood that will follow me.” Are we not allowed to express our concerns about what would happen if Radical Muslims acquired nuclear, chemical or biological weapons? Are we not allowed to discuss the Muslim leader in England who recently said Islam will one day rule the world and the Islamic flag will fly over the White House?

As I wrote last year in my non-fiction book, Inside the Revolution, the vast majority of Muslims in the U.S. and around the world (upwards of 90 to 93 percent) are moderate, peaceful people. They don’t believe in jihad. They are not suicide bombers or terrorists. They want good jobs, good schools for their kids, and the right to practice their faith without persecution or government interference. But as I also describe in great detail in that book, there is a small but important percentage of Muslims that are highly dangerous. They believe that Islam is the answer, and violent jihad is the way. Americans need to talk about both groups. We need to learn about and discuss the differences. We need to understand who the Radicals are, and who the Reformers are.

At the same time, we need to understand that there is a subset of Radical Muslims who are even more dangerous. They don’t simply want to terrorize us; they want to annihilate us. Chief among them are the “Twelvers,” a Shia Muslim cult who believe that end of the world is at hand, that the Islamic messiah known as the “Twelfth Imam” is coming to earth at any moment, and that the way to hasten the arrival of the Twelfth Imam is to annihilate two countries — Israel, which they call the “Little Satan,” and the United States, which they call the “Great Satan.” What makes these Twelvers especially dangerous right now is that they are running the current government of Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is a Twelver, and says he actually met with the Twelfth Imam last July. Iranian President Ahmadinejad is a lifelong Twelver, and is actively seeking to build nuclear weapons. Both have publicly called for the annihilation of the U.S. and Israel, and said Islam will conquer the world and they are doing so for expressly religious purposes. (example, example, example, example, example)

The world is doing precious little to stop such men. The Obama administration certainly isn’t taking decisive action to stop Iran from getting the Bomb. So every day the danger grows that the Twelvers will get nuclear weapons and either use them against Israel, and then the U.S., or give those weapons to terrorist groups who will seek to obliterate their enemies. Now is precisely the time to talk about such things. Now is precisely the time to talk as Americans about our anxieties and our fears. This is why I wrote a new political thriller entitled, The Twelfth Imam, to help foster such a national conversation and to take people inside the story and to help them imagine what might happen if the world ignores the threat posed by the leaders of Iran.

NPR apparently wants to silence Americans who are concerned about the threat of Radical Islam. Thankfully, there are a multitude of other media outlets who permit and even encourage such a conversation. Good. It’s critically important, and getting Americans engaged in these issues is, after all, more needed than ever.

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