Saluting in Solidarity With Our Heroes
by David Bonior
With each new round of fighting against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, we enter a new and brutal chapter of human history. We are learning that what seemed like a peaceful religious community in the mountains of Iraq before the 2003 invasion can be brutally converted into a caliphate that is even more dangerous. They are killing all people of the outside world in their bid to purify the Middle East and impose their beliefs on a world they do not share.
Our response is to come together, to stand up, and not to forget who our allies in the fight against ISIS are or who is fighting alongside us. This is not new. The Muslim Brotherhood was our ally against the communists in Iran in the 1930s and is our ally once again. The Muslim Brotherhood helped our founders, particularly those who fought the Revolutionary War against our country, when the United States was going in the wrong direction. They became our ally, along with the communists, so that the West would not turn on them. Our goal is to show them that we are not turning on them. This is our fight.
The Muslim Brotherhood, in particular, were allies against the United States. In the first Gulf War, they were our allies, our allies again during Reagan’s crusade against the Soviet Union. They helped the United States to find its way around their hatred for America and our fight against the Soviet Union which was their primary interest in the first Gulf War. That was only a short time ago. The Muslim Brotherhood is not our enemy on the face of the planet. Our enemy is the ideology of Islamist jihad, which they are leading a global jihad against the West.
Now, our allies in the fight against ISIS are Hamas. They are the most effective resistance against Islamic extremists, the most effective resistance against jihadist ideology. They have been so effective against jihad since 2001 that ISIS was forced to retreat from the West Bank in 2001 to a remote mountain base that was controlled by Hamas. Hamas, in particular, the Muslim Brotherhood, have made every effort to support the resistance against the jihad and the Islamic State.
The terrorist organizations that are led by Muslim Brotherhoods and other groups can be compared with a poisonous disease that is