<< Back 7/17/02 Teaching children to hate America By Marshall Frank Look out America. There is a frightening cancer that has taken root inside our nation, a cancer that may eventually destroy the very fabric of our system of government. In a recent article published in USA Today, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas, reports that a “training ground of hate currently exists on American soil.” At least a dozen Islamic schools from Baltimore to Richmond, and another 300 nationwide, are teaching kids that the day of judgement cannot come until Jesus Christ returns to Earth, breaks the cross and converts everyone to Islam, and until Muslims start attacking Jews. This is no secret. If we know it, the government surely knows it. These are kids being raised in a closed society, indoctrinated and programmed by the thousands right under our noses, cloaked in the protection of free religion. Their teachings of hate are no different than the abominations going on in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. Those thousands of kids will ultimately multiply by four and five times in their adulthood, thus creating larger and bolder families of haters for the next generation, and then multiplied four and five times again into the middle of the 21st century. And so on. The mission? You tell me. Are we looking out for our grandchildren? I think not. Located in the Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C., an eleventh-grade textbook says that one sign of the Day of Judgement will be that Muslims will fight and kill Jews, who will hide behind trees that say, “Oh Muslim, Oh Servant of God, here is a Jew hiding behind me. Come here and kill him.” It is reported that the Saudi government subsidizes that school and many others. Thomas writes that most students at these Islamic institutions are not even required to learn U.S. history. It’s amazing that the very freedoms that we hold so dear, that we have sacrificed thousands of lives for in the last 200-plus years, are the very freedoms that may destroy us from within. Twenty-three years ago, radical Islamics sent a clear message to free nations everywhere when they raided the American embassy in Tehran and held 52 captives for 444 days. The nightmare has only worsened since. The seeds of hate were deep seeded then and have festered within the Islamic world until this day, stronger than ever. The Islamic world is not confined to the Mideast. It is the fastest-growing religion right here in our own nation. And if these are the kinds of values that are allowed to be taught the youngest of their children, Americans will pay dearly in years to come. As time passes, and I educate myself to the nature of the beast, I have become less tolerant and more cynical at the two common terms associated with Islam — moderate and radical. They all worship the same God and read from the same Koran. And I have found that those who are not radical are still sympathetic to the radical causes. Anyone who has followed my columns knows I am a strong advocate of free expression of religion, and that no government should endorse one religion over another, that the rights of all faiths, or of no faiths, should receive equal protection under the law. But I draw the line of constitutional protection when hate and murder is rationalized and taught with impunity as a good and righteous thing. This festers under the guise of religious freedom, when, in fact, their long-range goal is the establishment of a despotic, one-religion nation where all others are outlawed, just as they are all the major Islamic nations of the Mideast and southern Asia. These schools of hate are accredited by the states they exist within, and in the interest of maintaining civil relations with so-called “moderate” Islamics, no questions are asked. Yet, if the Ku Klux Klan were to apply for school accreditation knowing they would be teaching prejudice and hate to children, the Jewish and African-American community would be down the throats of politicians and the door would be slammed shut on the KKK. Where’s the outrage? Why aren’t these schools shut down? The war against terrorism will not be won if it’s fought only with guns. And it will not be won being fought only in foreign lands. We better get smart and take a closer look at the seeds of enemy subversion being cultivated under our very noses before it is too late. Twenty years ago, the Mideast radicals discovered a new weapon which they have used effectively against Israel and the United States. Suicide. The development of that weapon took place, not in factories, not in the science labs, but in classrooms of brainwash. We are now seeing the result of that weaponry, not only in the Mideast, but within our own shores. Today, there are thousands, perhaps millions, of brainwashed fanatics in the world willing and ready to give their lives so long as they kill you and me. Yes, in order to protect our freedoms, those very freedoms may have to be curtailed. For the first time in 213 years, our government may have to accept the cruel fact that our constitution is outdated, designed for a small nation of 4 million peers who had not the foresight of massive immigration, machine guns, atom bombs, air travel, space satellites, religious subversives and the Internet. The precious freedoms afforded us in the Bill of Rights have never before been more wrongly interpreted and convoluted to support our enemies than they are now. For when the killing of Americans on American soil is justified as the will of someone’s god, then that’s one god we might not be able to tolerate. Don’t forget Sept. 11. It was all in the name of Allah. (Marshall Frank is a novelist and a retired Miami-Dade detective who lives part-time in Maggie Valley. He can be reached at mlf283@aol.com)