Monday, March 15, 2010 – Jennifer Rubin & Andy McCarthy

Frank opens with a monologue explaining the comments of Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders, who is being prosecuted by his government for supposedly giving offense to Islam.  Blogger Jennifer Rubin of commentarymagazine.com discusses the developing crisis between the Israelis and the Obama administration.  Also Andy McCarthy discusses the latest developments of the “al-Qaeda Seven.”

MONOLOGUE – March 15, 2010

But first, I want to talk with you a little bit about some remarkable developments involving a friend of mine. His name is Geert Wilders. He’s the Dutch Parliamentarian who is currently being prosecuted by his government on the grounds that he has given offense to Islam by comparing the Koran to Hitler’s tome Mein Kampf. He faces several years in prison in the event he is convicted of this crime; at the same times as his party is enjoying unprecedented support in the Netherlands, winning two elections quite handily, one coming up first in popularity in one Dutch city and the second-most popular city in the second, The Hague, and quite possibly setting the stage for his success at the polls in June when national elections are to be held that may result in him becoming the Prime Minister of the Netherlands.

Why this is all so interesting is that Geert Wilder’s comments have in recent days engendered some harsh criticism, specifically comments that he made in the House of Lords in Britain, a trip that he had been invited to make some time before, but was unable to do so because the government of Britain refused to allow him into the country. But thanks to a British court which overturned that appalling judgment on the part of the British government, Geert Wilders was able to address the Upper House of Parliament at the invitation of two of its greatest champions of freedom: Lord Malcolm Pearson and Baroness Caroline Cox.

And while there, Geert Wilders invoked some other great heroes of the cause of freedom, notably Ronald Reagan who he mentioned called upon his nation, “to act today to preserve tomorrow.” Geert Wilders also mentioned, George Orwell’s “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” And then of course, Geert Wilders also noted that it was Winston Churchill who first compared the Koran to Mein Kampf and warned about the threat as Sir Winston put it, that “Mohammedanism” posed to Western civilization.

Now I mentioned all of this because the sorts of comments that Geert Wilders has made, for years now, about the threat of Islamization in the Netherlands— and indeed in Europe more generally, and indeed throughout the free have world—have of course been denounced with real vehemence by the Islamists (those that adhere to what authoritative Islam called Shariah). They have also been the source subject of great invective from the Left, which as Mr.Wilders has pointed out, is actually facilitating Islamization.

As he put it in his speech to Parliament, “Leftists, liberals are cheering for every new Shariah bank being created, for every new Shariah law, for every new Islamic school, for every new Shariah court. Leftists consider Islam as being equal to our own culture. Shariah law or democracy? Islam or freedom? It doesn’t really matter to them. But it does matter to us. The entire leftist elite is guilty of practicing cultural relativism. Universities, churches, trade unions, the media, politicians. They are all betraying our hard-won liberties.”

Now it’s not so much the criticism that Geert Wilders has received from the Shariah types or the Left that has been surprising; recently he came in for several barrels full from influential conservative Americans, specifically Glenn Beck who described him as “a fascist,” Bill Kristol who called him “a demagogue,” and Charles Krauthammer who described him as “extreme, radical and wrong.”

Now I have to say, with due respect to my friends in the media, let me paraphrase the late Senator Lloyd Bentsen: I know Geert Wilders, Geert Wilders is a friend of mine and Geert Wilders is no fascist, demagogue or extremist. He is in fact a man who is doing as much as any in the cause of anti-fascism emanating from the source that is the greatest threat to freedom today, namely Shariah-inspired fascistic Islamic supremacism.

One might disagree with some things that he says— I have myself, specifically how he characterizes Shariah sometimes. But I think there is no doubt that Geert Wilders is a man of courage, and in standing up to the Red-Green axis as it is sometimes called, the Islamists and the Left, in opposing its shared agenda in destroying Western civilization, has not only made him the man of the hour in his own country.

He is, I would submit, also a man for our time throughout the western world and indeed all of us who fate fascism need to recognize whence its real source, both in Europe and elsewhere today, and that is it arises from Shariah-adherence; not from those like Geert Wilders who thankfully are standing up to that totalitarian ideology in the tradition of great democratic anti-fascists like Reagan, Orwell and Churchill. As such I would suggest Mr. Wilders deserves our thanks and support, not denunciations from fellow freedom that unintentionally provides political cover for our common enemy’s efforts to discredit and if possible, to kill it.

Well those are my thoughts, I welcome yours. Get in touch with us here or the Frank Gaffney twitter or facebook accounts. Let us know what you think. We’d love to hear your thoughts.