I've never said that all Muslims are terrorists, and I never will. I also make a point of trying to call attention to the fact that more Muslims than kuffar suffer under the ponderous weight of the death cult's totalitarianism. Muslims are human beings before anything else, and I believe that if one thoughtlessly writes off an entire people, one sacrifices ones own humanity.

Sadly, Islam devours the essence of man's greatest impulses: pluralism, tolerance, justice, compassion, and universal brotherhood. In Islam, these excellent attributes are reserved for Muslims alone, in conformity with God's mandate. Obviously, to the devout, God's words carry especial import. This is why I despair of the likelihood for the reform that Islam is so desperately in need of, although I heartily salute the brave efforts of the very few Muslims who endeavor in this Sisyphean task.

There's still no one coming out to categorically decry jihad, though. Local group leads march against terror (salute to Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch)

A local Islamic group led a rally in the District yesterday afternoon against terrorism, which organizers said was just the beginning of their crusade against extremists.

About 50 people converged on Freedom Plaza for the "March Against Terror," an event organized by Free Muslims Against Terrorism, supporters of freedom and democracy in the Middle East and the entire Muslim community.

As Mr. Spencer points out, this was a protest against terrorism. Everyone is against terrorism. However, Muslims have long evaded defining exactly what terrorism is, or have denied that holy war against the kuffar is terrorism. This latter group is, of course, right—it is jihad, not terror. We are not in a war on terror. We are in a war on jihad, which was declared fourteen centuries ago. Jihad is integral to Islam, and always has been. It is holy, obligatory, and justified in the Qur'an, the sunnah, and shari'ah. It is the earthly vehicle to carry Allah's word to all lands until Allah's religion alone is supreme.

I know I sound cynical, but anyone who has looked beneath the surface of Islamic apologetics and media whitewash to see the real deal knows that I am right to be.

An organized protest against the vague concept of terror, announced well in advance and given plenty of pre-event publicity, draws between 50-200 people. It's not the first time an event like this had such an abysmal turnout. Last year after the savage beheading of Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia, there was an anti-terror rally scheduled in Paterson, New Jersey, which has the state's highest Muslim population, at 20,000. Two dozen people showed up on a sunny Saturday afternoon in the center of town. If all of those people were Muslims, that represents .2% of the town's Muslims, just days after Paul Johnson, who was from New Jersey, was beheaded in the name of the Religion of Peace™.

Those 20,000 people—and many millions more—aren't terrorists, but they're certainly not ready to express outrage and revulsion over jihad—unless we're talking about the efforts of America or Israel to stop the Allah-crazed killers before they fulfill their deranged fantasies of religiously inspired mass murder. Then they're outraged about jihad.

So,when we hear tiny minority of violent extremists who have hijacked Islam, which is really the religion of peace and tolerance™ describing the homicidal mujahideen killing infidels because God is great, one can't help but suspect that the Muslims who sincerely condemn the mainstream support of jihad are the real minority. And a small one indeed.

Copyright ©2005 Patrick D. O'Brien: may not be copied, published, or otherwise used (except for quotes) without express permission of author. Originally posted at Clarity & Resolve.