TRUPTET HOUR: PARIS ATTACKS, ISLAM A RELIGION OF pEACE? BATTLE OF TOOURS AND MORE

Trumpet Hour: Paris Attacks, Islam a Religion of Peace? Battle of Tours and More

November 25, 2015  •  From theTrumpet.com

By: Joel Hilliker

• Coordinated Islamic terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday have put France on a war footing. But one aspect of France’s response is very surprising—it is seeking help not from nato and America—but from Europe and even Russia!


• Since the attacks, a lot of Europeans and people worldwide are asking, Is Islam a religion of peace? We’ll see how widespread the extremist ideas behind these attacks are in the global Muslim community.

• The clash between Islam and Europe has been going on for centuries—we’ll put the attack in its historical context by looking at a decisive battle in the 8th century a.d.—and see how history is repeating itself.

• And finally, we’ll talk about a wonderful power you have and should exercise every day.

• All this on today’s … Trumpet Hour.

TRANSCRIPT:

JOEL HILLIKER: Last Friday in Paris was a nightmare. Several coordinated attacks across the city that killed 127 people. The Islamic state is claiming responsibility these were Islamic terrorist attacks and France says this is an act of war. It’s taking significant steps to go on the offensive against this threat and our first segment, we’re going to talk to Trumpet writer Richard Palmer about a very significant aspect of France’s response, something that tells us a lot about Europe and America and what to expect going forward.

In our second segment we’re going to take up the question that a lot of Europeans and people around the world are asking: Is Islam a religion of peace? When you have the Islamic State saying it wants to wage war against the West, and it’s quoting passages from the Quran to justify its attacks, you have to ask the question. But apologists from the West insist that these people do not represent the actual religion of Islam. We’re going to look at polls that give us an idea of some of the beliefs held by the global Muslim community to see how widespread some of this extremist thinking really is.

Third, we’re going to put the Paris attack in its historical context. The clash between Islam and Europe has been going on for centuries. We’re going to talk with Trumpet writer Brad Macdonald about a particularly decisive battle that took place in the eighth century a.d. actually just a couple hundred miles south of Paris and some of the factors that led to that battle that we see playing out again, history repeating itself today. And finally, we’ll finish the program by talking about a wonderful power that you have that you should exercise every day. All this on today’s Trumpet Hour.

The attacks in Paris last Friday have provoked France to take several significant actions. The president has declared a state of emergency; he’s extended some police powers of search and arrest; limited public gatherings. Francois Hollande has also called for a change in the constitution to better fight against terrorism; he’s calling for more defense spending. France has launched massive air strikes on the Islamic State group’s capital in Syria.

France has also been looking to other nations for help in this fight and none of this is exactly unexpected but one aspect of France’s response has been surprising and that is, of all the nations France is seeking help from one of them is very conspicuously not the United States, the biggest, most powerful member of nato. France could have easily invoked article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. This would’ve obligated the U.S. to come to France’s defense. It was the same clause that America invoked after the attacks in order to get the aid of other nato member states, but France did not do that.

I have Trumpet writer Richard Palmer here via Skype from our office in the UK to explain the significance of this move. Hello Richard.

RICHARD PALMER: Hello.

HILLIKER: So just tell us what has France done here—what specifically did it do—and then we’ll get into some of the ramifications.

PALMER: Ok, well, immediately after the attack, Francois Hollande, he called the attack an act of war. That’s a very a significant statement and so a lot of people thought he was gearing up to, like you mentioned, use the nato self-defense clause and instead, he has triggered article 42.7 of the European Union, and this states: If a member state is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member State shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all means in their power.

Now on the surface this decision doesn’t make a huge amount of sense. America spends two and a half times more on its military than the European Union does. The difference between nato and the EU basically is America. It’s not quite that clear cut—Canada’s a member of nato there are some EU countries that are not part of nato and vice versa—but basically looking to the European Union instead of nato just cuts America out with their huge amount of military prowess.

So one of the reasons why that Mr. Stephen Flurry focused on in his program, is America’s weakness and there are few places in the world where America has looked weaker then Syria, and when it comes to the Islamic state. They’ve been dithering here for years; there were the red lines; they were crossed; America did nothing. Mr. Obama in a press conference on Monday made it very clear that there were going to be no major changes to America’s strategy from here on out. So if France looks to America as the main source of their help, nothing much is going to change.

A second reason Mr. Hollande—a major reason he’s looking for this triggering the European Union response instead of nato—is that he wants help from Russia too. So he said that he’s looking to form a large and unique coalition. He said that he will soon meet the USA and Russian presidents to “join our forces and reach a conclusion that has long been overdue.” So he wants to create this coalition that gets both America and Russia involved in Syria, and if you were to look to nato, America would very much be in the lead, Russia would be excluded, and it will be much harder for them to get that help. And Russia under Putin has been very strong, very determined. It has handled itself very capably on the world scene and so he doesn’t want to cut off any possible help from Putin.

And then another more mundane consideration is just how much power the European Union has over France already. So eurozone rules limit how much France can spend after the terrorist attacks, so they want to spend more on their military and at least in theory they need European Union permission in order to do that. So by invoking EU defense clause they make it much easier to get EU permission to spend more on their military.

HILLIKER: How often has this EU defense clause been invoked?

PALMER: This is the first time ever, and that’s why this is a big moment for the European Union. The other part of this is that it is a deliberate statement from Hollande and from France that they’re looking to Europe, not to America for help. It’s a statement that the European Union is a separate power in its own right; it’s not nearly a junior subordinate part of this American led Alliance. It’s a power that can go out and form its own relationship with Russia, it doesn’t have to just follow American’s lead. As one commenter wrote, it is a political act and a message underlining that the Europe of defense is something that can be used and EurActiv, another European Union source, they wrote it’s remarkable that France turned to the EU treaties instead of the North Atlantic pact, its article 5. The priority given to the EU’s backing instead of nato’s, echoes France’s longstanding support for an autonomous European defense policy without interference from Washington. It could also become a crucial test of how the EU and nato coordinate in case of a threat to European soil.

So this is the first time ever—it’s setting a precedent—and that makes it of big significance. It’s the first time basically in the entire history of the European Union that an EU member has looked to the EU for defense.

HILLIKER: You remember the historical formulation of the reason for nato’s being—to keep the Americans in, to keep the Germans down, to keep the Russians out—this has really been something that has been a real problem because basically the reason for nato’s formation has been rendered a little bit obsolete by just the way that the world has gone since then. Here you have Europe that is basically rejecting this notion of its being a junior partner within an alliance with the United States and establishing its own terms for the way that it’s going to defend itself against these attacks. Really significant development here.

PALMER: Absolutely, and if you look at those three things you just mentioned, France doesn’t want any of those. It doesn’t want the Russians out, it wants the Russians in—it wants Russia’s help. As to the Americans in, well, fine, it would definitely accept American help, but it doesn’t want the Americans to be in charge. And to keep the Germans down, well again, they want Germany to help out military. So France and much of Europe has rejected all three of those founding parts of nato so no wonder they’re looking to their own European solution.

HILLIKER: So how much does this affect the empowerment of say a Euro army or a common European defense—like we’ve been talking about these bilateral agreements that Germany has been making in effort to try to get a workaround to some kind of a Euro army, the obstacles that they’ve encountered time and time again when they’ve tried to have any kind of a common European army—how much does something like this maybe push that discussion forward I wonder?

PALMER: I think whether this particular instance of France looking to Europe help succeeds or fails—whether they get a huge amount of help from Europe or whether they get nothing at all—just the fact alone that they’ve looked to Europe for their defense is going to give that whole European army project a huge step forward—a huge push forward. If it succeeds and it goes really well, then I think a lot of people in Europe will say, well let’s build on this and let’s do more together. And if it completely fails then the response is going to be, well we need to go further than just a treaty obligation to help each other—we’re going to need common institutions, we’re going to need some kind of common European disaster response headquarters, we’re going to need a common military headquarters, we’re going to need a common army. So, either way, just that looking to Europe for solutions is going to be a big impetus to push this forward. And then in terms of we haven’t yet seen and we don’t yet know how this request is going to be implemented, and there’s still scope at the moment for European institutions to get involved for possibly some kind of European Union military mission, those kind of things will take time to set up to have to wait and see what happens there.

HILLIKER: Two things strike me about this: one, the fact that it was France, it was really one of, you know, say top two nations within Europe that invoked this treaty and that is driving this initiative forward to try to bring Europe together for a common purpose, and then the other is that it’s an Islamic enemy that they are invoking it against. Both of those elements, it seems like there really is a lot of significance behind both of those when we look at what we expect to be happening in Europe in the future and just how much this Catholic Europe verses Islamic Middle East and Islamic militant aggressive imperialistic Muslim power in this clash of civilizations between these two is going to play out.

PALMER: Absolutely and the prophecy we’ve talked about a lot on the radio, on our website in recent days, that prophecy in Daniel that talks about the King of the South pushing against the king of the North and the King of the South is radical Islam led by Iran, pushing against this European king of the north, now this isn’t that push. ISIS isn’t the King of the South—as radical terrorism, they may be part of it—they’re not the leader of the King of the South. However, it gives us a preview of exactly how Europe will respond, and that push will probably come much, much bigger than this particular terrorist attack. But we just see how Europe responds. Already they look to Europe for defense and they’re getting ready to push back.

HILLIKER: So how are the other nations within Europe responding to France invoking this aspect of the European Union Treaty?

PALMER: It’s been overwhelmingly positive. The French defense minister said that every country has said, I’m going to help, I’m going to assist. After what France has been through it would be incredibly hard for a nation to turn around and say no. Naturally a lot of people immediately look to Germany to see what kind of noises are coming out of there. It will take at the very least a few days, given that the German parliament has to have a say on any German military involvement for exactly what Germany is going to say, to come out. But people have immediately looked to Germany to see what the language is like because of course they are the defacto leaders of the European Union right now. It’s pretty much for sure they are going to help out. There’s still some discussion about how. There’s some discussion about getting more involved, about getting involved in Syria—that’s a line Germany has not crossed before. That discussion is significant— it’s very rare for Germany to get involved in a military mission without UN backing. That may or may not go ahead. The other thing that they’ve talked about is basically taking over some military missions that France has already got going to free up French troops to get more involved in Syria. So they’re talking about getting more involved in northern Iraq, getting more involved in Mali. So it looks like we will definitely see a military response from Germany. We just have to wait to see what kind of military response from Germany that is. But again, if Germany supports the defacto leader, the European Union, if they support this greater military involvement in this looking to a European solution, it’s got the most important go ahead. We just have to wait and see the specifics.

HILLIKER: One of the storylines that we come back to time and again with respect to Europe is the fact that it’s always crises that drive the Union forward. It was forged in crisis and we’ve talked about just how much it’s going to be crisis that basically drives and provokes Europe into greater unification, and here we see this happening in a very tangible way. These crises in France, these attacks last Friday, are really only the latest in a string of crises that have been hammering France, and suddenly we see traction, suddenly we see action taking place. I’m sure that it’s going to be more and more in the time ahead and the next attack could be in Berlin or other places that put even more pressure on Germany to take greater action.

PALMER: Absolutely. This is definitely not something that’s going away soon and I don’t think anybody in any significant position of power thinks this is the last major terrorist attack that we’re going to see on European soil. This was a well-coordinated large group running a simultaneous attack that the authorities knew nothing off so there’s huge potential danger for the future and as you said, that’s only going to lead to bigger responses and bigger European Europe-wide responses.

HILLIKER: We’ve been talking to Trumpet writer Richard Palmer. He contributed to an article called “France Looks to Europe after Paris attacks.” This is a work in progress—that’s the working title—but it should be up soon on the Trumpet.com. We’ll look for it Richard, thanks for your time.

PALMER: Great to be here.

HILLIKER: The attacks in Paris have a lot of people asking hard questions about Islam. This is in the wake of the immigration crisis that had already put tensions between Christians and Muslims in Europe very high, but then when attacks like this happen, it makes things far worse.

Generally politicians—media figures, commentators—they’re quick to try to explain that the extremists who commit acts like this, they’re not in the majority among Muslims; that Islam is a religion of peace; this is a perversion of that religion and so on. Well that doesn’t seem to have been quite as much the case in the wake of this particular attack, but still it’s an important question. I have trumpet writer Jeremiah Jacques here to talk about this. Hello Jeremiah.

JEREMIAH JACQUES: Hello there.

HILLIKER: So you’ve been looking at the polling data that gives us a view of Muslims worldwide. On one hand you have people saying this is a religion of peace, on the other hand you have people blowing people to pieces. Obviously not very many people are doing that, but what does the data say about how common the extremist views that give rise to attacks like this really are in the Muslim community.

JACQUES: Well I think that the data is something that would surprise a lot of people who believe that anyone who commits violence or that thinks that violence is justified is not a true Muslim. This data comes from a Pew Research poll. It was conducted in 2013 of 38 different countries all around the world. First of all I wanted to point out just how many Muslims there are in the world right now. It’s been a rapidly growing religion over the last several centuries and a present 23 percent of the global population are Muslims. That’s 1.6 billion people. So that just gives a little perspective for when we say this percentage of this, or this percentage of that, that equates to hundreds of millions of people in just about every one of these metrics. But this poll asked a few different questions and I think that probably the most relevant one after an attack such as those that we just witnessed in Paris is: How many in the Muslim community support violence in the name of Islam? The question said: Is suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets in defense of Islam justified? There were 15 percent of Muslims worldwide who said yes. Five percent said it is often justified. Ten percent said it is sometimes justified and then another 12 percent said it is rarely justified. So that means a total of 27 percent of those 1.6 billion Muslims say that at some time there may be justification to use suicide bombing, to use other kinds of violence against civilian targets in order to push the cause of Islam forward.

HILLIKER: This is basically the definition of terrorism. This isn’t a combatant fighting against a combatant; this is taking someone’s life who’s not in war. These are civilians.

JACQUES: That’s right. The question was very careful to say civilian targets, so this eliminates anything about warfare, soldier to soldier, and it even zeroed in on suicide bombing there, which targets the unsuspecting and just random civilians that are wherever the detonator may choose to explode himself.

HILLIKER: Twenty-seven percent say there would be some conditions where that would be justified but 15 percent said often.

JACQUES: Well five percent often.

HILLIKER: Five percent often, ten percent sometimes.

JACQUES: And then another 10 percent rarely.

HILLIKER: So yeah, like you said, you’re talking about 1.6 billion people and so this would be a huge, huge number of people.

JACQUES: That’s right. So 68 percent are on the other side there, they say never. And that is a strong majority, but what about that other 27 percent? That’s something that I think those who are the champions of multiculturalism—those who are the celebrators of diversity and all of that, just of the liberal mindset that says come one, come all into our country—27 percent, I think that’s a figure that should really cause a lot of people of that mindset to do some something.

HILLIKER: Well it is interesting how it’s people like Barack Obama, it’s people like David Cameron, it’s people like Piers Morgan—you had a quote from him—immediately after these Paris attacks, this CNN commentator basically said—what was his response?

JACQUES: Yes, this was in a tweet. He said: “These murderers aren’t real Muslims. They’re terrorists who have hijacked a religion for nefarious game.”

HILLIKER: So he’s setting himself up as knowing more about this religion then the people in the Islamic State who are studying the Quran, who are using the Quran for justification for the kinds of acts that we saw in Paris.

JACQUES: Yeah, that’s right. Look at the leader of ISIS—Baghdadi. He has a PhD in Islamic theology from the Islamic University of Baghdad. I mean, how can you say this man is not a Muslim? He’s obviously studied every facet of the religion of Islam and he believes that he’s practicing it in a true form. In fact, if you look at the magazine that the Islamic State publishes—it’s called Dabiq, not sure about that pronunciation—but the bulk of this magazine is basically just a lot of sermons from the Quran showing that everything the Islamic state does is not only justified by Islamic teachings, but are required by it. So they really use the Quran. They say, what we’re doing, it shouldn’t be on the fringes of Islam. We are practicing true pure Islam.

HILLIKER: The apologists among the West who are so careful to try to characterize everything that’s happening as anything but a clash of civilizations or to say that this is not a religious war—I think John Kerry was very strong about that just yesterday saying, this isn’t a clash of civilizations because Islam is basically declaring war on all these other civilizations, or, he didn’t say Islam, but these particular extremists—they’re fighting against all of these other religions—doesn’t that say something about Islam itself? Years ago the book that Charles Huntington wrote, The Clash of Civilizations, he talked about if you just look at this religion that essentially it borders any time that it’s butting up against any other civilization, any other people, any other religion—there is a clash there. It’s a religion with bloody borders because they do have this us against them mentality and it is a kind of imperialistic way of thinking that results in conflicts like we’ve seen throughout history and like we saw in Paris last week.

JACQUES: That’s exactly right. Actually, I think it would be beneficial to read a short quote from Huntington’s book where he discusses that very idea. He says, “In Eurasia the great historic fault lines between civilizations are once more aflame. This is particularly true along the boundaries of the crescent shaped Islamic bloc of nations, from the bulge of Africa to Central Asia.” And then he goes on to say the violence also occurs between Muslims on the one hand, and orthodox Serbs in the Balkans, Jews in Israel, Hindus in India, Buddhists in Burma, and Catholics in the Philippines. Islam has bloody borders and a lot of people sort of decried Huntington’s book. This was written in 1993 and some of those who do celebrate diversity—those who are the champions of multiculturalism—they say, that’s not true, that’s not a fair assessment. But as the years go by and as we see more and more of these attacks—Charlie Hebdo earlier this year and now this one that was even much larger in scale and in a number of fatalities—it’s really difficult to deny the veracity of Huntington’s view there.

HILLIKER: Right, events really seem to be vindicating his perspective.

JACQUES: That’s right and even more fascinating than that is that if you look in the Bible about what was written about the father of the Islamic peoples—that was Ishmael, Abraham’s first-born son—and there is a really a really interesting prophecy there. It’s written in Genesis 16:12. It says Ishmael’s hand will be against every man and every man’s hand will be against him and he shall dwell in the presence of his brethren. And if you read that last line or in other versions the last line says he will live in conflict with all of his brethren—with all other nations. So that was just a very early forecasts of what Ishmael’s lineage would end up becoming and I think that we’re seeing that really come to come to pass in a way that’s sobering and scary.

HILLIKER: It’s just ironic to contrast the words of these Western apologists with those of the proponents of this kind of warfare that we’re seeing and it’s almost like the head of the Islamic state is doing everything he can to… those in the West are trying to provide cover to a whole lot of people and trying to characterize this as anything other than a religious war because nobody wants to say that we’re at war with 1.6 six billion people—I mean the implications of that are just absolutely terrifying—but their inability to recognize the reality of the religious nature of what these people are doing, it obscures the real nature of the threat and it prevents them from taking action that would actually be able to address the cause of the problem.

JACQUES: That’s exactly right. I believe anyone who refuses to acknowledge these realities handcuffs themselves and prevents dealing with it in any kind of way that’s going to actually bring about a conclusion to the kinds of attacks that we saw in Paris last weekend. I also just wanted to point out one other part of this poll that I thought was really telling. This is the percentage of Muslims that think that Sharia law should be a law all across the land, and this is far higher than those who advocate the use of violence. Sixty-nine percent of Muslims or 802 million people worldwide believe that Sharia law should be the law for everyone and that’s a law that’s just really notorious for prescribing severe punishments for everything from theft to abandoning the faith of Islam. So I think that’s another just really telling indication of what the typical Muslim really does believe.

HILLIKER: Yeah I would tend to think that it would be those who would disagree with that that you would have to question whether they’re real Muslims or whether they’re actually following the faith that they purport to be following. Well thank you very much. It’s a very interesting aspect of this discussion. I think it’s something that a lot of Europeans are asking themselves. It’s forming the basis of a lot of discussion and it’s going to be a whole lot more than discussion as we move forward as it just seems like we’re watching this inevitable move and progression toward conflict. These kinds of attacks just really caused the world to lurch forward to greater warfare. We thank you for bringing this to our attention Jeremiah, it’s a fascinating subject.

JACQUES: Great to be with you.

HILLIKER: The clash between Islam and Europe is nothing new. In fact it’s been going on for centuries. Muslims have had their sights set on conquering Europe for a whole lot of human history. Historians point to one particular battle in A.D. 732 that took place about 200 miles south of Paris and they say it was a turning point in world history. It’s interesting to look back on this in light of what happened last Friday in Paris. Trumpet writer Brad Macdonald has written an article about this and he’s here to bring this history to light. Hello Brad, how are you?

BRAD MACDONALD: Well, thank you.

HILLIKER: So you say in this article that some of the same forces that made this battle – the Battle of Tours Poitiers – that made that battle inevitable are the same forces that are affecting Europe today. Can you explain that to us?

MACDONALD: Right, well I would say that not only are the same forces present today but there are added forces today that – leading to a clash between these two civilizations. Back there in the eighth century, the Islamic religion—it was the Umayyad Caliphate—was expanding. The armies of Islam were conquering large portions of northern Africa in the eighth century. They conquered through to Morocco. They came across what is the Strait of Gibraltar today. They had taken significant territory in Spain and Portugal, this Umayyad Caliphate, and in the mid eighth century, they moved across the Pyrenees from Spain into France and they confronted the Franks in this great battle that we that we now know as the Battle of Tours. So in this battle the Frankish leader Charles Martel—he was given the nickname Charles the hammer—he marshalled the forces of the Franks and it was here at the Battle of Tours that the Franks finally confronted and stopped the Islamic forces and the Umayyad Caliphate that was spreading into Europe. Edward Gibbon—the famous historian—he said that we’re not for Charles Martel and his victory in this battle. He said perhaps the interpretation of the Quran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford and in her pulpits and the pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanity and truth of the revelation of Muhammad. So this battle was a turning point for Europe. If Charles Martel didn’t confront this Islamic army, Europe today would be an Islamic continent. If we want to look at what other forces are at work today that would at work back then in the eighth century, today Europe has 30 to 40—the figure may even be around 42 million— Muslims living inside Europe. That wasn’t the case in the eighth century. Today you have massive numbers of Muslims living in France and Germany, in some of the Scandinavian countries. France itself has—I think its sixteen percent of its population is Muslim. So you not only have the Islamic State Caliphate—and that’s really what they want to establish; their goal is to establish a Caliphate—so you not only have the Islamic State and these radical Islamist forces from the Middle East and North Africa penetrating Europe and trying to take down Europe, but you also have a lot of Muslims inside Europe, living in Paris and Berlin and Munich, these European cities who identify with the Islamic State and even support the ambitions of the Islamic State. So that makes this situation even more dire.

HILLIKER: Right, I think an important point that you bring out in this article is the fact that if you look at Europe today, the view is that Islam is a religion of peace, that Europe is actually stronger for having a Muslim presence. There’s a lot of talk about just the importance of diversity and this type of thing. But I think what this history illuminates and what you bring out in this article is that if you just look at Islam historically it is an imperialist entity. It is a religion that wants to expand its territory. You’re talking about the Caliphate—they view the whole world as basically their battleground in that sense—and so what we see today and all of these Muslims that you’re talking about living within European countries today, Europeans don’t necessarily—they’re there because they haven’t been viewed as a threat—but what we’re seeing now is, well wait a minute, there really is a threat here.

MACDONALD: Right, and to be fair to the Muslim religion, Christianity and Roman Catholicism for most of its existence has been imperialistic too. And even I suppose you could argue some of the Protestant religions have made efforts to expand their religion. So we’re not being anti-Muslim, so this is not to just identify the Muslims and Islam as being the only imperialistic religion, but there’s no doubt about it that there is a strong element of imperialism within this religion. And that’s being preached in mosques inside Europe, in Paris and in Belgium and in Germany, and that’s why we we’re even seeing conversations this week about closing down mosques and closing down some of these public spaces where Muslims go and learn about the Islamic religion.

HILLIKER: I’ll just read a short quote from your article: “You don’t hear much about the Battle of Tours-Poitiers anymore. It has largely been buried under masses of revisionist, politically correct, multicultural gibberish. Muslim imperialism is a taboo subject because of fear of being ostracized, prosecuted, stabbed or bombed—or igniting a global wave of riots on the Muslim street.” It’s ironic that it’s the idea that silence would be a solution to the problem when it’s because of the nature of this religion, or at least a segment within that religion, that puts them in fear, that causes them to feel like we’ve got to be quiet about these things. But this really is very relevant history.

MACDONALD: Right, and the silence only allows the problem to grow worse and for the sentiment to intensify. This sentiment that we need to establish a Caliphate—that we need to convert Europeans—that sentiment is not a result of Europeans being pro-European or anti-Muslim. That sentiment is a result of their religious beliefs. So silence does nothing to destroy that sentiment.

HILLIKER: Well it does seem like that’s precisely the conclusion that an increasing number of Europeans are coming to recognize now.

MACDONALD: Right, well this is happening all across Europe, and not just with these Paris attacks, but it’s the same with the immigration crisis, it’s the same to a different extent with the economic crises, it’s the same with what’s happening with Vladimir Putin in Ukraine and Russia. Europeans are just coming to terms with the reality that tolerance does not work. Being anti-war and non-confrontational does not work. Being multicultural does not work. And they’re just having to maybe set aside, or at least come to terms with the fact that they’re going to have to set aside some of those, lets say, higher level or more sophisticated values and just accept the reality that if they want to survive—if they want to stop being attacked—if they want to stop Vladimir Putin moving the eastern boundary of Europe—if they want to deal with this refugee problem—then they’re going to have to be tough, they’re going to have to step up their military activity, they’re going to have to not be so accepting of Muslims refugees. They’re going to have to just set aside this sophisticated new age Europe and go back and behave more like they used to behave.

HILLIKER: It’s interesting to—just looking at the battle historically—you’re talking about a force that was marching its way up into French territory, but it was clearly an invading enemy army—it was clearly identifiable as such—and so they pressed back against it and defeated it, whereas, like you bring out in here, just to quote a little bit more of your article: “Forty percent of Rotterdam is Muslim. In Belgium, the most popular boy’s name is Mohammed—as it is in major cities across Europe. The demographic incursion of Muslims into Europe makes the forces at play worse for Europe than at the time of Poitiers: In A.D. 732, Muslims lacked a meaningful presence [there],” but, as you bring out, in terms of their goal, it’s the same today as it was at that time.

MACDONALD: Right, and the presence—as long as these Muslim communities are living beside you and they’re sharing the streets—all the Muslims in Europe—until attacks like what we just saw in Paris occur, they’re not walking around the streets with machine guns or these big blades. The threat isn’t nearly as obvious for the most part. So it’s easy to just get comfortable. But then something like what just happened in Paris comes along and it reminds the French and it reminds the Europeans that, oh wait a minute, we have these communities living among us that really—there’s a huge number of people in these communities that do not like us. It was the same with Charlie Hebdo, where it wasn’t until that attack occurred that a lot of people kind of realized that we have this entity living among us that wants to see us destroyed.

HILLIKER: I think it would be—I don’t think anyone would contend that, say, all of the Muslims that live in France have that kind of ambition—but what you have seen in the case of the Paris attacks is Islamic State Muslims who are very imperialistic and very aggressive and really do want to establish the Caliphate and to extend their power into France in a very aggressive way—in the case of, say, these attacks, it’s like they are trying to provoke France into a war—it’s very deliberate, it’s very strategic—and there would be a large percentage of those Muslims who, even if they weren’t to take those actions themselves, they would sympathize with the actions of those who are trying to do that. In other words, they’ve got that fifth column sitting there in France that—once they’re activated or once they start to realize, well, okay, it really is an us versus them, which side am I going to be on—their loyalties are going to be not with France but with other Muslims.

MACDONALD: Right. And that’s exactly what attacks like this do. They just draw a much clearer, more distinct line between the Muslims and the native French. I think just an incredibly small number of Muslims in France would commits acts like we just saw in Paris. However, studies do show that a much larger number of Muslims condone those acts. A lot of Muslims would never commit—they would never do such a thing themselves—however, they condone it and they won’t run to the police to warn that this is going to happen. And what we’re going to see now is—I think we’re obviously going to see anti-Muslim sentiment build across Europe, and that’s going to really just make even moderate Muslims feel more ostracized. And there’s probably going to be a certain level of persecution that comes with moderate Muslims, because that’s just the natural reaction. We’re going to see far-right groups, we’re going to see anti-Muslim protests, we’re going to see more mosques firebombed and we’re going to see Muslims probably beat up in the streets by Nazis. We’re going to say things like that and that’s going to make even the moderate Muslim communities feel marginalized. And if they feel like they’re no longer part of, let’s say, France; if they feel like they’re being pushed aside or marginalized by the French government, well then they need to turn to someone, and who’s that going to be? Well they’re going to be left with the more radical side of the Islamic religion.

HILLIKER: One last thing I’d like to just hit very briefly before we quit and that is the presence of Charles the hammer in this history. Here you have a really strong Catholic European leader—this is the grandfather of Charlemagne, the man who is—Europeans to this day look back on his legacy and draw certain amount of inspiration from that in terms of what they’re trying to do today in uniting the continent—maybe just a quick comment about just the presence of a personality like Charles Martel and how that bears relevance to what’s happening today.

MACDONALD: Right, well, the history, I mean really the history of mankind just shows the impact that a strong vigorous leader can have on a nation. It’s not just France, it’s not just Europe, but I mean from Alexander the Great to Winston Churchill to Hitler to Charlemagne to Napoleon, one man, one leader, with the leadership skills necessary and then a value system or a belief—a vision—can just accomplish so much. And Europe is absolutely ripe now for an individual to come along with those qualities. And when that guy, when that man, comes along—when that individual comes along—I think Europe will just be—it’ll be falling over itself to give him the support he needs to defend Europe.

HILLIKER: Very good, well we’ve been talking with Brad McDonald. He’s written an article—“Paris Attacks Bring Europe-Islam Clash One Massive Step Closer”—looking back at some very important history—A.D. 732 the Battle of Tours Poitier and its impact and its relevance on what’s happening in Europe today. Thank you so much. You can find this article on the Trumpet.com. We appreciate your time Brad.

MACDONALD: Thanks for having me.

HILLIKER: You do something several times a day that drastically affects your life. It alters your health, your education, your job, your reputation, your relationships with other people and your relationship with God. I’m talking about making decisions.

Have you ever decided to go out to eat with a group but then no one will actually choose a restaurant? Have you ever decided to watch a movie but then spent more time choosing it then watching it? These are trivial but common examples that reveal a bigger issue many people struggle with: indecision.

God requires you to make decisions. It’s actually a tremendous power he has given you. He wants you to learn to exercise that power wisely. He says in Deuteronomy 30:19: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” God doesn’t make up your mind for you. He’s given you free will and you have to decide. Making decisions is fundamental to building strong character. In the Incredible Human Potential Herbert W. Armstrong defined righteous character as the ability in a separate entity with free moral agency to come to the knowledge of the right from the wrong, the true from the false, and to choose the right, and possess the will to enforce self-discipline to do the right and resist the wrong. He said the Christian must develop the righteous character to choose the right way and resist the wrong; to discipline the self in the way that he ought to go instead of the way of self-desire and vanity.

Are you learning to exercise this power wisely? Are you developing and practicing your ability to make right decisions, or do you always hesitate to even make a decision and end up just doing what comes easiest. If you’re indecisive you stunt your own character growth. Failure to decide is a decision—usually a bad one.

How do you learn good decision-making? You learn it by making decisions. The decisions that we face early in life are small, and as we grow and mature the importance of those decisions grows and you’re ready for life’s weightier decisions if you’re practicing good decision-making all along. With each small decision you prepare for greater decisions down the road.

Now all of your day-to-day decisions add up to a lot: how you start your day; what you eat and drink; how you treat your family; what work you do or how diligent you are in your work; the respect you choose to show your boss or your co-workers or your employees; what you talk about with your peers; whether to exercise and how; how will you take care of your possessions; what to spend your money on; whether to devote your free time to yourself or to others; how much time and effort you put into prayer; how diligent you are to do Bible study and to turn it into action; when to go to bed. You make so many decisions every single day.

Recognize those moments as decisions. Become aware of when you need to make a decision and then exercise your power and seize that opportunity. Just think about some of the positive decisions you can make every single day. Bounce out of bed when the alarm goes off; get in prayer before you start the day; greet each person with a friendly smile instead of a scowl or a grumpy face; recognize the opportunities to serve others all around you; learn and practice proper etiquette and social graces; resist the temptation to gossip and to tear down others; learn to say no to the things you shouldn’t do and yes to the things that you should; guard your health; watch your weight; limit junk foods; cut out the late night Internet use; and go to bed when you should.

These are all decisions that you make. Do you recognize the power that you have? It’s easy to underestimate the importance of all those little decisions but each one is an opportunity to either build character or break it down. Decision-making requires action and follow-through. For a decision to work you have to put it into action so roll up your sleeves and get to work. And when you’ve made a decision, stick with it. Be disciplined. Don’t waffle. If you decide to attend an event, don’t back out because you don’t feel like it. If you decide you’re going to cut sugar out of your diet don’t give in the first time you see a donut. Remember, decision is vital to character development. If you don’t stick with your right decisions, you’re weakening your character. God has given you a wonderful power. Recognize it—starting right now—and exercise it purposefully every day.

I’m Joel Hilliker and we’re coming to the end of Trumpet Hour. This program is the voice of the Trumpet magazine. You can find us online at the Trumpet.com. That’s where to find the stories that we talked about on the program today. You can also go there to get a free subscription to this monthly newsmagazine, the Philadelphia Trumpet. We’d like to hear from you—send us any comments or questions by emailing letters@thetrumpet.com. I want to thank my guests today Richard Palmer, Jeremiah Jacques and Brad McDonald. Thanks to our technical staff Dwight Falk and Josh Sloan. And I’ll leave you with this thought from Tim Ferriss: “A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.”

Thank you for joining us on Trumpet Hour. It’s been a pleasure. Until next time, keep watching your world.
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