Those who blame the Muslim problem on Christian Crusades are only about 2,600 years off on their timeline. An abbreviated review of history from my memory demonstrates that secular-liberal-socialists are wrong.

Muslim hatred of Jews and Christians began in antiquity. Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was very old and barren. She eventually asked her handmaiden, Hagar, to be Abraham’s concubine. A child resulted. His name was Ishmael. Then the Lord answered prayer and Sarah was made fertile again; a miracle. In due time, she presented Abraham with a son. They named him Isaac.

Hagar was of the people that today we call Muslims. She eventually was asked to take Ishmael and leave Abraham’s camp, because of dissention. Ishmael was jealous of Isaac’s inheritance, the blessings and promises of God. And that is when the seeds of eternal war were sown.

Isaac had a son named Israel. Israel became the father of the 10 Tribes of Israel. Later, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin became the two tribes of the house of Judah. Together, the 12 tribes made up the nation of Israel. There was not yet a place called Israel.

We know that Pharaoh and the Egyptians took Israel into captivity as slaves. Eventually, with the help of God, Israel escaped into the wilderness. After a long journey they ended in the Promised Land of Canaan; an area larger than modern day Israel and Palestine combined. However, freedom has never been free. Under the Lord’s command, Israel had to fight to take and hold the land.

Many miracles of God were experienced in those battles; the collapse of the walls of Jericho for instance. In some cases the Lord commanded the leaders of Israel to kill the entire enemy in their path, even the livestock. The point I make here is that in the spiritual battle between good and evil, the Lord may have identified Israel’s enemies, the descendants of Ishmael who occupied Canaan, as agents of evil.

After some good years, Israel’s eventual downfall was a result of their sin and their disobedience to the Lord. Greed, jealousy, internal strife, and general moral collapse ended in a splitting of the tribes into two nations, each of which were eventually and separately overwhelmed by enemies and taken into captivity, out of their promised land. Covenants had been broken.

After generations of captivity, some of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin were allowed to return to Palestine. But when the 10 tribes of Israel were set free, they were dispersed amongst the nations. Their migrations would cause them to settle all across Europe. It is believed that some even ended up in the British Isles.

It is interesting to note that all of this happened well before the time of Christ. Yet, at one point in his three-year ministry in Palestine, Jesus said that he had come to save the lost sheep of Israel. Later, the Apostle Paul was called into the same places where the “lost 10 tribes” had settled. There he preached the gospel of the New Covenant to the direct descendants of the 10 tribes of Israel from the pulpits of their synagogues. Those people followed Christ and are the descendants of Christians today. I hear the wheels turning in your head, but that is a story for another day.

You already know that throughout the ages the descendants of Judah living in Palestine suffered under oppression of Muslims. You know that Jews and Christians were persecuted in Europe. After Christianity became accepted, Jews living in almost every nation were persecuted, sometimes by Christians, often by others being pushed by tyrants.

After several years of fighting the British, and pleading and negotiating with the U.N., Jews were given back a plot of land in Palestine, forming the nation of Israel in 1948. As we all know, that began the continuing state of war between Israel and virtually every Muslim nation and Muslim people in the world, especially her neighbors. In time, the world would learn what a terrible evil could be inspired by the teachings of jihad found in the Quran.

Because of their religion of Islam and the teachings and example of their prophet Mohammed, jihadists say they have a duty to kill infidels. The truth is they are descendants of a people who until approximately 600 AD, had no true religion and were jealous of their half-brothers who were given an inheritance of the blessings and promises of God, 4,000 years ago.

Such ignorance and loyalty to a false religion, and to a prophet who taught murder instead of evangelism, is a pity. But it is also a disaster for many people in many nations. Muslims and their religion-sponsored terror continue to be an important demographic and important problem.

It is a problem that will not be solved by political diplomacy. It is a problem that will not be solved by checkbook diplomacy. It’s a problem that will not be solved by political correctness or political concession. It is a problem that will not be solved by temporary expediencies.

The Muslim Problem is a problem that absolutely will not be solved by reductions in the military budget of the United States of America.

It is my considered opinion that the Muslim problem will never be solved by any external influence of man. As the USA continues to learn how to effectively fight asymmetrical wars we might at times slow or temporarily contain Muslim jihadists and their terror, but only that.

Indeed, I hope the Muslim problem will be solved when many followers of Islam convert to Christianity. They would never accept Judaism. Yes, I know that idea is a stretch, but God is still in the miracle business. The only other option is for the problem to be solved internally, by Muslims.

It is impossible to quantify or identify Islamic moderates or Islamic extremists with any clarity. And of course, we cannot inscribe an imaginary line and say that we are going to work with these in the hopes of enlisting their service to convince the others to denounce jihad. But politicians and media talking-heads continue to banter about the help of Moderate Islam. So, I too must give the idea some consideration. Perhaps moderates would be the most likely to receive a miracle of conversion. But, who am I to say.

There is one thing I know: Asymmetrical wars will dominate conflicts for many years. We must utilize elite Special Forces in small deployments to root out and destroy small cabals of terrorists or insurgents before they grow to become small armies, as they once did in Iraq. It is ineffective and extremely costly in lives and capital to attempt to fight terror with standing armies.

The USA cannot prepare, equip, and train for asymmetrical wars which may pop up in various spots on the globe at various times, or concurrently, while operating with a greatly reduced military budget. The intelligence and rapid deployment needed for effectiveness are also costly. Substantial cuts would reduce our national defense and further play into the hand of the descendants of Ishmael.

George Rogers Clark blogs at myFreeBlogs: http://www.myfreeblogs.us