Talk at UCI by Yaron Brook and Wafa Sultan

This Monday evening, I attended a speaking appearance at UC-Irvine by Dr Yaron Brook and Dr Wafa Sultan on "Islamic Totalitarianism" and its threat to the West. This was in connection with Islamic Terrorism Awareness Week", a campaign organized by David Horowitz on some 75 university campuses this week.

Yaron Sultan is an American citizen of Israeli birth, who has served in the Israeli military. He has served as president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute and is an adherent to Rand's philosophy of Objectivism (which I won't go into here). Suffice to say that he uses his philosophy to argue that America should support Israel because it is in our self-interest to do so.

Wafa Sultan is a Syrian-born psychiatrist who lives in Los Angeles. She was born into the Muslim faith, but has become a fierce critic of Islamic totalitarianism, which not surprisingly, has placed her in danger. She began to question Islam in the wake of murders carried out in 1979 in Syria by Islamic extremists against innocent Syrians. Since then, in the wake of 9-11, she has participated in several Middle Eastern political debates. In 2006, Time Magazine included her in a list of 100 influential people in the world.

Monday night's presentation centered around the violent and totalitarian aspects of the Islamic movement and what Shariah would mean if applied in the West.

To say that Brook is a "hawk" would be an understatement. While he supports military action against terrorist elements wherever they are, he blasted Bush for not going far enough and for telling Americans to "go shopping" after 9-11. He also pointed out the danger of Iran, which must be dealt with sooner or later (I am paraphrasing.) Brook also debunked the notion that the Muslim Brotherhood is a peaceful, reformist entity. In addition, he stressed that we cannot defeat the terrorist enemy unless we correctly identify it, which means that we should drop the reluctance to use the adjective "Islamic" in front of the noun "terror" (again, I am paraphrasing). We should, according to Brock, forget the pretense that Islam is a religion of peace. To Brook, Islam is more a political ideology than it is a religion. He also stressed the need to educate Americans about the true nature of Islam.

Ms Sultan echoed many of Brook's comments, but was more impressive in my view for several reasons. First of all, being born a Muslim, she has placed her life on the line to speak out. Secondly, she fervently expressed her love for her adopted country, America and praised its freedoms. She described some of the threats she has received and urged the audience as Americans to never allow anyone to take away those freedoms.

The audience? I would say there were about 75 people, more or less. Most were adults and probably from the community. Some were students. I don't believe there were any MSU students there. There may have been a few professors, but I don't know. I think a New University campus newspaper reporter was there. (I can't wait to see what they write about Brook. Surely, he will be blasted as a "war-monger".) They will have a hard time blasting Dr Sultan, however.

In my view, every American should hear the words of people like Wafa Sultan. It is easy to be a critic-something we take for granted here in America. It is not so easy when criticizing puts one's life in danger.