He’s dead, but unfortunately it’s not over.
        Osama Bin Laden has finally been killed, and he was only 30 miles or so from Pakistan’s capitol.
        About a decade ago, I was in Islamabad myself, staying at the Islamabad Holiday Inn. I remember being awakened about 4:30 in the morning with the Muslim call to prayer. I said to myself, “No wonder this country’s so poor. They don’t let anybody sleep!”
        In our short travels there, we were even in Rawalpindi, the neighboring outpost where KSM was later captured.
        Rawalpindi is the same place where former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto was murdered a few years ago. At Osama’s direction.
        Someone I met in Rawalpindi sent me some jokes recently through email:
        *“What does Taliban 1 say to Taliban 2? Happy Birthday, and have a blast.”
        *“You might be a Taliban if you consider television dangerous, but routinely carry explosives in your pants.”
        *“You might be a Taliban if you have more wives than teeth.”
        *“You might be a Taliban if you own $300 machine gun and $2'000 rocket launcher, but can't afford shoes.”
        *“You might be a Taliban if you think vests come in two styles...bullet-proof and suicide.”
        I suppose ordinary Pakistanis, who don’t buy the vision of the Taliban or the late Osama, use humor to help cope with their threat.
        The death of Osama Bin Laden gives us a good time to reflect on the overall goal of radical Muslims.
        When I was a child sometime in the mid-1960s, I discovered a book in our local library (Winnetka Public Library) which stated that the Communists actually had a plan to take over the whole world.
        That was astounding to me because it was a credible threat.
        Thankfully, forty years later, the Western world has made great strides in vanquishing Communism, although there are vestiges left here and there. Like in many university classrooms in America.
        There’s another ideology that plans to take over the whole world.
        Radical Islam.
        Radical Muslims, perhaps about 10% of the total Muslim population, want to see strict Islam imposed on the whole world. They are willing to kill for this vision---even kill fellow Muslims.
        Unfortunately, many Muslims have been violent from the very beginning.
        After Mohammed’s death in 632, Muslims spread Islam by the sword, conquering from the Arabian peninsula throughout the Mediterranean world.
        They even conquered much of Spain and tried to conquer France, until Charles Martel, the grandfather of Charlemagne, defeated them at the Battle of Tours in 732.
        Meanwhile, by A.D. 950, 50% of what had been Christendom had been conquered by the Islamic sword. Most of that territory has never returned.
        The crusades, which we hear about ad nauseam, were a violent reaction to almost five centuries of all these Muslim conquests.
Robert Spencer, director of jihadwatch.com and the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades, told me that the crusades “are very likely to have saved Europe from conquest and Islamization and saved France and Germany and Britain and Italy from the same fate that overcame Christian Egypt, Christian Syria and the other lands that earlier had been subjected to jihad conquest. It is very likely then that we owe Western Christian civilization, the civilization that is at the foundation of our own society and culture, to the crusades and that we owe the crusaders a great debt of gratitude for what they did.”
        Spencer quickly added that that appreciation for the crusaders does not excuse some of the excesses the warriors “of the cross” committed.
        I would add that I agree with those who say that Christianity should never use force to enforce doctrine. It’s bad for everybody---including the Christian cause.
        Meanwhile, there certainly is justification (at the last resort) for fighting in a just war.
        Jump ahead to the early 20th century, when the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of World War I. Within a decade, the new dictator of Turkey had abolished the caliphate---the successor of Mohammed.
        The Muslim Brotherhood was born in the 1920s to try and recreate a worldwide caliphate.
        Then in the late 1970s, Ayatollah Khomeini helped bring a resurgence of Islam. Even though he was a Shiite (about 15% of Muslims, compared to the 85% who are Sunnis), he was able to unite many millions of Muslims with a dream of triumphant Islam.
        The more he imposed fundamentalist Islam, the more he woke up millions of moderate Muslims against strict Islam.
Osama Bin Laden entered the picture in the 1990s. He stated, "I am confident that Muslims will be able to end the legend of the so-called superpower that is America." As the New York Times put it in his obituary: “In his vision, he would be the ‘emir,’ or prince, in a restoration of the khalifa, a political empire extending from Afghanistan across the globe. ‘These countries belong to Islam…not the rulers.’"
        It’s a good thing Obama got Osama. But he would have been more classy---and more accurate---if he had given President Bush a little credit.
        If it hadn’t been for Bush’s policies, Obama wouldn’t have gotten Osama.
        It would be nice to think that the threat of radical Islam is over with the death of Osama Bin Laden. But in light of the ideology inherent to Islam (“Slay the infidel wherever you find him…” Qur’an 9:29), that’s wishful thinking. Don’t be surprised if someone arises soon to take Osama’s place.