Lt Col Allen West speaks out on the Islamist ‘perversion of Islam’

When you're asked an awkward question, you can either distract and deflect as the politician does; you can ruminate and reflect as the philosopher does; you can equivocate and obfuscate as the diplomat does.

Or you can answer the question explicitly and directly, as the soldier does.

When asked about the Islamist terrorists’ 'perversion of the religion of Islam', Lt Col Allen West replies:

Let me say this. I don’t care about being popular – whatever. The first thing you’ve got to do is you’ve got to study and understand who you’re up against. And you must realise that this is not a religion that you’re fighting against: you’re fighting against a theo-political belief system and construct; you’re fighting against something that has been doing this thing since AD 622 – since the seventh century, 1388 years. You want to dig up Charles Martel and ask him why he was fighting the Muslim army at the Battle of Tours in 732; you want to ask the Venetian fleet at Lepanto why they were fighting a Muslim fleet in 1571; you want to ask the Christian – I mean the Germanic and Austrian knights why they were fighting at the Gates of Vienna in 1683; you want to ask people why they fought at Constantinople and why today it’s called Istanbul because they lost that fight in 1453. You need to get into the Qur’an: you need to understand their precepts; you need to read the Sira; you need to read the Hadith, and then you can really understand that this is not a perversion: they are doing exactly what this book says.

I want to close by saying this. And I think we have said this all through this morning so far. Until you get principled leadership in the United States of America that is willing to say that, we will continue to chase our tail because we will never clearly define who this enemy is, and then understand their goals and objectives which is on any jihadist website, and then come up with the right and proper goals and objectives to not only secure our Republic, but to secure Western civilisation.

Lt Col Allen West is the third of four generations in his family to serve in the military. He retired from the US Army in 2004 and is the first African-American Republican Congressman from Florida since a former slave served two terms in the 1870s.

It remains to be seen if the soldier’s perspicuity will survive a term in Congress.