From Nolan Finley at forums.detnews.com/blogs/

Don’t let terror slip from radar screen

While American voters and their presidential candidates are singularly focused on the national economy, Pete Hoekstra still has his eyes on global Islamic jihad.And sometimes the congressman from Holland feels like he’s the only one watching.

“Global jihad is alive and well,” says Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. “I am not taking my eye off that ball.”

Hoekstra says the presidential candidates, as well as President Bush in last week’s State of the Union address, do the nation a disservice by not keeping the spotlight tightly on the terrorism threat.

“We are as much at danger today as we were on 9-11,” he says. “When the politicians ignore or downplay the threat, it just makes us all more complacent about our security.”

Right now, Hoekstra is looking toward the Netherlands, where a right-wing Dutch politician and filmmaker plans to release a short documentary linking the Quran to violence. The film reportedly ends with a copy of the Muslim holy book ablaze.

Hoekstra worries that the film, if allowed to air, will spark a wave of violence similar to the one that erupted after Danish newspapers published cartoons depicting images of Mohammed.

Few American newspapers reprinted the cartoons when writing about the controversy. Borders-Waldenbooks refused to stock a magazine that included the images out of fear of inciting violence.

But Hoekstra is more fearful that Western countries will suppress the film in the interest of keeping the peace.

Accommodating Muslim sensibilities to keep the radicals from exploding, he says, is dangerous because doing so will ultimately erode Western values.

“They’re using our values against us,” Hoekstra says. “We want to be tolerant of other religions and sensitive to people’s feelings, but in doing so we toss out our commitment to free speech.”

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende confirmed the values struggle when he urged filmmaker Geert Wilders to exercise restraint, saying, “The Netherlands has a tradition of freedom of speech, religion and beliefs. The Netherlands also has a tradition of respect, tolerance and responsibility.”

Hoekstra says the obsessive European urge not to offend is giving rise to isolated Islamic communities, where Muslims demand to be allowed to live under strict sharia law.

“They’re pleading for religious tolerance, but what they’re really asking for is to impose their values on the West,” Hoekstra says.

Hoekstra says the reason presidential politics are now so preoccupied with the economy is that it’s something real to voters, while terrorism, as the distance from Sept. 11 grows, is becoming more concept than reality.

The economy will go up and down. And obviously a president unschooled in economic matters can cause a lot of damage.

But global jihad is not a cyclical threat. A president unprepared or unwilling to deal with it could move America closer to the European model of suppressing its own traditions to keep the jihadists from erupting.

Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The News. Reach him at nfinley@detnews.com or (313) 222-2064. Read his blog at forums.detnews.com/blogs/, and watch him at 8:30 p.m. Fridays on “Am I Right?” on Channel 56