Great article. Would like to add some facts. You wrote: "But in many (European) countries, including Britain, it would lack a politically respectable figurehead. And with or without one, it would be inevitable that those most opposed to such a construction would be a very particular type of person. No political or civic leader would suggest or endorse a popular demonstration for a single reason: the only people certain to turn up would be skinheads". Thank God, no longer so, thanks to the brilliant Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who is anti-islamist and also anti-nazi (and I see no contradiction here, as both islamism and nazims promote hate, murder and violence).

Holy War: Should Americans Fear Islam? http://preview.tinyurl.com/2c7y24l This is the townhall referred to by Mr. Murray. The video starts automatically, 6:24 & 17:03 & 15:07 & 5:43 Well worth watching; American values are both invoked & demonstrated.

Though, the Islamism is the great threat it is the Left who have undermined the west's ability to fight this threat. Many of the minority left, the Hard Left, as anti-capitalist/anti-western pioneers, by malicious aforethought aim to destroy the west. As part of their stratagem have paved the path for the far more numerous Soft Left who treat western society with reckless abandon, thus combined are undermining the west, the free society. The Hard Left are apologists even supporters of anti-western regimes and movements while the Soft Left are the leading appeasers.

Excellent article by one of the few Western voices who understands what's at stake. Our response to the clash between the West and Islam(ism) is an excellent 'weather-gauge' as to how much confidence we have (left) in our civilisation. This is fundamentally a war of ideas, of which the ground zero mosque debate is but a skirmish. For the better part of the last hundred years, individualism, rule of law, separation of religion and state, freedom of speech, thought and expression, in essence our whole Enlightenment heritage, has been under attack from within from the intellectual forebears of today's relativists, multiculturalists, nihilists and their sundry hangers-on. These academics, politicians and journalists have brazenly used the freedoms Western societies afford, to undermine those same societies, in their struggles against communist, fascist or Islamist totalitarianism. Given how super-saturated Western academia in particular is with these pernicious ideas (there appears to be some hope in American universities, but Europe is arguably lost) and given how academia intellectually 'feeds' fields like politics and journalism, those who want to defend 'the West' and its Enlightenment and Reformation heritage, have an uphill battle. The first step must surely be what Douglas Murray outlines namely proudly and fearlessly "shore up our own societal defences — our own culture, our own values."

What is the difference between a member of the Lords Rebel Army and an Islamist? I'm genuinely interested.

"...It is as though we had fought the Cold War while disallowing any criticism of communism..." Why frame this statement as hypothesis? Until Reagan plainly called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" that precisely was the case.

On foreign policy and national security issues, Tea Party activists tend toward Jacksonian nationalism and a "Don't Tread on Me" attitude. They also tend to be supportive of Israel, Christian in their faith, and resentful of efforts by Muslims to gain privileged status. In sum, the intense focus of Tea Party activists on out of control federal spending and related domestic issues does not mean that they are ignorant about the perils of Islam.

What I find most offensive about the mosque question is the following unanswered question: If there is no legal basis for forbidding the construction of a new mosque at ground zero, what is the legal basis for denying the Greek Orthodox church permission to reconstruct its church of St. Nicholas? This small christian church, which was totally destroyed on 9/11, has been denied permission to rebuild!

What most people don't realize is that the tea party has no interest in as they say "Social Issues" nor do they have a grasp on reality as witnessed by their support of RINO's like palin, mclame, and brown..Don't look to them for safety..

Sadly, "Anonymous" is right. In America our democracy is increasingly under assault because we have "parties," "parties" have blinders and tunnel vision, and those who adhere to a given "party" are generally myopic and at a loss with respect to the greater vision of democracy. What we need is a party of "good governance"; a party whose leaders and power brokers are not beholden to interest groups on the left or right; rather, they are willing to bring together those from both sides (and the middle) to see if they can come up with a workable approach to any given problem. Absent this, it is difficult visualizing how we can ultimately survive the onslaughts of Islamism, Chinese and Russian imperialism, and trending world forces in the Middle East and elsewhere.