James Zumwalt is the son of the much-admired late Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, Jr. and is himself a commentator on current affairs. He recently came across the description of Islam that Winston Churchill provided in The River War, which was about the British fighting the fuzzy-wuzzies in Sudan. Churchill had seen the Muslims up close, came to understand their view of the world, and set down what he understood in words that today would likely land him in jail for “Islamophobia.” Zumwalt’s lament that we have not heeded Churchill’s warning about the menace of Islam and the future of the West can be found here: “We didn’t listen to Churchill,” by James Zumwalt, American Thinker, December 1, 2025:
Two West Virginia National Guardsmen were shot just before Thanksgiving Day (allegedly) by an Afghan terrorist immigrant. While one has died and the other remains in critical condition, the question remains why they were shot. The answer may well have been given to us 126 years earlier by a young Winston Churchill.
Before 3:00 pm on November 26th, three Guard members were on foot patrol, blocks away from the White House. Suddenly, without warning, the suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, jumped from behind a corner. Armed with a revolver, he first began shooting at Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20….
Lakanwal had come to the U.S. in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome. Having previously worked with a CIA-supported paramilitary unit in Afghanistan known as “Zero Units”, he was allowed to immigrate to the U.S. after the Taliban rose to power (again). He was vetted by the previous administration, through a non-government organization known as “World Relief’ which seemingly, received most of its funding through USAID. However, such vetting may have been greatly limited in a rush to get our “allies” out of the country. Over 76,000 Afghans were brought into the U.S. in this manner.
According to a “childhood friend” of Lakanwal, he was “disturbed” and jaded after working with the CIA; then there’s this, from Jeff Childers at Coffee and Covid:
A long, dramatic 2022 Propublica article about the Zero Units cited its fighters saying they saw Americans as infidels, never trusted us, but worked with us as a lesser evil or a useful path to a ‘new Afghanistan.’…
We are told by Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, “it’s too soon to say” what the suspect’s motives were. However, a quote from “The River War” (1881-1899)—a book written 126 years ago by Winston Churchill who had fought against Muslims in the Sudan in 1899—gives us a good indication as to what may have triggered Lakanwal’s murderous act.
Churchill was most critical of Islam—which he called “Muhammedanism”—noting:
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries (followers)! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy…A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity…Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome….
Churchill’s remarkable comprehension of Islam, based on his experience both of fighting “Muhammedans” in the Sudan — Churchill fought with the 21st Lancers, taking part in the “last cavalry charge” at Omdurman in 1898 — and of observing Muslims living in their villages, is well known to readers of Jihad Watch. But his paragraphs on Islam need to appear at regular intervals, to remind ourselves of that great man’s perspicacity about Islam, and to bring his words to the attention of new visitors. Perhaps some Congressman — Senator John Fetterman? Senator Tom Cotton? — would care to read aloud Churchill’s full text on Islam in the Senate, and to make sure it is published, to CAIR’s great chagrin, in the Congressional Record.
rubiconcrest says
Churchill was spot on and eloquent at the same time. I keep his quote handy.
On the other side of the Atlantic, John Quincy Adams, was equally eloquent and succinct.
My favorite:
“The precept of the Koran, is perpetual war against all who deny that Mohammad is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the Prophet may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat; but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory when it can be effective. The commands of the Prophet may be performed alike by fraud and by force.”
John Smith says
Several years ago Paul Weston (a strong critic of islam) was on the street in the UK quoting these same passages from Winston’s book, he was immediately arrested for it. Charges were dropped once they found out they were the words of Winston Churchill.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I’ll wager that if Paul Weston, or anyone else, were to try that today, pointing out that they were the words of Winston Churchill would do him no good. If anything, he’d be even more SOL w/ the British sultanate
John Smith says
You’re probably right Infidel,.It was 11 years ago when Paul Weston did this. He was a bit like Farage is today, a leader of his own political party (Liberty GB) it would be a different story today.
Wellington says
Churchill knew. Boy did he ever, as did John Quincy Adams as rubiconcrest already noted. Also others like Thomas Jefferson who described the Koran as “demonic,” Arthur Schopenhauer who admired certain religions, particularly Buddhism, but who called Islam “that despicable doctrine,” and Ernest Renan who assessed Islam “as the greatest chains that have ever shackled humanity.”
The West has gone stupid over the last fifty years or so and particularly in the last twenty years. Fools aplenty have led the West in the past two decades, including Bush 43 (someone I voted for twice but no longer at all admire), Tony Blair, Justin Trudeau, Angela Merkel, Pope Francis, Pope Leo, the brain-dead Joe Biden and, arguably worst of all because not just merely foolish but arguably complicit, Barack Obama.
Were Churchill still here he would be appalled. Hell, he’d probably also be incarcerated, demonstrating in microcosm just how idiotic the West has become since the 1960s.
Keys says
Well said, Wellington, and ditto for me regarding Bush 43.
I am disgusted for voting for him, but then I think of the alternatives – none other than Al Gore (2020) and John Kerry (2024). Good grief! Time for beer, but I am out. 😊
Still, whenever I see Bush now, and thank goodness it’s rare, a twinge of anger/regret arises within me.
Wellington says
Thank you, Keys. Yes, Bush 43 did something very terrible; he sent American military personnel into combat and yet did not properly identify the enemy. The enemy of course is Islam—all of it.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I’m glad that I didn’t have the vote the 2 times Bush ran, or McCain or Romney. Otherwise I’d have voted for Bush and Romney (not McCain, though) and regretted it today
That said, a part of me is starting to question my vote for Trump, given what he’s now doing both on Israel and on India
Huh?!? says
+1
Alkflaeda says
“Demonic” is spot on – the being who commanded Mohammed to recite the Qur’an crushed his chest, which is nothing like any angelic encounter in the Bible, but exactly like trance mediumship. Another of Mohammed’s supernatural encounters involved being “ridden” all night (yes, that does mean exactly the invasive experience that you thought it did), and the reference can be found in https://www.raymondibrahim.com/06/20/2022/zakaria-botros-87-and-still-boldly-challenging-islam
dumbledoresarmy says
Churchill also wrote about Islam and its effects upon people, in an earlier book than “The River Wars”: in “The Story of the Malakand Field Force’, which particularly refers to Afghanistan.
It is telling to compare the two discussions of Islam, one from ‘the River Wars’ and the other from ‘The Malakand Field Force’, because Afghanistan and the Sudan are worlds apart, in terms of geography, language/s and the pre-Islamic ancestral cultures and ethnic makeup of their populations. Afghanistan was once Buddhist and animist (does anyone remember the Bamiyan Buddhas??); and large chunks of what is now called Sudan were either African animist or Christian (Nubia was a Christian kingdom until the 16th century). But… both areas having been violently Islamised centuries ago…. the appalling effects of Islam on the people there were, by the 19th century when Churchill had first-hand experience of them both, exactly identical. The ONLY thing those two places – Afghanistan and Sudan – have in common, is .. Islam. The result: chaos, misery, and Jihad bloody Jihad.
One chapter of “The Story of the Malakand Field Force” is called “The Theatre of War”.
“Every man’s hand is against the other, and all against the stranger…
“The religion which above all others was founded and propagated by the sword – the tenets and principles of which are instinct with incentives to slaughter and which in three continents has produced fighting breeds of men – stimulates a wild and merciless fanaticism…
“…the Mahommedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance.
“It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since, its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness.
“In a moment the fruits of patient toil, the prospects of material prosperity, the fear of death itself, are flung aside.
“The more emotional Pathans are powerless to resist. All rational considerations are forgotten. Seizing their weapons they become Ghazis – as dangerous and as sensible as wild dogs: fit only to be treated as such.
“While the more generous spirits among the tribesmen become convulsed in an ecstasy of religious bloodthirstiness, poorer and more material souls derive additional impulses from the influence of others, the hopes of plunder, and the joy of fighting”.
“Thus whole nations are roused to arms. Thus the Turks repel their enemies, the Arabs of the Soudan break the British squares, and the rising on the Indian frontier spreads far and wide.
“In each case civilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism.
“The forces of progress clash with those of reaction.
“The religion of blood and war [i.e. Islam: dda] is face to face with that of peace [i.e. CHRISTIANITY – dda].
“Luckily the religion of peace is usually the better armed.”
Nota bene: when Churchill used the phrase, “the religion of peace”, he was talking about **Christianity**. I would very much like to know whether the consummate propagandist, whoever it was, who decided to push the Big Lie that ISLAM – which Churchill, in the passage I’ve just quoted, calls ‘the religion of blood and war’ – was ‘the religion of peace’ – had read ‘The Story of the Malakand Field Force’.
Note also that Churchill observes that Islam was “above all others” (all other faiths) propagated by the sword, and that its adherents have been subject to a ‘fury of intolerance’ **above the people of all other creeds*.
Not for him the ridiculous contention that all faiths really teach the same thing/ ‘we all worship the same god’, etc and so forth.
There is a telling line in a speech he gave ahead of the partition of India, in which he draws out the contrast between Islam and Hinduism. “While the Hindu elaborates his argument, the Moslem sharpens his sword.”
Rubiconcrest says
The first documented use of the phrase ‘Islam the religion of peace’ according to Grok:
“The earliest documented use appears in 1930, in the book The Religion of Peace by Pakistani historian Ishtiaq Husain Qureshi (published in India). The book’s Chapter X is titled “Islam—The Religion of Peace,” where Qureshi argues that Islam promotes harmony, tolerance, and non-violence toward non-Muslims, drawing on Quranic verses and historical examples. ….
The phrase gained traction in the 1970s, often in Muslim writings aimed at Western audiences to counter negative perceptions, but it does not originate from the Quran, Hadith, or classical Islamic texts—those emphasize peace through submission to God but do not use this exact slogan. ……
By the 1980s and 1990s, it appeared in English-language media and speeches, such as a 1985 Oklahoman article quoting a Muslim surgeon describing Islam as “the religion of peace” while planning a mosque in Oklahoma, and a 1997 academic paper calling it a “commonly said” expression.
In summary, while Bush amplified the phrase post-9/11, its documented origins trace back to Qureshi’s 1930 book, reflecting a modern apologetic effort to highlight Islam’s peaceful aspects.”
KufarDawg says
Nowhere was the moslame sword more bloodied than across the Indian sub-continent. It’s estimated upwards of 80 million Hindus have been butchered by moslames across the Indian sub-continent and moslames have in no way stopped killing Hindus.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
150 million. 70 million from 1000-1526, and 80 million from 1526 to 1799
KufarDawg says
If only Gandhi had forcible expelled all moslames from India following the partition. Just imagine an India and/or Israel without any moslames.
James Lincoln says
In today’s UK, Winston Churchill would be treated like Tommy Robinson.
STJOHNOFGRAFTON says
One of the biggest delusions that promotes Islam in the West is that Islam is an Abrahamic faith like Judaism and Christianity. This pernicious delusion is dangerous because it fosters a false equivlence between Islam, Judaism and Christianity.
40 rounds says
Yeah I often hear said we worship the same God. Bulloney
Joe1 says
Islam is more than 80% the old Nabataean religion (Mosques, Quran, diet, pilgrimage, etc.), and in the Bible, Abraham rejected that religion and moved to a better place. Islam combines Arianism with Nabataean. The first “Muslims” to conquer Jerusalem were actual Arian which was documented in detail by Sophronius who was Patriarch of Jerusalem at the time. So Abraham rejected Islam, and that was before Uthman turned it into a warlord religion which is the part of Islam that everyone hates.
Hoi Polloi says
I refute that one every time I see it, as I also believe it to be dangerous. Another is their lie that “muslims revere Jesus.”
Tony says
Islam and its Muslims are totalitarian, terroristic, and deceitful against Non-Muslims as taught in Islam’s Mosques and in the Qur’an(Qur’an 3:54; 7:99; 9:5, 29, 111; 98:6-7; 49:14-15, etc.). In Islamic Schools, Muslims also learn systemic hatred, discrimination, and terrorism against Non-Muslims.
Allah’s Islam, a CRIMINAL-TERRORIST-GANG ENTERPRISE and a MURDEROUS-DEMONIC CULT OF BELIEVERS, Terrorist Muslim Soldiers for satanic Allah, continually fund, promote, and practice ideological subversion, propaganda, bigotry, discrimination, deceit, industrial-scale slavery, human trafficking, intimidation, supremacy, segregation, hatred, incitement to violence, criminality, genocide, victimhood, censorship, and terrorism as taught in Islamic Law, Sharia, and in Islam’s Qur’an(Qur’an 5:14,35; 8:60; 9:41, 88, etc.).
Deceitful Allah stirs hatred against Christians until the resurrection day when Qur’an 5:14 instructs, “And some of those who say, ‘Surely we are Nasara (Christians),’ we took their covenant. So they have forgotten a part of what they were reminded of, so we have stirred up ENMITY and HATRED among them until the resurrection day. And Allah will inform them of what they were doing.” See also Qur’an 60:4.
As taught by Allah, Muslims are supremacist terrorists for Allah with their MONEY and with their LIVES while undermining a society from within using the man-made book of lies and deceit, the Qur’an. Allah in Qur’an 49:15 states, “Surely the believers[Muslims] are only those who believed in Allah and his messenger. They do not doubt, and they performed jihad with their MONEY and their LIVES for the sake of Allah. Those are the truthful.” Allah in Qur’an 4:101 says, “…Surely the infidels(Non-Muslims) were your clear enemies.”
ALLAH’S MUSLIMS are a greater TERROR than diabolical Allah. Allah in Qur’an 59:13 says, “You[Muslims] are a greater terror in their chests than Allah. This is because they[Jews & Christians] are people who do not understand.” Islam must be banned as illegal, and we have the legal right to defend ourselves from Muslim violence. As a result, Non-Muslims are marked for death by Islam and its Muslims. Allah in Qur’an 9:29 commands, “Engage in war with those who do not believe in Allah nor in the last day. Nor forbid what Allah and his messenger forbid, nor believe in the religion of the truth among those who have given the book until they pay the jizyah out of hand and they are subdued.”
Again, Islam is a totalitarian and supremacist system of lies and deceit because Allah, the best deceiver, is the actual source of Muslim deceit. Allah in Qur’an 3:54 says, “And they deceived, and Allah deceived. And Allah is the best deceiver.” Allah in Qur’an 8:30 says, “…And Allah is the best deceiver.” Allah in Qur’an 13:42 says, “And indeed, those before them deceived, so to Allah all the deception…”
Bexarkat says
Clearly this is the reason Obama removed the bust of Churchill from the Oval Office. Obama found Churchill’s presence offensive, and to Obama’s credit – he maintained his record of committing errors of judgment.
Luchtpint says
Winston Churchill was one of the wisest men that ever lived on this planet.
“A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.”
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”
“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”
“A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot long endure.”
― Winston S. Churchill
dumbledoresarmy says
Re the ‘abrahamic faith’ schtick.
Jacques Ellul, a very astute Frenchman, thoroughly informed in both history, law and religion, rips that claim to shreds. I have a copy of the essay in which he does it; “Les Trois Piliers du Conformisme”. If you can read French… look it up.
A brilliant Jewish philosopher, Franz Rosenzweig, argued that the god of Islam is nothing like the Biblical God.
Lady of the Lake says
Is Jihad Watch banned in Britain? What about Geller and ROP?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Robert Spencer, Pamela Gellar and now David Wood are now banned from entering the Ummah Kaliphate. I’m not sure whether JihadWatch is blocked there: maybe Eddie, England Invaded, John Smith or any of our other British posters can tell us whether they have to come here via a geo relocational VPN (one that makes them appear that they’re posting from another country)
somehistory says
The “god” of islime is satan the devil of the Bible. That demon deceived Eve in order to be worshipped by her and then by Adam (who was not deceived) The snake is doing the same today with both male and female.
Perhaps someone living in Sen. Tom Cotton’s State can ask him to read what Mr. Churchill wrote about islime. and ask him to read it on the Senate floor.