By Peter Burrows, elburropete@gmail.com

The Marx brothers, Groucho, Chico and Harpo, were well known comedians to people of my parent's generation, Groucho being by far the most famous. He is often credited with the phrase, "Who you gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes?"

Unfortunately, the actual phrase was, "Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" and it was a line delivered by Chico Marx, not Groucho, in the movie classic, "Duck Soup." I say unfortunately because "lyin' eyes" is so much more powerful, implying somebody is telling a lie or claiming something to be true in spite of obvious evidence to the contrary. Plus, it's fun to play with the phrase. For example, on global warming: "Who you gonna believe, Al Gore or your lyin' thermometer?"

All this was brought to mind watching British Prime Minister David Cameron react to the beheading of a British citizen by ISIS terrorists. "They are killing and slaughtering thousands of people—they claim to do this in the name of Islam. That is nonsense. Islam is a religion of peace. They are not Muslims, they are monsters!"

He appeared to be quite outraged that anybody would blame Islam for the beheading, in spite of the fact that the people DOING the beheading are quite happy to cite the Koran as justification. A month later Cameron also said the Islamic State, ISIS, has "nothing to do with the great religion of Islam, a religion of peace." He later added, unnecessarily, "I'm not a scholar of any religion."

Cameron's predecessor, Tony Blair, who was Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007, has a similar wrongheaded view of Islam. In an interview last May on NPR on the topic of terrorism, he said:"...the way we defeat that is to bring people of different faiths together, and let the true faith of Islam, which is a peaceful religion actually, it's not a violent religion at all, let it, let those sensible, moderate majority voices in Islam be heard."

I'd always thought that British PMs were far better educated and more worldly than U.S. Presidents, in no small part due to the rough and tumble of their parliamentary system, but it's obvious they can be PC-blinded Bozos too, just like their American counterparts.

Speaking of which, less than a week after Muslims destroyed the Twin Towers, President George W. Bush said "Islam is peace" in a speech at the Islamic Center in DC. At the time, what little I knew about Islam included knowing that Islam is NOT a religion of peace. When he said that, I became obscenely incoherent.

Condoleeza Rice, whom at the time I wanted to someday run for President, was then his National Security Advisor, and she should have known better. Looking back, I think I was more disappointed in her than in President Bush.

Our current president, Barrack Obama, who spent a few of his formative years in the Muslim society of Indonesia, has said things about Islam that are so divorced from reality that he is either a Muslim practicing taqiyyah, or he is another hapless soul blinded by political correctness and unable to see Islam's threat to Western society.

I opt for the latter. While he spent first through fourth grades in Indonesia, three of those were in a Catholic school. People say he is a Muslim because he once said the call to prayer is "one of the prettiest sounds on earth at sunset." I don't agree, but you can hear for yourself on the Internet.

It must be noted, the daily calls to prayer in Islamic societies are always in Arabic, which is sometimes not the native language. In fact, many non-Arabic Muslims grow up being taught Islam in Arabic, the original language of the Koran as specified by Allah, and have little, or no, understanding of the meaning of what is being taught.

In his book, " The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran," Robert Spencer recounts that a devout Pakistani Muslim once said to him, "I am very proud of my religion, and have memorized almost all of the Koran, and one day I plan to get one of those translations and find out what it means."

Until I read that, I didn't know Nancy Pelosi was a Muslim.

Taqiyyah, pronounced tahcky-ah, referred to above, is the practice of religious deception or concealment and is historically associated with Shi'ite Muslims protecting themselves from Sunni Muslim persecution by lying about their true feelings. It has evolved to mean any deception Muslims feel is necessary in their dealing with infidels as well as Muslims of different sects. Today, backed by several verses in the Koran (3:28, 3:54 and 16:106), and other Islamic sacred writings, Islamic scholars do not think lying to infidels is a sin.

While Muhammad forbid lying between Muslims, it was OK to lie to one's enemies. As he famously said: "War is deceit," and what is jihad, if not war against the enemies of Islam? Indeed, the meaning of jihad is often obscured by Muslims who insist to the infidels that jihad, which means struggle, refers to the universal internal struggle against sin and human weakness.

That is true, but it is only a small part of what jihad means. The greater meaning is to wage war against the infidels, unbelievers etc., and this is not an either-or choice: Jihad is both. When Muslims say this is not so, are they engaging in taqiyyah? You bet.

Similarly, when President Obama in an interview on TV said, "Islam is a religion that preaches peace...," he was being politically correct but not entirely factually correct. Islam divides the world into two main parts, dar-al-Islam and dar-al-harb: House of Islam and the House of War. (A third is dar-al-Sulh, House of Truce, a temporary abode.)

The House of Islam is the utopia where Islam rules and all is peace and happiness. It is the state of the world that all Muslims must strive for and is the "peace" that they preach. Of course, to get there non-Muslims must be eliminated through peaceful conversion or war, dar-al-harb. This war is mandated by the Koran and ends only when dar-al-Islam rules all. (The irony of ISIS Shi'ite Muslims beheading Sunni Muslims should not go unnoticed.)

What we infidels fail to realize is that for all practical purposes Muslims see jihad against infidels as a permanent war with only temporary truces and expedient disengagements. This permanent war has been going on since the seventh century A.D. and is now heating up again, to the immense satisfaction of Islamic purists.

The idea that "Islam is peace" is an absurdity the politically correct useful idiots spout. The late Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran's Supreme Leader following the fall of the Shah, once had this Beatific, sweet and loving response to the "Islam is a religion of peace" choir:

"Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam councils against war. (They) are witless. Islam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all! ... The sword is the key to Paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors! There are hundreds of (Koranic) psalms and Hadiths (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) urging Muslims to value war and to fight! Does all this mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim."

So who you gonna' believe, Prime Ministers David Cameron and Tony Blair, Presidents George W. Bush and Barrack Obama, or that lyin', expectoratin' Ayatollah Khomeini?