Posted on 12/05/2003 6:34:15 AM PST by Tolik
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Saddam's Baathists recently blew apart Japanese diplomats on their way to a meeting in Tikrit to discuss sending millions of dollars in aid to Iraq's poor. Their ghosts join those of U.N. officials who likewise were slain for their humanitarian efforts. On the West Bank, three Americans were killed: Their felony was trying to interview young Palestinians for Fulbright fellowships for study in the United States. In turn, their would-be rescuers were stoned by furious crowds — not unlike the throngs that chant for Saddam on al Jazeera as they seek to desecrate or loot the bodies of murdered Spanish and Italian peacekeepers in Iraq while the tape rolls. All this, I suppose, is what bin Laden calls a clash of civilizations.
Jews at places of worship are systematically being blown up from Turkey to Morocco — along with British consular officials murdered in Istanbul, American diplomats murdered in Jordan, and Western tourists, Christians, and local residents murdered by Muslims in Bali, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. The new rule is that the more likely you are to help, give to, or worship in the Middle East, the more likely you are to be shot or blown up.
Most of the recent dead were noncombatants. All were either attempting to feed or aid Muslims, or simply wished to be left alone in peace. Their killers operate through the money and sanctuary of Middle East rogue regimes, the implicit support of thousands in the Muslim street, and the tacit neglect of even "moderate" states in the region — as long as the tally of killing is in the half-dozens or so, and not noticeable enough to threaten foreign investment or American aid, or to earn European disapproval.
But when the carnage is simply too much (too many Muslims killed as collateral damage or too many minutes on CNN), then suspects are miraculously arrested in Turkey or Saudi Arabia, or in transit to Iran or Syria — but more often post facto and never with any exegesis about why killers who once could not be found now suddenly are. No wonder Pakistani intelligence officers, Palestinian security operatives, Syrian diplomats, and Iraqis working for the Coalition are all at times exposed as having abetted the terrorists.
Yet it hasn't been a good six months for the Islamists' public relations. Billions the world over are slowly coming to a consensus that the Islamists' killing has cast as a shadow over the Middle East — a deeply disturbed place, better left to stew in its own juices. Only its exports of oil, religious extremism, and terror — not its manufacturing, science, medicine, banking, tourism, humanitarianism, literature, research, or philanthropy — seem to earn global attention. This is all a great tragedy, but one that, after September 11, gives us no time for tears.
Remember, even apart from all the killing in Israel and Iraq, all of the deadly terrorism since 9/11 — the synagogue in Tunisia, French naval personnel in Pakistan, Americans in Karachi, Yemeni attacks on a French ship, the Bali bombing, the Kenyan attack on Israelis, the several deadly attacks on Russians in both Moscow and Chechnya, the assault on housing compounds in Saudi Arabia, the suicide car bombings in Morocco, the Marriott bombing in Indonesia, the mass murdering in Bombay, and the Turkish killing — has been perpetrated exclusively by Muslim fascists and directed at Westerners, Christians, Hindus, and Jews.
We can diagnose the cause of this new fascism's growth — which has very little to do with the old canard that racism, colonialism, and the CIA are to blame. Instead, corrupt thugs in the Middle East have for years looted state treasuries. They have imposed Soviet-style state autocracy on tribal societies. And they have stripped basic human rights from a skyrocketing population — one that has received just enough Western medicine and technology to ensure an explosive birth rate, but not enough to encourage the commensurate social, economic, and cultural reform that would prevent such growth from making life in a Baghdad or Cairo desolate.
The demise of the Soviet Union left a terrible legacy — one rarely acknowledged by our own Middle East specialists. Its Stalinist machinery was left in place to kill and torture in awful places like Libya, Iraq, and Syria — but without the coercive force of the Soviets to ensure that such deadly antics did not expand across borders to draw the Russians into unwanted confrontations with the United States. In turn, without Communists to worry about, so-called moderates in places like Egypt and Jordan — excepting, of course, the petrol states of the Gulf — had very little in common, or much leverage, with the United States.
So with the demise of the Cold War, these pathologies came to full maturity. Globalization enticed the appetites of the impoverished — as cell phones, the Internet, and videos, along with fast food and cheap imported goods, gave the patina of prosperity. In fact, internationalization only reminded 400 million that they could have the junk of the West, but without its freedom, material security, education, health care, and recreation. It is one thing to call a friend on a cell phone, and quite another to realize that one's society cannot make the phone, cannot fix it, cannot improve upon it, and cannot even use it as desired — and is reminded of these failures by the very fact of the imported device's daily use.
If the onset of democracy in India, Malaysia, and Indonesia suggested that Islam was not incompatible with consensual government, that hopeful message apparently did not catch on in much of the Middle East. Far from attempting to end the endemic problems of sexual apartheid, illiteracy, religious intolerance, polygamy, and everything from "honor" killings to state-sanctioned legal barbarism, most autocracies in the region allowed Islamic extremists and apologists to champion just such "differences" — as if the existence of such Dark Age protocols and endemic anti-Semitism were proof that the Arab world suffered none of the weakness and decadence of a soft West. Enough fools in the West were always around to nod rather than to challenge such Hitleresque romance — and even to invite such fascists from the Middle East to speak in Europe and the United States to the "oohs" and "ahs" of a few stupid and spoiled self-hating elites.
Into this vacuum stepped the Islamists — fed by Saudi money, blackmailing dictators as they saw fit, championing the poor and dispossessed who found their messages of hatred against the United States and Israel a salve for their own wounded pride and misery. It did not hurt that their enmity of the West was about the only topic of free expression allowed in censored state media.
In their defense, the mullahs in the madrassas at least realized that if it were left to corrupt tyrants like Saddam Hussein, Khadafi, and Assad to offer alternatives to the West, the Arab world would soon be caught up in the same liberalization that had swept Asia and parts of South America and Africa — to the chagrin of the patriarch, imam, and warlord, whose currency is deference received rather than freedom granted.
This strange new fascism explains why millions in the Middle East who in theory do not like a Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein, or Osama bin laden still find consolation in the unrelenting opposition of these killers to the West. Kids whose parents were butchered by Saddam Hussein and are now fed and protected by American money and manpower nevertheless dance upon a burned out Humvee while shouting for Saddam to return. The same is true of those on the West Bank who have their capital looted by the Palestinian Authority, their relatives jailed or murdered, and their votes and speech curtailed: They will still praise Arafat to the skies — if he at least mutters some banality about hating the West. Because these are irrational responses — people acting from their appetites and impulses rather than their heads — we here in the United States, in our arrogant worship of our god Reason, with no confidence in or appreciation of our singular civilization, have gone about things pretty much all wrong.
Remember the worry about "getting the message out"? We all know the tiresome refrain: If the Arab world just knew about all the billions of dollars we give; all the Muslims we saved from the Balkans to Kuwait; all the censure we incurred to ease Orthodox Russians' treatment of Muslims in Chechnya, to stop Orthodox Serbian massacres of Albanians, or to discourage Chinese attacks on their own Muslim tribes; then surely millions of the ill-informed would reverse their opinion of us.
Sorry, the truth is just the opposite. The Arab street knows full well that we give billions to Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinians — and are probably baffled that we don't cut it out. They also know we have just as frequently fought Christians on their behalf as Muslims; they know — if their voting feet tell them anything — that no place is more tolerant of their religion or more open to immigration than the United States. Yes, Islamists all know that opening a mosque in Detroit is one thing, and opening a church in Saudi Arabia is quite another. Hitler wasn't interested in Wilson's 14 Points or how nicely Germans lived in the U.S. — he cared only that we "cowboys" would not or could not stop what he was up to.
No, the message, much less getting it out, is not the problem. It is rather the nature of America — our freewheeling, outspoken, prosperous, liberty-loving citizens extend equality to women, homosexuals, minorities, and almost anyone who comes to our shores, and thereby create desire and with it shame for that desire. Indeed, it is worse still than that: Precisely because we worry publicly that we are insensitive, our enemies scoff privately that we in fact are too sensitive — what we think is liberality and magnanimity they see as license and decadence. If we don't have confidence in who we are, why should they?
To arrest this dangerous trend requires a radical reappraisal of our entire relationship with the Middle East. A Radio Free Europe, though valuable, nevertheless did not free Eastern Europe; nor did Voice of America. Containment and deterrence did. As long as governments in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and many Gulf states encourage hatred of the United States, we must quietly consider them de facto little different from a Libya, Syria, or Iran. For all the glitter and imported Western graphics, al Jazeera and its epigones are not that much different from Radio Berlin of the 1930s.
We had also better reexamine entirely the way we use force in the Middle East. We did not drive on to Baghdad in 1991 out of concern for the "coalition" — and got 350,000 sorties in the no-fly zones in return. We chose to worry about rebuilding before the current war ended, and let thousands of Baathist killers fade away, and in the aftermath allowed mass looting and continual killing before our most recent get-tough policy.
In fact, anytime we have showed restraint — using battleship salvos and cruise missiles when our Marines were killed, our embassies blown up, and our diplomats murdered; allowing the killers on the Highway of Death to reach Basra in 1991; letting Saddam use his helicopters to gun down innocents — we have earned disdain, not admiration. In contrast, the hijackers chose not to take the top off the World Trade Center, but to incinerate the entire building — proof that they wished not to send us a message but to kill us all, and to kill us to the applause of millions, if the recent popularity of Osama bin Laden and his henchmen in the Arab street is any indication.
We had better rethink the entire notion of dealing with the mythical moderates within regimes like Iran and Syria. I am sure that they exist, as they existed in Saddam's Iraq. But we see the moderates now in Iraq and — with all due respect — they are not exactly the stuff of Ethan Allan, Paul Revere, or the Swamp Fox. In fact, in the Middle East, tens of thousands of democrats are more passive in their desire for freedom than are a few hundred fascists in their zeal for tyranny. We should accept that dissidents would never have toppled Saddam on their own — and are not quite sure what to do even in his absence. Victory alone, not stalemate or a bellum interruptum, will free the Arab people and extend to them the same opportunities now found in Eastern Europe.
In short, there is no reason for any American diplomat to have much to do in Teheran or Damascus — the haven of choice for many of the killers who bomb in Turkey, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. "Getting the message out" to a Syria is like traveling to Warsaw in 1950 to convince the government there how nicely Poles are treated in Chicago; sending peace feelers to Teheran is analogous to doing the same to Cuba in about 1962; discussing policy with Saudi Arabia is like talking to Gen. Franco about the perils of Mussolini or Hitler; incorporating Jordan in our resistance is like counting on a France circa 1940.
Peace and harmony will come, but only when the Middle East, not us, changes-which, tragically, will be brought along more quickly by deterrence and defiance than appeasement and dialogue. President Bush was terribly criticized for his exasperated "bring them on," but that was one of his most honest, heartfelt — and needed — ex tempore remarks of this entire conflict.
We are not in a war with a crook in Haiti. This is no Grenada or Panama — or even a Kosovo or Bosnia. No, we are in a worldwide struggle the likes of which we have not seen since World War II. The quicker we understand that awful truth, and take measures to defeat rather than ignore or appease our enemies, the quicker we will win. In a war such as this, the alternative to victory is not a brokered peace, but abject Western suicide and all that it entails — a revelation of which we saw on September 11.
Despite some disappointments about the postbellum reconstruction and the hysteria of our critics, our military is doing a wonderful job. We should understand that they have the capability to win this struggle in Iraq and elsewhere — but only if we at home accept that we have been all along in a terrible war against terrible enemies.
| Victor Davis Hanson moral clarity huge BUMP [please freepmail me if you want or don't want to be pinged to Victor Davis Hanson articles] If you want to bookmark his articles discussed at FR: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/k-victordavishanson/browse His NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp |
However, I believe the discussion here will overload our pluralistic circuits.
It's true. And people are either siding with Hitler, or they are siding with us. I can think of 9 Democrats who are siding with Hitler.
Bottom line, he kicked Stalins ass, and that makes him O.K in my book. Flame away.
Most of the recent dead were noncombatants. All were either attempting to feed or aid Muslims, or simply wished to be left alone in peace. Their killers operate through the money and sanctuary of Middle East rogue regimes, the implicit support of thousands in the Muslim street, and the tacit neglect of even "moderate" states in the region — as long as the tally of killing is in the half-dozens or so, and not noticeable enough to threaten foreign investment or American aid, or to earn European disapproval.
But when the carnage is simply too much (too many Muslims killed as collateral damage or too many minutes on CNN), then suspects are miraculously arrested in Turkey or Saudi Arabia, or in transit to Iran or Syria — but more often post facto and never with any exegesis about why killers who once could not be found now suddenly are. No wonder Pakistani intelligence officers, Palestinian security operatives, Syrian diplomats, and Iraqis working for the Coalition are all at times exposed as having abetted the terrorists.
Yet it hasn't been a good six months for the Islamists' public relations. Billions the world over are slowly coming to a consensus that the Islamists' killing has cast as a shadow over the Middle East — a deeply disturbed place, better left to stew in its own juices. Only its exports of oil, religious extremism, and terror — not its manufacturing, science, medicine, banking, tourism, humanitarianism, literature, research, or philanthropy — seem to earn global attention. This is all a great tragedy, but one that, after September 11, gives us no time for tears.
Remember the worry about "getting the message out"? ...... Sorry, the truth is just the opposite. The Arab street knows full well that we give billions to Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinians — and are probably baffled that we don't cut it out. They also know we have just as frequently fought Christians on their behalf as Muslims; they know — if their voting feet tell them anything — that no place is more tolerant of their religion or more open to immigration than the United States. ........
.....No, the message, much less getting it out, is not the problem. It is rather the nature of America — our freewheeling, outspoken, prosperous, liberty-loving citizens extend equality to women, homosexuals, minorities, and almost anyone who comes to our shores, and thereby create desire and with it shame for that desire. Indeed, it is worse still than that: Precisely because we worry publicly that we are insensitive, our enemies scoff privately that we in fact are too sensitive — what we think is liberality and magnanimity they see as license and decadence. If we don't have confidence in who we are, why should they?
To arrest this dangerous trend requires a radical reappraisal of our entire relationship with the Middle East. A Radio Free Europe, though valuable, nevertheless did not free Eastern Europe; nor did Voice of America. Containment and deterrence did. As long as governments in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and many Gulf states encourage hatred of the United States, we must quietly consider them de facto little different from a Libya, Syria, or Iran. For all the glitter and imported Western graphics, al Jazeera and its epigones are not that much different from Radio Berlin of the 1930s.
We had also better reexamine entirely the way we use force in the Middle East. We did not drive on to Baghdad in 1991 out of concern for the "coalition" — and got 350,000 sorties in the no-fly zones in return. We chose to worry about rebuilding before the current war ended, and let thousands of Baathist killers fade away, and in the aftermath allowed mass looting and continual killing before our most recent get-tough policy.
In fact, anytime we have showed restraint — using battleship salvos and cruise missiles when our Marines were killed, our embassies blown up, and our diplomats murdered; allowing the killers on the Highway of Death to reach Basra in 1991; letting Saddam use his helicopters to gun down innocents — we have earned disdain, not admiration. In contrast, the hijackers chose not to take the top off the World Trade Center, but to incinerate the entire building — proof that they wished not to send us a message but to kill us all, and to kill us to the applause of millions, if the recent popularity of Osama bin Laden and his henchmen in the Arab street is any indication.
...... We should accept that dissidents would never have toppled Saddam on their own — and are not quite sure what to do even in his absence. Victory alone, not stalemate or a bellum interruptum, will free the Arab people and extend to them the same opportunities now found in Eastern Europe.
Well he left a few dimples in the wood, but yeah, he finally drove the nail in.
His biggest "miss" in this is that he focuses on the U.S. vs. the salamikazes, and thus misses out on some really important elements of this war.
For example, he unaccountably leaves out the actions of France, Germany, and (to a lesser extent) Russia. The actions of, say, Syria can't really be explained unless we factor in the fact of their waiting to see what France will do. So it's not simply a matter of our "sensitivity" (though that's assuredly part of the equation).
And, because Hanson does not mention France and Germany, he also fails to address how we should deal with them in this war. No amount of moral clarity or "getting tough" will have any great effect if France and Germany are standing by to quibble about our actions, and thus give ammunition to our enemies.
I'd give him about 80% on this....
Peace and harmony will come, but only when the Middle East, not us, changes-which, tragically, will be brought along more quickly by deterrence and defiance than appeasement and dialogue. President Bush was terribly criticized for his exasperated "bring them on," but that was one of his most honest, heartfelt — and needed — ex tempore remarks of this entire conflict.
We are not in a war with a crook in Haiti. This is no Grenada or Panama — or even a Kosovo or Bosnia. No, we are in a worldwide struggle the likes of which we have not seen since World War II. The quicker we understand that awful truth, and take measures to defeat rather than ignore or appease our enemies, the quicker we will win. In a war such as this, the alternative to victory is not a brokered peace, but abject Western suicide and all that it entails — a revelation of which we saw on September 11.
Victor Davis Hanson To Brits: If It Weren't For America, You Wouldn't Be Free To Protest
If you are relatively new to his writings, see his archives:
His NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp and discussions about his articles here http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/k-victordavishanson/browse
New ping list for Islamic Jihad and terrorism. 3 pings per day, every day. Some from my old ping list are on by default.
On or off let me know by freepmail.
Easy on, easy off, via freepmail.
My prediction: the period we are now in will go down in history as our "Phony War".
You'll know we are serious when the radical imans are assassinated and al-Jazerah is terminated.
Unfortunately it's going to take another September 11th.
The Dems who can say that we invaded Iraq INSTEAD of battling terror, just don't grasp the fact that it is the whole region which must suffer consequences, this war can only be won by understanding the psychology involved, in particular the role which the HUMILIATION of our enemy must play.
The biggest mistake we have made is to bow to the PC crowd by denying the necessary punitive character of our response, no one can bring themselves to admit that if our actions were done brazenly in the name of RETALIATION, instead of PRE-EMPTION, then we would be one step ahead in this war.
The difference is that our opponents are nowhere near (relatively) as capable as the Germans were.
No he doesn't! He's sloppy in his logic and completely disingenuous to Serbia, Russia, and China in their attempts to check terrorism. Kuwait is the only place he's got it right.
If the Arab world just knew about all the billions of dollars we give; all the Muslims we saved from the Balkans to Kuwait; all the censure we incurred to ease Orthodox Russians' treatment of Muslims in Chechnya, to stop Orthodox Serbian massacres of Albanians, or to discourage Chinese attacks on their own Muslim tribes; then surely millions of the ill-informed would reverse their opinion of us.
Those gentlemen weren't "moderates" at all, though. There is no shortage of courageous people in Iraq, but anyone around whom an organized, violent resistance to Saddam might have coalesced was ruthlessly hounded and executed years ago. There are, of course, exceptions, notably in the Kurdish areas, and it is no accident that it is in those areas that democratic government is first to succeed.
I think that if the Iraqis are ever going to be free of the Ba'ath party fascists they are going to have to fight them themselves. All we can really do is set the table.
The difference is that our opponents are nowhere near (relatively) as capable as the Germans were.
True, BUT...
Yes, our industrial and military superiority is definitely to our advantage, comparing to British and French who faced Germans in Europe. (US also did not have an edge over them in technology and industrial capabilities at first. Russia positioned on another side, did not have any advantage neither). This proves that if British and French had some kind of excuse not to act military against Hitler, we don't any excuses now.
What works against us, is three fold. First, the enemy is not personalized as Nazi Germany or Militaristic Japan were. There is a lot of confusion in general public (that does not read VDH, Mark Styne, David Warren, just to name some of my favorite) who the enemy is. Europeans and American leftist believe that the enemy is US. W message that supporters of terrorism are as guilty as the terrorists themselves is a huge step, but his diplomatic "Islam is a religion of peace" confused many. Still, I think anybody who is not willfully blind, can see that the militant Islam, spreading out from the Middle East first of all, is the enemy.
Second, the society now is so sissified comparing to 1940th. When they got to the fight back then, they new that to win you've got to kill the enemy. Now our concern for civilian casualties and desire not to step on too many toes while being admirable, is the subject of predictable abuse from the enemy, who gladly exploits all the West's weaknesses. The enemy can dependably count on the West's mainstream media to amplify all our difficulties and mistakes, and not be able to make any moral judgment and see the difference between terrorists killings and our military killing the enemy. (Israel can vouch for this moral blindness' existence, they all but gave up in PR war).
Third is the fact that technological advances coupled with the shrinking of the globe (thanks to achievements in transportation, communications, globalization of shipments, etc) made possible delivery of deadly weapons (dirty bomb, poisonous chemical, germs) to our heart, or using our openness and trust to use low tech terrorism (box-cutters or DC sniper example) to inflict huge economic damage disrupting the fabric of the society.
So, our victory is not that obvious as it would be after comparing just industrial capabilities. Somebody smart said, that it will take a long-long time to achieve a victory in this war, but we can loose really-really fast.
They (Western Leftist) never lived under oppression and threat of imprisonment or death for speaking up against a totalitarian regime. The collapse of the Soviet Empire happened because of two reasons. Pressure from outside (thanks to Reagan) and delusion on the part of Gorbachev and his team that they can put a "human face" on socialism. They thought they can fix a system by opening it up. I am glad for their mistake. But, the dissidents like Saharov or Sharansky were quite rare. Rare brave souls were ready to give up everything for the ultimate freedom. The Gorbachev refused to drown the beginning of uprising in blood. But he could as easily as in 1956 in Hungary and 1968 in Czechoslovakia. The West would not go to war with the USSR to defend Poland and others. Everybody could have gone to hell, but USSR would be able to survive IF ONLY Gorbachev would had been willing to spill the blood. It could have turn back to Stalin's USSR and become a North Korea on large scale. Great thanks to him for not doing this.
Now in Iraq many are still not convinced that Saddam's regime is not coming back. They do need our help in fight, but we need theirs too.
I agree completely, and that suspicion is based on the historical fact that we left them in the lurch once already, and it is fed by every "pull them out now, transfer the job to the UN" drivel belched out by some Democrat who hopes to undermine Bush and is also undermining the Iraqi people. By ignoring the cost of that nonsense in Vietnam to the Vietnamese people and enshrining those who were guilty of it, the Dems have sold their collective soul to the despots.
My contention with the "Islam is religion of peace" mantra as coming out from W himself, that it is not usually followed up with the pointing of finger to the Islamism. Lots of wahhabi groups have great access to the White House and free reign within the US, and no serious pressure was applied to Saudi Arabia and Egypt (receiving tons of our money and military stuff) to stop anti-American propaganda in their well controlled media.
I also did not see a consorted effort to encourage Muslims who call themselves moderate to voice strong opinion against Islamism.
I'd use Turkey as a positive example of a muslim country with a functioning democracy.
BTW, your comment about nuclear danger from Pakistan and Iran, they are not Arabs.
Nor I with you. ;^)
One point - I am well aware that Pakistan and Iran are non-Arab. My point is that Pakistan is vulnerable to the efforts of the Wahhabists, and Iran is mostly trouble because of the general unrest in the region. Iran's own people can straighten their dubious regime out.
Revolutionizing Arab societies will certainly help defuse the power of Islamofascists to stir up discord generally.
Peace through victory.
Despite some disappointments about the postbellum reconstruction and the hysteria of our critics, our military is doing a wonderful job. We should understand that they have the capability to win this struggle in Iraq and elsewhere ? but only if we at home accept that we have been all along in a terrible war against terrible enemies.
You're damn right, and until the administration admits this publicly, like WW II, we're losing the battle.
That's the scary part. Islamism is high-octane stuff. Contrast that with the low spark of a countryful of "peaceful" corrupt officials.
Finaly someone who get's it!
I disagree, France will bend its knee to the easy path as it always has, Germany? Who knows if the left or the right will come out in control. But the key of the issue is boiled down to this; Islam is a religion of war, not of peace. If France supports or fights Islam it will make little difference either way, but Islam is the focus and the key.
There is not a single Islamic nation in the entire world with peaceful borders, even if they are surrounded by other Islamic States.
Victor has pointed out a very key issue, that the reason Moslems are attacking is as they say in their own words, we shame them. We need to listen to our enemies when they speak, and stop trying to figure them out, they will tell us what the problem is.
The Islamics’s are face to face with a fact they cannot swallow; the vast superiority of the west shows that Allah is found wanting. This leaves them with two choices, either abandon Islam, or blame their backwards position on Allah himself. They have taken the second path. It is the key to the strength of the support for the fanatic new Islam.
Oslama and his types, the Wahabbi's are teaching that the reason the Islamic nations are so backwards is because the Moslems have compromised on "pure" Islam of the 7th century, when Islam almost took over the world. They teach that to have Allah’s favor, Islam must return to its roots of Holy war on the world. Only in conquest can Islam reach the goal that Mohammad set before the Islamic people.
This reading of the Koran is the foundation of the "Radical" Islamic. But he is not a "racial"! This is the Western worlds hope and it is a desert mirage at best. We keep hoping that Islam will come to its senses and quell the radicals. But as the foundation of the religion is conquest by force, time and stress on the religion will only force more "backslidden" Moslems into the "Radical" camp.
This dooms the method that we are using to handle this problem to failure. The more time we give Islam to respond to our measured force, the stronger they become, and the more organized the become.
Islam spreads by immigration as a first stage, not as a peaceful immigration, but as forward placed troops. This is why Moslem immigration and Mosque building has sharply risen since 911. If the Moslems hate our lifestyle so much that they are willing to declare war on us, immigration should stop or reverse, not increase.
However if the immigration we are now receiving is because they actually do like our lifestyle, then they should be integrating into our society.
But this is not what is happening, they are flowing in, in ever increasing numbers, but are remaining unto themselves, refusing to immigrate. They are not immigrants, they are front line troops!
This is the exact 7th century pattern that was used to subjugate the entire Middle East and much of Europe in the dark ages.
Islam has declared Holy War, and it is at full swing. We need to stop fooling ourselves that they will "come to their senses" and get to winning this war before it is too late. As proof that the pipe dream of Moderate Islam standing up to the Radicals and ending this before it is a world war, I offer, where are they? We have been waiting years and NOT A SINGLE ONE has appeared!
Militarily we have the power to clean them out, if they will meet us on the battle field. But they will not, they will meet us in our own cities, in our markets, and coffee houses, with terrorism and murder. This is the one place that we cannot fight them with our military! Israel was a test case, and there we failed miserably to stand up to them. We have demonstrated we are willing to compromise between right and wrong, to sell out for peace. That was the green light for terrorism as the war front. Islam has been a terrorist warfare army for 1400 years, it wins by cowards bowing the knee. When we sold out Israel to the Palestinians, while the Palestinians were killing our diplomats we showed that we could be cowed. We continue to do so, backing a new State for the single most virulent terrorist group that has attacked Americans more than any other. This clearly demonstrates that terrorism works and works well with Americans.
So the Islamic Jihad is shifting gears and moving terrorists into Americas shores. Our bending over backwards to show tolerance to them only helps them emplace troops and explosives where they will do the most good, in your backyard.
People who chop off women’s heads for wearing makeup, are not impressed by tolerance, they are impressed by fear. We have given them no reason to fear us in our homeland, only in the battle field.
So just where do you think they will fight us? What difference will France and Germany make when Pizza Huts across America get shredded by belly bombers from Palestine? The Palestinians are being bred by the Arab League to supply smart bombs. Right now 80% of Palestinian Children ages 14 and below state that they prefer Shahida or suicide for Allah to life. That is a Quarter MILLION suicide bombers! We are finding that most of the suicide bombers around the world are Palestinians. And we are the ones who are fighting to build them a larger State to arm them. We are the ones who built them the TV station that plays martyr propaganda all day long to brainwash them, we are the ones who paid for the schoolbooks that teach them to hate us.
Appeasement is not the answer, war is, and we will have that war one way or the other. The only question is where, here or there.
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