Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Locked in a Cosmic Battle With Islam
CNSNews.com ^ | April 01, 2004 | Alan Caruba

Posted on 04/02/2004 9:52:12 AM PST by veronica

Americans are pragmatists. We are interested not only in how things work, but how we can improve them. We are fascinated with cars and with every kind of machine and gadget that make our lives easier as well as entertaining us with the leisure time they provide. If you want to find Americans, go to the mall.

Despite this, however, Americans can surely be rated as among the most religious people. The success of the film "The Passion of the Christ" is ample testimony to that. The debate raging over the morality of same-sex marriage, the outcry against the removal of a monument depicting the Ten Commandments from a courthouse, and the continued opposition to abortion attest to the deep concern Americans have for moral issues.

America and other nations of the West are, however, locked in a cosmic battle with Islamic fundamentalists around the world who view Western civilization as a form of idolatrous barbarism. The attack on the World Trade Center was symbolic of the great battle being waged against us. To the Islamists, the towers represented the worship of materialism, of money and greed. To Islam's true believers, there is no validity in Judaism, Christianity, or any other religion. To them, idolatry is the most heinous sin and, if they must die to destroy us, they will do so.

Ian Buruma, the Luce Professor at Bard College, and Avishai Margalit, the Shulman Professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, explore this battle in a book. It is "Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies" published by The Penguin Press ($21.95). It is a relatively short book, but one so packed with insight that the mind lingers over every sentence.

As the authors note, "Wars against the West have been declared in the name of the Russian soul, the German race, State Shinto, Communism, and Islam." The present "war on terrorism" should more accurately be called "the war on Islam" because we have been forced to defend ourselves again a large number of Islamic organizations waging this war. While we focus on al Qaeda, the creation of Osama bin Laden, there are dozens of comparable Islamic groups wreaking havoc in various parts of the world, from Israel to Indonesia, from Saudi Arabia to Morocco, from Spain to Iraq, from Afghanistan to Turkey, from Kenya to Russia.

It is a cosmic war pitting their belief that Islam is the only true religion and therefore the salvation of mankind against Western values of individual freedom, human rights, Capitalism, and Democracy. Those fighting this battle feel called by Allah, their god, to save the world.

Why? "When people are not only humiliated by foreign forces, but oppressed by their own government, they often retreat to the 'inner life' of the spirit, pure and simple, where they can feel free from the corruption of power and sophistication," say the authors of "Occidentalism." Most certainly, the Arabs of the Middle East fit this description. So do Muslims in many other areas of the world. Though Islam has spread widely throughout the world, representing an estimated 1.3 billion people, not all Muslims subscribe to the battle being waged in its name, but all find in Islam the comfort of absolute certitude.

An earlier commentary of mine, "The Decline and Fall of Islam", is rebutted on an Internet site in Bangladesh. A Muslim who called my attention to it wrote, "ISLAM is the real truth, and truth never dies." I replied to him that Islam is his truth. And neither the "truth" that the Earth was the center of the universe is in fashion, nor the gods of ancient Greece and Rome. Religions do die.

Islam literally means "submission" to the will of Allah. As a religion, it controls all aspects of life down to the minutest details when practiced by the true believer. Throughout Islam, there is a widespread belief that Islam is under attack. This is ironic in that it is the West that has come under actual attack through a long series of bombings. What I believe is that Islam, unable to adapt to the modern world---a world dominated by Western thought and achievement---instinctively senses it must either conquer the world or eventually lose its grip on its adherents. In some countries, apostasy, leaving Islam for another religion, is punishable by death.

"The attack on the West is among other things an attack on the mind of the West," say the authors. They describe how Islamists and others see it. "It is a mind without a soul, efficient, like a calculator, but hopeless at doing what is humanly important. The mind of the West is capable of great economic success, to be sure, and of developing and promoting advanced technology, but cannot grasp the higher things in life, for it lacks spirituality and understanding of human suffering."

This may seem incomprehensible, given that Christianity is based on the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus, and Judaism's history is millennia of suffering for its worship of a single, universal God of mankind. However, unless you understand the mind of those who are pitted in war against America and the West, you will never fully grasp why they are willing to sacrifice their own lives to win it.

"Self-sacrifice for a higher cause, for an ideal world, cleansed of human greed and injustice, is the one way for the average man to feel heroic. Choosing to die a violent death becomes a heroic act of human will. In totalitarian systems it might be the only act an individual is free to choose." Muslims have lived in totalitarian systems for centuries. When the Islamic revolution seized Iran in 1979, it imposed yet another totalitarian system.

If the last century gave us the kamikaze pilot, willing to give his life in a futile effort to protect the emperor and Japan, this new century has given us the holy warrior of the Islamic jihad. In the words of the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical movement founded in Egypt in 1928, "God is our objective; the Koran is our constitution; the Prophet is our leader; struggle is our way; and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations."

We face, individually, as a nation, and a civilization, the Islamic holy warrior and our only defense will be to capture or kill him before he does the same to us.


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: caruba; islam
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-35 next last

1 posted on 04/02/2004 9:52:13 AM PST by veronica
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: veronica
read later
2 posted on 04/02/2004 9:53:25 AM PST by LiteKeeper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: veronica
Why? "When people are not only humiliated by foreign forces, but oppressed by their own government, they often retreat to the 'inner life' of the spirit, pure and simple, where they can feel free from the corruption of power and sophistication," say the authors of "Occidentalism."

No, because mohammad pre-programmed islam to spread the hive through war, violence and subversion.

3 posted on 04/02/2004 9:54:32 AM PST by rageaholic
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All
Rank Location Receipts Donors/Avg Freepers/Avg Monthlies
25 Missouri 100.00
3
33.33


173.00
14

Thanks for donating to Free Republic!

Move your locale up the leaderboard!

4 posted on 04/02/2004 9:55:41 AM PST by Support Free Republic (If Woody had gone straight to the police, this would never have happened!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: veronica; NormsRevenge; Grampa Dave; BOBTHENAILER; blam
Thanks for posting this.
Ran across this recently:

Israeli Arab Intellectual on Arab World Illiteracy, Backward-Looking Islam, Arab Secularist Complex

5 posted on 04/02/2004 10:05:28 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (The terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States - and war is what they got!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: veronica
Current news:

Saudi Clerics Pray for Rain; Blame Sin

And women!

6 posted on 04/02/2004 10:09:02 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (The terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States - and war is what they got!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: veronica
our only defense will be to capture or kill him before he does the same to us.


I vote for kill.
and it looks like it's going to require doing so in mass quantities.

or we could nuke their super duper holy rock.
allah's rock will surely defend itself against nukes right?
7 posted on 04/02/2004 10:14:43 AM PST by Robert_Paulson2 (the madridification of our election is now officially underway.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: veronica
The author gives the terrorists too much credit. While I believe at one time they were driven by their beliefs, I think they have evolved into a group or psychopaths who joined up in order to be able to live out their destructive ambitions using religion as a cover.
8 posted on 04/02/2004 10:17:32 AM PST by CaptRon (Pedecaris alive or Raisuli dead)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Comment #9 Removed by Moderator

To: veronica
This is the 2nd article in the past day from Cybercast News, that's made me wonder them.......

10 posted on 04/02/2004 10:25:10 AM PST by nuconvert ("America will never be intimidated by thugs and assassins." ( President Bush 3-20-04))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Robert_Paulson2
Islam has a group of radicals who believe that these are the end time. It is the end of the world and a great battle is to be wages against the "Anti-Christ" and the birth of the Mahdi (the expected one) as well as the return of Isa (Jesus). There will be terrible battles with attacks on Mecca. They even have a list of things that will happen in the end times. The list includes such strange things as men marring men, sex on the streets, women walking in public naked (without a burka) etc... Some say Osama is the Mahdi and Bush is the Anti-Christ.
They believe Jesus will return and tell the world he is a Moslem!
11 posted on 04/02/2004 10:27:46 AM PST by Hollywoodghost (Let he who would be free strike the first blow)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: rageaholic
"When people are not only humiliated by foreign forces..."

There is the crux of it, my friends.

You have to realize that rebuilding of, and especially the improvement of, Iraq is EXACTLY what the Muslims DON'T want. Islam has produced nothing but ruin, backwardness and terror while the Christian world has progressed right into the 21st century and left them in the dust. The Musli are motivated first by envy of the very infidels they are commanded by the Koran to conquer and subjugate. The Koran has bolstered this unearned arrogance by constantly preaching that the Musli are the best of people. And reality painfully shows them again and again how this is very far from true.

They hate us because they are jealous. THAT is why they attacked us on 9/11 and why they wage war against all the people of the world who produce good things that the Musli CANNOT produce. The better we do in helping them out, the more they will hate us.

Savagery is all the animals understand. Spanking them in Afghanistan and Iraq is a good thing, but then showcasing our superiority by helping them to make a pretense at being civilized is intolerable to them. We should have just smashed them--smashed them very hard and left them with nothing but smoldering ruins and a stern warning not to make us come back again.
12 posted on 04/02/2004 10:46:01 AM PST by broadsword (The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for Democrats to get elected.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: veronica; All
"As a religion, it controls all aspects of life down to the minutest details when practiced by the true believer."

http://www.bordergatewayprotocol.net/jon/humor/txt/ircuotl.html

Un-fricking-believeable.
13 posted on 04/02/2004 10:48:56 AM PST by 7.62 x 51mm (©)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: veronica
bookmarked
14 posted on 04/02/2004 10:57:52 AM PST by boris (The deadliest Weapon of Mass Destruction in History is a Leftist With a Word Processor)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

(Sigh) We could finish this war in an hour by igniting Islam's funeral pyre with the light of a million suns. Fusion devices programmed for airburst detonation would minimize radioactive fallout while spreading destruction far and wide. Numerically, Islam would be reduced to a cult - practiced only by the survivors as they chase rats through the ruins to have for dinner.

The only problem is the fact that most Americans don't like to resort to such extreme measures, and find it morally repugnant. Not to mention damage to the ozone layer, global cooling from the soot and ash of burning cities, possible ground water contamination from when vaporized bomb casings fall back down with the rain, et cetera.

I, however, do not share that sentiment. We will never "win hearts and minds" within Islam as long as we remain ourselves, just as Islam will never adapt to the modern world.

15 posted on 04/02/2004 11:07:43 AM PST by FierceDraka (Service and Glory!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Just kill'em!
16 posted on 04/02/2004 11:08:20 AM PST by blam (Monthly donors are the best, try it. (You'll sleep better at night ))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: broadsword
Savagery is all the animals understand. Spanking them in Afghanistan and Iraq is a good thing, but then showcasing our superiority by helping them to make a pretense at being civilized is intolerable to them. We should have just smashed them--smashed them very hard and left them with nothing but smoldering ruins and a stern warning not to make us come back again.

THANK YOU! That's what I've been saying for years now. It's good to know that there are other hard-nosed realists out there among the touchy-feelies.

17 posted on 04/02/2004 11:22:01 AM PST by FierceDraka (Service and Glory!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: FierceDraka
Have you ever noticed that the most arrogant people you meet just happen to be those with the least reason to be proud?

That's Islam in a nutshell, except that most arrogant people of the nonislamic varieties do not try to kill all who achieve more than them in order to make themselves look better.

Must be a religion of peace thingy.
18 posted on 04/02/2004 11:26:52 AM PST by broadsword (The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for Democrats to get elected.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Robert_Paulson2
Nuking Mecca and Medina would demonstrate Allah's impotence (and non-existance!) to preserve his holiest sites. Perhaps that would shatter the worldwide delusion of this fake religion. If not, we'll have to deal more harshly with Allah's practitioners until they see their futility.
19 posted on 04/02/2004 11:27:28 AM PST by TexasRepublic (Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: 7.62 x 51mm
Un-fricking-believeable.

You have got to be kidding. LOL

I've heard of the Moozies' crazy toilet antics, but have never read of them in detail.

I used to get a good laugh out of my sons when they were younger by acting like Mr Worf from Star Trek performing the Klingon Poop Ritual as a joke. ("Plato-o-ok CHo!")

Never thought that anyone might think of my performance as blasphemous! If that's the case, then I fart in the general direction of Mecca!

20 posted on 04/02/2004 11:47:38 AM PST by FierceDraka (Service and Glory!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-35 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson