Why They Hate Us

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | 5/06/04 | Robert Spencer

[kattracks]

"REMEMBER 11^th SEPTEMBER.” Last Tuesday, a band of demonstrators appeared outside the British Prime Minister’s offices on Downing Street in London. Some were carrying signs bearing photos of the burning World Trade Center, with the exhortation to remember as a caption. But it wasn’t a memorial. It was a threat.

They were chanting “Bomb London, bomb New York” and “We are terrorists.” Another one of their signs asked “IS THIS YOUR FREEDOM?” and bore one of the photos of the Iraqis prisoners abused by American and British soldiers in Iraq.

Is this our freedom? No. Our freedom is more accurately illustrated by the fact that those responsible for the abuse of prisoners will be prosecuted. They are, in other words, not protected by an ideology that is immune to self-criticism and justifies abuses by theological or legal tenets, or by reference to other abuses. The difference between the two civilizations that are clashing now is not that one will commit heinous acts and the other will not. Human nature being what it is, evil will never be wholly absent from any group. But one civilization will condemn and punish those who commit such crimes; the other will not.

 

The Iraqi prisoners are just the latest pretext. If the stories of abuse had not existed, they would have had to be invented — as evidenced by their augmentation on the ever more frenzied Arab Street with footage from an old porn film depicting American soldiers raping an Arab woman. Many people believe that if we only made a few adjustments here, or there — Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan — the animosity toward America in the Islamic world would melt away. The demonstrators, for all their particular grievances, prove otherwise. They were from Al-Muhajiroun, the notorious pro-Osama radical Muslim group in Britain that has been wanting to “bomb London, bomb New York” long before these prisoners were abused — and long before there were even any American troops in Iraq. In Onward Muslim Soldiers I record the group’s leader Omar Bakri’s statement that he is working for the day when the “black flag of Islam” — the jihad flag — will fly over #10 Downing Street.

 

A few days before this demonstration, my old college roommate Dave sent me a New Yorker cartoon depicting a group of people, male and female, in a hot tub, with the caption: “I think if these Islamic fundamentalists got to know us they’d like us.” Of course, many real people think the way the folks in the hot tub in this cartoon think. You’ll find some of them not in hot tubs, but in the State Department.

 

Unfortunately, however, despite all the hearts-and-minds initiatives, this conflict has nothing to do with getting to know us. The principles of global jihad, to which Al-Muhajiroun enthusiastically subscribes, are not a reaction to American power or any particular American action. The influential Pakistani radical Muslim theorist Syed Abul Ala Maududi declared that “Islam requires the earth — not just a portion, but the whole planet — not because the sovereignty over the earth should be wrested from one Nation or several Nations and vested in one particular Nation, but because the entire mankind should benefit … from ‘Islam’ which is the programme of well-being for all humanity.”

 

Maududi insisted that non-Muslims, although free to practice their “false, man-made way,” have “absolutely no right to seize the reins of power in any part of God’s earth nor to direct the collective affairs of human beings according to their own misconceived doctrines.” If they do, “the believers would be under an obligation to do their utmost to dislodge them from political power and to make them live in subservience to the Islamic way of life.”

 

Committed mujahedin will never be mollified by any amount of good will or economic aid or anything else from the West. They won’t be happy if every prisoner gets his own hot tub and copy of the New Yorker. They are dedicated to the proposition that no non-Sharia government has any right to exist, and that Allah commands that all non-Sharia governments must be fought. As the principal obstacle to this, we are directly in the line of fire. There are two possible outcomes as far as they’re concerned: death, or victory. Not negotiations, not peaceful coexistence, not mutual understanding. Those who abused the Iraqi prisoners should be punished, above all for stimulating anti-U.S. hatred among Muslims. But no one should be deceived into thinking that such abuse is the cause of that hatred.

 

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and the author of Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West (Regnery Publishing), and Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest Growing Faith (Encounter Books).

[FairOpinion]

Good article.

Here is another one from a couple of years ago, but still true.

Why the Muslims Misjudged Us
They hate us because their culture is backward and corrupt.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=105001688

"The catastrophe of the Muslim world is also explicable in its failure to grasp the nature of Western success, which springs neither from luck nor resources, genes nor geography. Like Third World Marxists of the 1960s, who put blame for their own self-inflicted misery upon corporations, colonialism and racism--anything other than the absence of real markets and a free society--the Islamic intelligentsia recognizes the Muslim world's inferiority vis-à-vis the West, but it then seeks to fault others for its own self-created fiasco. Government spokesmen in the Middle East should ignore the nonsense of the cultural relativists and discredited Marxists and have the courage to say that they are poor because their populations are nearly half illiterate, that their governments are not free, that their economies are not open, and that their fundamentalists impede scientific inquiry, unpopular expression and cultural exchange.

[holden]

How can liberals give Islamo-fascists any leeway whatever?
If there's anyone in the world who intends to force his religion on those who think otherwise--supposedly anathema to all liberals--it's an Islamo-fascist.

Liberals should direct their hate to these if they were to be at all consistent. They don't, simply exposing that this is not about a principled resistance to keep from letting religious-types foist their religion onto others, because liberals intend to do that 24/7--their religion onto us. No, liberals on this point think that the enemy (Islamo-fascists) of my enemy (the religious world) is my friend, and they'll use that friendship and comradeship in any way possible to increase their political power.

HF

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

The term, "Win their hearts and minds", probably confuses people. Rush said yesterday that he is frustrated by our strong compulsion to make them like us. And he has a point. All indications are, we are being a bit too doting on Iraq. You can never win EVERY heart and EVERY mind. That is Bush's problem not only there but here at home. He is trying to be all things to all people with our tax money. The reason some soldiers were trying so hard to humiliate prisoners there is because we need more intel. It's that simple. More eavesdropping equipment. More language training CDs.

Getting funding for more intel need not cost anything. We are wasting money left and right. If Bush quits being all things to all people, he can raid the department of energy, the department of education, some of this agriculture pork, and especially the National Endowment for the "Arts". Bush can start busting government unions, and if he really wants to save cash, he can encourage a government shutdown with the RINOs and gloat about all the money the shutdown is saving. He can offer lifelines to Social Security recipients and other emergency expenses, but not to overpaid government union members.

[daddyOwe]

My title will be "Why I hate them". I can think of many lives lost of why I hate them, plus their attitude of celebrations when our people die.

[tkathy]

Until this vicious belief system is marginalized much like Naziism was marginalized after WWII, it will threaten the whole world. History will judge the cowards in our media and our religious leaders accordingly, much like the media and religious leaders before WWII.

[rdb3]

How can liberals give Islamo-fascists any leeway whatever? If there's anyone in the world who intends to force his religion on those who think otherwise--supposedly anathema to all liberals--it's an Islamo-fascist.

Simple. The Islamo-fascists are anti-capitalist and anti-Western. Those are huge plus signs for our lefties.

Besides, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?

A.K.A. Sleepy Brown

[RaceBannon]

[hershey]

Sensible thinking...thanks for the post. The article posted by Fairthinking is also a great read, esp. the last few sentences. I was going to quote Shakespeare, about the fault lying in ourselves, not the stars, but you get the idea.

[alpha-8-25-02]

GOODMORNING ELECT BROTHER!
let me add they and anyone who aligns themselves with this are anti-christian!
no matter what moniker they wear,you will know them by the fruits they bear.

[Shane]

"There are two possible outcomes as far as they’re concerned: death, or victory. Not negotiations, not peaceful coexistence, not mutual understanding." That says it all. I hope that America wakes up to the threat before it is to late. Bush needs to change his rhetoric and people within the State Department.

[MrBambaLaMamba]

The best way to end war and ensure peace is to kill the enemy.

End terrorism, kill terrorists.

[tessalu]

Arabs were born full of hate, so this is really not news at all. When I see a headline that says "Arabs are angry", I wonder why they think this is news, for it has always been so. An American, or non Muslim, has never been allowed in to Mecca or to Median, but they want to come to the USA and take it over! Now I am the one who is really angry! Americans are never going to be considerd unless we get really angry.

[tessalu]

Thanks for those pictures, for they show what the Arabs have done to the American people. Those guys on the bridge will never be able to go home to their families. I think that Iraqis have seen just a tiny bit of American anger.

[alloysteel]

Knowing WHY the Muslims hate us is relatively useless as information, because the root causes are beyond our means to rectify. The solution lies within them, and this collective defect is not our responsibility to correct. We can only defend ourselves against their madness.

The world of Islam, despite words to the contrary, is a highly intolerant place. They embrace and glorify character traits that are held to be shameful by the more enlightened and successful civilized world. Lopping off extremities and applying totally inappropriate punishments for relatively insignificant infractions, with no right to appeal these sentences before they are carried out, is barbarous behavior, and has been largely abandonded elsewhere.

Bearded men with burning eyes are not interested in negotiation and compromise. They see both courses as signs of weakness. And weakness is a failing that must be punished.

Inspire fear in them, and they see themselves as weak, so they apply the punishment to themselves.

[Bahbah]

" But one civilization will condemn and punish those who commit such crimes; the other will not."

This is correct. The behavior of those who acted so stupidly will be punished. Enough of the breast beating already. Compare these pictures to those of the mutilated Americans.

[anniegetyourgun]

So true....

[Kenton]

[Hildy]

Why the hate us? I thought this was going to be an article about the mainstream press.

[SuziQ]

Human nature being what it is, evil will never be wholly absent from any group. But one civilization will condemn and punish those who commit such crimes; the other will not.

AMEN!!