So You Want a Holy War? (William F. Buckley Jr.)

National Review Online ^ | October 02, 2001 | William F. Buckley Jr.

[FITZ]

Don't worry about PC. It is a luxury of a peaceful, prosperous society. One more attack and watch the ramparts begin to crumble.

If there has to be another attack, maybe it could be at Berkeley or some place where the US haters can be found.

[BurkeanCyclist]

Actually, Ann Coulter was not fired. NRO stopped carrying her column. The two are entirely different things.

Presumably, dropping Buckley's column is not an option.

[MaeWest]

Islam has no organized priesthood, nor have churches or church services comparable to Christian services or centers of worship. However, temples, or mosques, exist for prayers, and mullahs, or learned teachers, are available to explain regious doctrine.

Thanks! That explains a lot. Wonder what credentials are required to be a mullah - or can anyone just claim the title if they want to and run around issuing edicts and fatwahs?

[MissAmericanPie]

Gee, and we only have ten million of them in our nation that the government will admit to. Out of ten million couldn't they even round up five moderate muslims to stand next to President Bush in a mosque while he pleaded for their lives. All the while these muslims with terrorist connections stood beside him, with that look on their faces, guilty from a distance of the terror in NYC and DC, having created and funded charitable front organizations for terrorists. Unbelieveable.

[longleaf]

I was happy when Bush used the term "Crusade" in his speech to congress.

It wasn't in a speech to Congress. It was an "unscripted" remark he made in response to a group of reporters questioning him on a Sunday afternoon (Sept. 16, I believe) after he had disembarked from the helicopter bringing him back to the White House from Camp David.

He has never used the term since. In fact, from everything I am observing, he seems to be moving toward making peace with his own "Inner Jihad."

[beckett]

...many people are upset right now with NRO's dismissal of Ann Coulter (as am I).

Coulter deserved to get canned.

1. The column she wrote went way over the line.
2. She brazenly and publicly mocked the editors of NRO after being reprimanded for the column. I don't know about you, but my bosses don't look too kindly on being publicly mocked.
3. She has a marked tendency to be much too full of herself. In some ways she resembles little Billy Clinton---it's all about her.

[AZPubbie]

I guess I was too young when the Panama Canal was a big issue (I'm 32 now). I don't remember Buckley's involvement in the debate. However, I'm not sure that I'd oppose relinquishing the canal if the issue were put to a vote today so I can't say that I'd condemn him for his position then.

As for the socialist comment, I've read enough of his writings, which are infused with respect and support for the free market system, to seriously doubt that he considers himself a socialist.

[independentmind]

Cutting off peoples hands and feet for stealing a loaf of bread sounds like something out of Europe's dark ages.

Actually, I think this custom was practiced in China until the last 100 years or so. The Christian West abolished the practice.

[tomkat]

please cite a source for your assertion.

i find it next to impossible to believe,
unless your remark is wildly out of context somehow.

[Cool Guy]

Anytime. It is dirty work, but somebody's gotto do it :P

[ValerieUSA]

I hear only ambiguous statements from Moslem clerics. When stupid reporters ask if they condemn suicide, of course they answer yes - but do they condemn martyrdom in a jihad? Of course not! That's how I know the unscheduled Moslem pilot who deliberately downed EgyptAir flight 990 two years ago did so as a terrorist act for the glory of Allah - not as a suicidal man.
It is way past time for Americans to stop propagating the LIE that Allah is the same as the Christian God. No Moslem or informed Christian believes such nonsense.

Allah is EVIL, a deceiver, a bloodthirsty oppresser who laughs 5 times a day when he sees rows of men in robes with their butts in the air. He enslaves the men that Jesus would set free. The men in turn enslave the women and children to their arrogant oppression. They rule by fear and lies, not by faith and love.

[Servant of the Nine]

Carefully selected, there are Koranic preachments that are consistent with civilized life.

Unfortunately, you must make the same kind of selection from the Old Testament to find a Christian or Jewish sect that is consistent with civilized life. It is just that our ancestors did that for us long ago, and we don't even think about the "unpleasant parts" of the Old Testament.
Read Mark Twain's "Letters from Earth" if you want to see particular passages dissected

So9

[thunderdome]

Having grown up as a baptist, I can understand all of those warning signs you pointed out.

I think that there are many churches that function as 'soft' cults run for the profit and esteem of their elders and leaders..power is a strong drug.

I am very careful of my choice of churches for this reason.

..."LETS ROLL!!!!!!!!!"- The late, great Todd Beamer of Flight 93

"Defeat it, or be defeated by it" -Blair (war sure makes strange bedfellows)

[thunderdome]

Unfortunately, you must make the same kind of selection from the Old Testament to find a Christian or Jewish sect that is consistent with civilized life.

I was reading past where my pastor was quoting from Leviticus this past Sunday and read where one should be stoned for using God's name in vain and an example of this being done....Well I would have suffered that fate just today when I lost my mouth and did the same. What Christian church would actually advocate "Joe's Olde Time Church of God" stoning me to death as I sit here at my computer? In fact all churches would come out to denounce this behaviour and think it horrid. You are correct, we pick and choose from our books and don't try to take the entire books as something to imitate page for page.

[ValerieUSA]

It is truly taking God's name in vain when He is equated with the evil Allah.

[jackbill]

How can you continue to be a fan of a man who joined Jimmie Karter in shoving the Panama Canal into the hands of the communists?

By reading what he writes and wholeheartedly agreeing with him. If you want to live in the past, go ahead. I prefer to live in the present and look to the future.

[samtheman]

I don't see what you like about this piece. This is so vague and dumbed-down compared to Civilization Envy, a much more substantive analysis of the problem. Compared to Civilization Envy, WFB's piece is full of wind.

And compared to Coulter, writing FUTURE WIDOWS OF AMERICA: WRITE YOUR CONGRESSMAN, WFB is full of pomp and circumstance signifying nothing.

NR is going downhill fast.

[LibKill]

In short, if bin Laden is teaching falsely then why don't mullahs get up as a BODY and say so. If they remain silen, then we will assume that silence implies that thay consent to Bin Lden's teachings.

"Who is silent gives consent."

[Torie]

Buckley does not = Coulter. Buckley asks for mainstream Islam to clarify the distinction between it and what the purported Islamic theology of the terrorists which to them "sanctified" their actions, and to go about doing it publically and in their own lands, or become subject to becoming personnas non grata in the civilized world. Coulter suggested forcible conversion of Moslems to Christianity in the lands of the perps, ala some sort of cruscade redux. I see a considerable distinction, even if most here do not.

[hypatia]

Excellent!