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A War Against What? [Militant Islam methodically slaughters Christians]
New York Post | Oct. 1, 2002 | Daniel Pipes

Posted on 10/02/2002 8:37:13 AM PDT by 1bigdictator

A War Against What?

by Daniel Pipes New York Post October 1, 2002 http://www.danielpipes.org/article/477 http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/58384.htm

Militant Islam keeps on killing, but politicians and journalists still avert their eyes.

One terrible example comes from Pakistan, where a sequence of assaults on Christians, both local and foreign, has taken place over the past year:

* Oct. 28: an attack on St. Dominic's Church in Behawalpur kills 16.

* March 17: an attack on the Protestant International Church in Islamabad kills five (including two Americans).

* May 22: an attack on the executive secretary of Karachi Diocese of Church Pakistan, who was tied to a chair and injected with poison.

* Aug. 5: an attack on the Murree Christian School kills six.

* Aug. 9: an attack on the Christian Hospital in Taxila kills four.

* Sept. 25: an attack on the Institute for Peace and Justice, a Christian charity in Karachi, kills seven.

There have also been many more non-lethal assaults on churches and church services, the most recent this past Sunday. There is no doubt about the motives of the perpetrators: Militant Islamic groups brazenly speak their minds, declaring their goal is "to kill Christians" and afterwards bragging of having "killed the nonbelievers."

Victims know full well why they are targeted - "just for being Christians," as one person put it. A local Christian leader states "that the terrorist attack was an act by al Qaeda or some pro-Taliban organizations."

Pakistani law enforcement also recognizes who engages in this violence and why. "We are investigating whether there is an anti-Christian gang operating in Karachi, made up of jihadis," the city's chief investigator explains.

A provincial police chief comments about the Sept. 25 carnage: "Unlike the usual terrorists, the killers [last week] showed no haste. They took a good 15 minutes in segregating the Christians and making sure that each one of their targets gets the most horrific death."

A survivor of that slaughter recounts that the murderers separated Christians from Muslims by requiring each hostage to recite a verse from the Koran. Those who could not were seated at a table in the library, bound to chairs, gagged, and shot in the head (except for one person who was shot in a bathroom).

Politicians and journalists, however, pretend not to recognize the problem.

Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf reacted to the Sept. 25 butchery with seeming bewilderment: "I could not say who [was behind the killings]. It could be al Qaeda, it could be any sectarian extremists within, or foreign elements of RAW." (RAW is the Research and Analysis Wing, India's intelligence agency.) Pakistan's interior minister likewise emphasizes that RAW's role "cannot be ruled out."

The media is almost as bad: Paul Marshall of Freedom House shows that American and European reporting on these many massacres in Pakistan overlooks the militant Islamic dimension, instead presenting the atrocities as vaguely anti-Western in purpose.

This pattern of reluctance and euphemism in the case of Pakistan fits into a more general context. President Bush declared war not on militant Islam but on a faceless enemy he has variously called "terrorists," "a radical network of terrorists," "terrorists in this world who can't stand the thought of peace," "terrorism with a global reach," "evildoers," "a dangerous group of people," "a bunch of cold-blooded killers," and even "people without a country."

The establishment media has been complicit. With the notable exception of CNN's Lou Dobbs, who talks about "the war against radical Islamists," it unthinkingly echoes the government's line that the conflict has nothing to do with religious motives. It's as though Franklin D. Roosevelt, after Pearl Harbor, declared war on surprise attacks rather than on the Japanese empire.

This evasion has consequences, for an enemy who cannot be named cannot be defeated. Only when "war on terrorism" becomes "war on militant Islam" can the war actually be won.

Fortunately, the president has on occasion hinted at this, as in May when he called the enemy those "defined by their hatreds: they hate . . . Jews and Christians and all Muslims who disagree with them."

It is not a war on terrorism, nor a war on Islam.It is a war on a terroristic version of Islam. Authorities in the United States, Pakistan and elsewhere need to face this unpleasant fact. Not to do so will mean the unnecessary loss of lives.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Germany; Government; Israel; Japan; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: arab; christianity; pakistan; terror

1 posted on 10/02/2002 8:37:14 AM PDT by 1bigdictator
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To: 1bigdictator
bump...
2 posted on 10/02/2002 8:43:09 AM PDT by Aaron_A
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Comment #3 Removed by Moderator

TAKE BACK THE SENATE!

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4 posted on 10/02/2002 9:12:58 AM PDT by Mo1
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To: chimpanzee politics
That presupposes that the current administration wants the war on terrorism to end. The article is correct--as long as the enemy in this 'war on terrorism' remains vaguely defined, it can go on forever. Opponents may be labeled as unpatriotic, defense contractors can continue to pour political contributions into the political parties in exchange for defense contracts, and the population can be controlled through the media using war rhetoric--a la '1984'. I recently reread '1984'. Orwell was dead-on prescient. As the broadcast media are increasingly gathered into a few hands, it is increasingly easy to manipulate public passions. And nothing unites a people like a threat, however vague or amorphous.

You make some valid concerns....but....the media of which you speak is on the "opposite" side as the current leadership. They'll take whatever view is necessary to get Bush and Company out of power so they can move forward with THEIR creation of a 1984 society. You're half right but need to place the blame arrow in the right direction. I still watch Bush closely, but with the obvious Marxists of the left so solidly against him, I get the impression he must not be "one of them". Otherwise, they'd all be riding his coat tails. Make sure you've got the players nailed down before you draw early conclusions and always keep your eyes and ears open.

Most importantly, stay armed and prepared for whatever the future may bring us, be it a guaranteed right to freedom and liberty, or a struggle for it. That is our duty as Americans.

5 posted on 10/02/2002 9:16:26 AM PDT by YoungKentuckyConservative
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Comment #6 Removed by Moderator

To: 1bigdictator
WANT TO TAKE BACK THE SENATE??

WANT TO SHOCK HILLARY?

THEN DO YOUR PART TODAY! GO TO:

TakeBackCongress.org

A resource for conservatives who want to help a Republican majority in the Senate

7 posted on 10/02/2002 10:13:37 AM PDT by ffrancone
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To: chimpanzee politics
I think the blame arrow is bidirectional; both parties are corrupted by the current system of political finance. And the ordinary citizen is the loser.

I have to agree with you, but I think the seriousness of the threat from the left must be delt with NOW at nearly any cost. It's going to be difficult to reclaim our country. I'd say the odds are against us.

8 posted on 10/02/2002 10:14:57 AM PDT by YoungKentuckyConservative
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To: 1bigdictator
FReepers who have not yet availed themselves should run, not walk, to the nearest bookstore and buy Robert Spencer's Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About The World's Fastest-Growing Faith. If Mr. Spencer is even half-correct in his historical citations and accompanying arguments, there is no slightest chance that Islam can ever be reconciled with Western values of liberty, tolerance, and impartial, secular justice.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

9 posted on 10/02/2002 10:48:24 AM PDT by fporretto
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To: 1bigdictator
A War Against What? [Militant Islam methodically slaughters Christians]

Remember, "militant Islam" is constitutive Islam.
11 posted on 10/02/2002 10:55:29 AM PDT by aruanan
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Comment #12 Removed by Moderator

To: chimpanzee politics
So what's the solution, kill them all and let God sort it out? Shut down our borders, stop trading with other nations, and disengage from foreign affairs?

We need to trade in order to flourish; we need to engage in foreign affairs in order to trade; we will encounter groups with opposing agendas if we engage in foreign affairs. The fact is that economic competition has outcomes at least as serious as war.

Unless we are going to kill all our competitors (inside and outside our nation) we need to find some other means of resolving conflicts. Otherwise, the survivors will see what we are doing and band against us, and it will then become kill or be killed. Want a real world war?

These are straw man objections. No one is suggesting a complete American withdrawal from the world; you should know better. Moreover, world Islam is in no sense our "competitor," since it has nothing to offer the non-Islamic world except some natural resources that were developed for it by Western enterprise. Nor need we kill anyone, no matter how vicious or vitriolic he may be, if we can keep him properly at arm's length, and deprive him of all means of striking us.

Just as we should be wary of a racial supremacist who claims religious justification for his views, we should cultivate an abiding suspicion of Islam and its adherents. Inasmuch as their scripture, which is doctrinally held to be the Revealed Word Of God -- Allah's dictation to Mohammed through the Angel Gabriel -- legitimizes violence, enslavement and deceit against all non-Muslims, and inasmuch as to disavow (or attach a metaphoric interpretation to) any part of the Qur'an is heresy, punishable by death under Islamic notions of "justice," I can't see a case for trusting anyone who proclaims himself a Muslim.

At this point, militant Islam is the dominant malevolent force in the world, and it has Qur'anic backing. "Moderate" Muslims are forever in danger of being drowned by the militant tide, as if sucked under by an undertow, because of Islam's unique rejection of an evolving interpretation of its doctrines. But Mr. Spencer makes the case far more completely than I could do here, in a small space.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

13 posted on 10/02/2002 11:17:15 AM PDT by fporretto
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Comment #14 Removed by Moderator

To: chimpanzee politics
We have more to fear from fundamentalist Christians than we do mainstream Moslems.

I’m afraid you’ve given the game away with that statement. It is now possible to dismiss you. No one could make such a claim without being either 1) feeble-minded, or 2) malevolent. So what follows is for whoever else might be reading this.

In the years since World War II, every major terrorist act but one – the bombing of the Murragh Building in Oklahoma City – has been firmly tied to Muslim terrorists and their organizations. Even the Murragh bombing seems to have a Middle Eastern connection. Only two “political” or “religious” murders have been tied to Christians – the murders of two abortion-clinic doctors – and one of these is still being adjudicated. Muslim terrorist organizations are public, are well known by their names, and have killed thousands of people. Indeed, their harvest of human lives was in the tens of thousands long before September 11, 2001. Today, Muslims kill Christians copiously in Malaysia, in Pakistan, in Israel, and many other places. Muslim militants have killed or enslaved many thousands of Christians in Sudan and Mauritania, and have forcibly converted many thousands of others.

Throughout history, wherever they held a majority, Muslims have claimed the privilege of forcibly converting non-Muslims, or subjecting them to oppressions up to and including death. Yes, Christians have to answer for the Inquisitions, but they were over more than four hundred years ago – and please, no nonsense about the Crusades. Those were attempts to recapture lands Muslim armies had conquered some years earlier, where they had put the Christian and Jewish populations under a heavy yoke. Sauce for the goose is at least as good for the gander.

What, pray tell, is your case against Christian fundamentalists? That they deplore homosexuality and a highly sexualized public life? Yes, they do – but none of them advocate punishing homosexuality by force of law, whereas Islamic shari’a law decrees that homosexuals be stoned to death! No Christian fundamentalist advocates that a woman should be clapped in jail for adultery, whereas Muslims execute even victims of rape who are unwise enough to complain about it! The Book of Leviticus is not part of the New Testament; it’s the ancient history of the Jewish people, superseded by the passage of time and the teachings of Christ. The Qur’an, by contrast, is supposed to be taken literally by everyone who calls himself a Muslim, without exceptions or gentle reinterpretations, on pain of death for heresy.

It is just possible to believe that “most” Muslims don’t seek power to do the same to their non-Muslim neighbors – just barely. But you are a fool to claim that Christians of our time have anything like the Muslim barbarities to answer for, and worse yet to think Christians of any stripe, however fundamentalist, pose more of a threat to you than Muslims, whose sacred book commands them to extend the House of Islam, where the shari’a is law, by any means expedient, including violence and deceit.

Enjoy your soccer games.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

15 posted on 10/02/2002 1:53:55 PM PDT by fporretto
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To: fporretto
chimpanzee politics chose his name well, didn't he? Anyone who still thinks Christians (whose biggest desire seems to be to get people to stop screwing around) are more of a threat than Muslims (whose biggest desire is to kill us) is not worth even bothering with.

I mean, we're obviously dealing with a 20 year old English major who is minoring in Women's Studies in hopes of getting laid, lives off his parents, and owns 3 guitars but not one comb, non?

16 posted on 10/02/2002 3:34:43 PM PDT by A_perfect_lady
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To: chimpanzee politics
What exactly is this 'threat from the left,' except the danger that the welfare state will grow larger and socialist principles become more entrenched?

I believe a careful examination of the Communist Manifesto says a lot about the "motives" and underlining agenda of our liberal friends. Now, not all liberals are part of the Marxist regime. As a matter of fact, I feel they are quite small, both in raw numbers and a a percentage of our "elite" population. However, they have a lot of power and control a vast majority of the Democratic Party, the media, the Universities, and the legal system.

Again, the control and use of these institutions to stir an internal revolution are clearly outlined by the Communists. As are the arguments and posture of the liberals of whom I am referring. Pick up the Manifesto or other relevant works and you may find yourself agreeing with me. You have to connect a lot of "red" dots to see the big picture.

The only government you should fear is one that is not actively checked and investigated by the public. That would be "this" government. A government tha goes unchecked is always dangerous to the people, regardless of what special interest groups are involved.

Please remember we have no democratic voice in this country. We are a "representative republic", not a democracy. Again, the media and democrats have done an excellent job convincing people that we are a democracy. It seems most people don't understadn the distinction between the two forms of government.

I don't understand the whole "corporate" and "moola" argument against war. War has always been about plunder. Even if a country or people is on the defense the spoils of war are inherently part of the after math. War is always in one way or another about power and money. That hasn't changed and won't change. What's so wrong with the U.S. taking Iraq's oil? The spoils of war go to the victorious. It's a baseless arugment, in my opinion. Regardless, I'm not willing to roll over and scream "capitalism foul" while the terrorists work with Saddam to bring a nuclear weapon into our country. I will not surrender to liberal-suicide.

Now why would the liberals want to commit suicide? Again, do some reading on the Communist Manifesto and other documents that detail the "takeover" of America.

I'm sure someone will start in with the "conspiracy nut" comments at this point. Then again, liberals have been taught to attack a person's character and intellect when they have nothing to say. BTW, these comments re directed directly at you, I'm just assuming I'll get roasted from someone when they read the thread. =) Hehe.

17 posted on 10/03/2002 5:04:13 AM PDT by YoungKentuckyConservative
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