The big bad Muslim threat
Dean
Our friend Scott Harris says that this column on Islam by Bruce Thornton is very telling about Islam. So I read it carefully, and all I could think was, "huh?"
Thornton appears to be saying that the religion of Islam is incompatible with freedom, democratic values, and pluralism. He doesn't cite a lot of evidence for that, and from what I can see he ignores a whole lot of evidence to reach his conclusion. But let's pretend for a moment that he is correct: he says, in the vaguest possible terms, that we should face the fact that we're involved in a spiritual struggle and that Islam must be confronted spiritually. But he gives no specifics whatsoever.
So, what's he want? Open warfare with all muslims? Okay, let's launch the nuclear missiles--a billion dead muslims should be easy to arrange over the next few weeks no problem. Is that the proposition? Or should our political leaders just get up on the bully pulpit, harangue the Islamic world to accept Jesus, and start distributing bibles?
Do I sound sarcastic? Well I am a little, but seriously: what's the upshot here? What's the policy solution? Reading this reminds me of all those "anti-war" people who go on and on and on and on about how horrible everything Bush does is. Do they ever have a specific policy solution? No, they just want to bitch about how "realistic" they are because they "know" everything's screwed up (as if a war with the lowest casualty rate in history and a nation-building exercise that's already exceeded what was achieved in West Germany and Japan 3 years after World War II is an inarguable failure).
In the Islamic world, Senegal has gone in barely ten years to one of the least-free nations on Earth to one of the most-free. It is 94% muslim. Mali has come even farther in the last few decades, and is even freer than Senegal. You haven't heard of these countries? Too damned bad. They are a part of the Islamic world, and they show what is possible.
Furthermore, if you simply look, a majority of the world's muslims live in democracies. In most of them, they have integrated just fine. If they didn't, then most of those democracies would face perpetual civil war, and terrorist attacks would be happening on a daily basis in most of those countries--which they are not.
Terrorism doesn't have just a muslim face, but also a Christian one, as the IRA and Timothy McVeigh and abortion clinic bombers can attest. It's also got a Jewish face in Kach and Kahane Chai. It's got an atheist face too, as the Shining Path and pigs like Che Guevara can attest (so you non-theists can drop the smug act, mm-kay?).
The fascistic-Islamist terrorist threat we face, like most terrorist threats, obviously has nothing to do with "poverty and injustice," and everything to do with a murderous and insane ideology. And it is no more the "true" Islamic ideology than Timothy McVeigh or the IRA are the "true" Christian ideology.
As Rudy Rummel notes, a large majority of people in the Arab world--which is overwhelmingly muslim--very much want and believe in democracy. Indeed, they are wanting it more all the time--the last few years have seen a surge in the desire for it.
As we have also seen in the last couple of years, in the Islamic world, support for terrorism has been plunging, and favorable opinions about the United States and the war against terror have been surging dramatically in the Islamic world.
There is a group of Christians, mostly isolated here to the United States, who have managed to convince themselves that we are currently living in the "end times" and that the final battle between Satan and God is just arounder the corner, and that the forces of Satan are represented by Islam and the forces of God by Christianity (with Jews playing a special role for both sides).
This theology is nothing new--people have been running around this country since at least the 1850s saying the millenium is at hand and that recent events have all been predicted in the Bible. You'd think at some point they'd notice and stop this stuff, but they don't. When I was growing up 30 years ago, they thought worldwide Communism represented the forces of Satan and the United States represented the forces of God--and the coming nuclear apocolypse would destroy the world by fire in the final battle between good and evil.
That complete fraud and phoney Hal Lindsey made himself a multi-multi-millionaire selling this snake oil and almost none of the thronging hordes who threw money at him ever called him on it. Nowadays he and his ilk are peddling the notion that the pathetic Osama Bin Laden, who with his greatest attack could not kill even 1% of what one Soviet ICBM could take out, now represent the crest of the upcoming wave of Muslims who are going to tear the West asunder.
Ridiculous. Osama's bullyboys are pathetic losers and cowards who cannot stand and fight, so they go after "soft" targets easy to get to. These are pathetic cowards and insane lunatics, not Satan's elite shock troops.
Yes, yes, I've heard all this stuff about how muslim immigrants are making problems in Western nations. The problem is that I have yet to hear how any of it is different from what happens any time you let a huge influx of poor immigrants into a new country. They tend to be poor, to have difficulty integrating, and to have crime problems--just like the Irish and the Italians and the Mexicans and so on all did when they first got here. The solution is confronting those people and getting them involved in fixing the problem, not assuming that they're all evil and going to kill us.
Islam--the faith as a whole--deserves to be challenged and confronted, just like Christians needed to be challenged and confronted for their own misdeeds in the past. But don't give me this crap about how Islam is incompatible with freedom because it's complete baloney. Cherry-pick all the out-of-context Suras you want--it's Christianity that gave us a "saviour" who declared all men to be slaves, bloody horrible wars that raged for centuries all over Europe, and that gave us the inquisitions--and I do mean both the Catholic and the Protestant inquisitions, by the way, not to mention the quite recent deep Christian involvement in the Rwanda genocide, mostly against Muslims.
There are muslims who read Dean's World every day. Most of them refuse to comment because they get tired of seeing their faith kicked around by the commenters here. I think they're making a mistake, since more engagement would be a healthy thing. But they are, after all, a small religious minority in this country and not a well-respected one. The funny thing being, if all 8 million of them were terrorists and terrorist sympathizers, this whole nation would be on fire from coast to coast. You'd think someone would have noticed that much by now.
I agree that dialouge is important - but the level is often higher when is happens as a cross-blog conversation than when it happens as a commentthread flame war. There's only so much of teh same old canards (Islam is this, Islam is that) that one can endure and repeatedly try to provide counterpoint to. Its literally Sisyphean. Even your post, which I truly appreciate and which is by no means an apologia for Islam or any other faith, will have no real lasting effect on the minds that have been set in stone.
Frankly, I'd rather have dialouge with you than with your commentators.
Terrorism is a military tactic, and the supporters of terrorism are motivated by politics and apartheid Shariah laws, not religion.
During the 1930's, many Europeans were in favor of some form of totalitarian government - fascism or communism. We didn't blame "European culture" or atheism for this outbreak of totalitarianism. We didn't try to convert or reform them all at once. If we had, we probably would have lost WWII and the Cold WAr. We used miltary solutions to fight a political/military problem.
We knocked some idiocy out of them, but failed to completely fill in the hole.
As to the article..."moderate" Muslims are often two-faced (check); are often not that moderate (check); are often fascist apologists (check).
At the end, he identifies the problem: Appeasement (such as identifying terrorists as "moderates"); indifference (not enough people care about this problem--people want their easy life); demography (I read, and used as the foundational ideas for a game setting, den Beste's speculation of France becoming an unintegrated Arab nation by 2030---Europe is having a real hard time integrating, and I kinda doubt they will succeed.)
His solution--more truth, as he sees it, and a more hard-nosed attitude toward Muslim fanatics. I suspect he might approve of an unabashed demand for a Right of Proslyetization (and support of a Right of Apostasy as well) which would allow many of those billion Muslims their first free choice as to how, or if, they worship God.
Truthfully, its not a great article. Its not a bad article either. And more of the same would be beneficial.
And considering Gulag, 100 Million dead, Domino Effect, the Leftward Ratchet of History, Helpless Giant, literal traitors within America, global thermonuclear warfare possible, the ever-growing expansion of the Communists...I don't think it really requires that much imagination to see Communism as the herald of Satan's realm on this Earth. Indeed, it may well have been, but was defeated by the Other Side, for a time.
I saw Red Dawn, and considered it a very possible future as I think did millions of other people.
I think Reagan saw thermonuclear weapons as part of the apocalypse which is why he wanted to get rid of them.
Islam is a warrior religion. There is no such thing as 'turning the other cheek' in Islam. Any reading of the Koran would make that fairly clear. Why do you think there are only two realms in Islam. That of Islam and of war? What exactly is terribly hard to grasp about this concept? Just because some in the West repeat the mantra about Islam being a "religion of peace" that still does not make it true.
Islam has its more peaceful adherents called Sufis. Guess what the reaction is from the rest of the faith?
Dean when was the last time that any other faith's immigrants blew their adoptive home's people to bits with suicide bombs? When was the last time immigrant Jews or Christians to the US or the UK were found to planning mass murder on an epic scale? When have immigrant Christians or Jews in the US/UK called for the mass genocide of anyone?
This is an example of a moderate Muslim organisation in the UK.
As for the "realm of Islam and realm of war" thing--why don't you ask an actual muslim how they interpret that? Do you actually know any? Christians when I was growing up spoke of spiritual warfare (and things like their "Gospel Armor" and being "soldiers for Christ") without embarassment when I was growing up.
Characterizing an organization that apologizes for terrorism or advocates it as "moderate" is obscene and no one should do that. Indeed, the biggest obscenity is in letting people get away with that. Why don't you throw those terror-apologist, terror-appeasing muslim bastards out of your country, and stop calling them moderates when they clearly aren't? Then you might actually have opportunity to talk to muslims who really are moderates and liberals.
is the whole USA.... ....and all Christians.... ....and Dead White European Males.... I feel so GUILTY!
They don't define White Chrisian Males.
Yet Osama defines muslims, and hey should feel guilty?
So. Of 2 million Muslims in the UK, a dozen or two have committed some heinous terrorist crimes. And your proposal is to slam everyone associated with the religion? Is that even reasonable?
Me, I'm reasonably content with not being all that cool.
Let me remind you that the Crusades were in fact defensive wars (well except the Albigensi, Barber and a few other internal ones) against Islamic armies. Or do you think that Al Andalus (Spain) is part of so-called "Islamic lands".
The IRA have nothing to do with being Catholic and far more to do with being Marxist. In fact both paramilitary groupings on either side have far more to do with drug running and crime than with religious politics.
Dean are you talking moderate practicising Muslims or secular ones? Big difference.
When I or one of my friends gets blown to bits by some extremist here in London who was not reported to the authorities by his "community" I will be happy to know that there are moderates out there somewhere who care about living in peace. Am I suppose to be happy to be killed go about my daily business in London because: well other religious have a bloody past....
One thing I've seen mentioned several times lately is that most Arab countries have problems with corruption and clannish behavior.
They have these problems because they can't depend on the government for many functions, including equitable judgement of grievances, civil protection, and so on.
So Arabs fall back on clans because they can't rely on the government. Since these governments are themselves corrupt, not only are they that much more worthless, they (indirectly) encourage corrupt behavior in their citizens, since that's the only way they can survive.
If someone is intent upon claiming that Arabs are somehow naturally or innately corrupt, I would like to point out that: many parts of the Caliphate enjoyed excellent government when King John was terrorizing his rich subjects into ever greater forced loans, Jews were for a long time treated with respect (at least in North Africa and Spain), and the Arabs had real doctors when the best the West could do was wave a religious relic at a sick soldier.
The hard part for Iraqi citizens will not be defeating the criminals and terrorists; those animals will be ground down eventually. No, the true challenge will be getting those citizens to turn their back on corruption; an institution upon which they've become far too dependent.
So, Andrew, you're saying that the princes of England, France, and Germany sailed to the mid-East and attacked the people living there in self-defence!?
What, they had WMDs back then, too?
Heh. Sorry. I've been naughty.
Completely screwed up, but not without potential.
Ok lets me say a few things. Christianity's bloody past was caused by Christian leaders imploring their followers to do evil. On the other hand the Koran implores its adhirents to go kill Jews and Christians (unless they are willing to be enslaved and/or heavily taxed).
1.) McVeigh he was a member of a small neo-Nazi "Christian identity" cult (they for instance don't believe that Jesus was a Jew and deny any link between Christianity and Judiasm...they don't use the old testatment etc). He blew up all those people to get back at the Zionist Overlord Government.
2.) On the other hand we have Mosques in major metropolitan areas with thousands of members where there are preachers spewing hate (Finsbury Park etc). That fool who spewed hatred in Birmingham during the raids was Iman to the largest Mosque in Birmingham and on the inter-faith counsel. He was considered mainstream. Did you happen to see the poll on Muslim sentiment in the UK after the 7/7 attacks. A significant minorty approved of the attacks. This does not even take into account was in printed in Arabic newspapers around London detailing the sermons from Saudi, Egypt et al.
3.) The Kahane movement that spawned a few murderous loons is just as small as McVeigh's mob.
BTW: I have spoken to many Muslims in the UK due to my political contacts and the events I have attended. I have yet to meet one that believed Israel had a right to exist or that US was not controlled by Zionists.
Do you not see a significant difference between 1 &3 and 2.
Comparing the religious history of Islam, Christianity and Judiasm then drawing conclusions as to wear Islam is headed is a mistake. They all have distinct histories that differ greatly and reflected their time.
What saved Christians from killing each other and going to war for their religion was not the Reformation per se but the secularisation of a vast majority of today's Christians...ditto Jews.
NB: I believe that American Muslims are far more assimilated than their UK counterparts. The self-ghettoisation that occurs in many parts of the UK does not seem to be as widespread in the US.
On the one hand, no, a billion people aren't murderous goons. That's just silly.
But we should remember that Christianity started becoming less murderous when it started examining and coming to grips with its own past. Modulo certain groups which Dean has been highlighting, Islam in general does not seem to be doing so.
Many of the things being said about moderate Muslims could have been said about Christians at any point in Christian history: that there were "true Christians" who loved their brethren and didn't try to kill them, etc. None of that stopped, say, the Inquisition from happening. We stopped having Spanish Inquisitions when Christians started thinking deeply about their faith, what it meant, and how political power had corrupted it.
And let's not pretend that Islam today is ideologically pure of similar corruption. Fascism and/or Communism permeate their fatwas and proclamations, just as feudalism and monarchy permeated the Middle Ages Church and the early Protestant spinoffs. Too many Muslims pretend to be impervious to such things, which is a big problem as well.
Maybe it's just too early. Maybe the good Muslim groups are on an inevitable upward ascent, and the totalitarian mullahs and ayatollahs are simply exiting noisily. I hope so.
I have been taking a little break from blogging, so I just now saw this article. I intend to mull over what you have said and respond at some point.
But consider that I was initially responding to your post on Hiroshima. The context was breaking the will of the enemy to fight. I placed a religious conotation on the issue, in that the Japanese had a religious duty to fight for the Emporer, and only when that religious duty was overcome did they submit to defeat.
Also, I think that those who actually believe and practice their religion might, in some ways, have a better insight into the religious motivations of our enemy because they understand religious duty in a more day-by-day live-it-out practical way.
Also, those who do not believe in God tend to dismiss the differences in the actual belief systems as irrelevant since they deem them all to be irrational. They tend to try to impose a moral relativism on all religions and fail to adesquately take into consideration the differences.
Finally, there is a difference between democracy and freedom. I need to go through some of your links and read back over my original comments. I also need to research your "Slave" comments in the Bible. So I will get back to you when I have digested all the material.
But while I am at it, consider this: Is there a purpose for freedom, or is it an end in itself? In other words, is hedonism the ultimate good, or should freedom serve some other purpose?
Regards