Posted on 01/12/2015 5:56:44 AM PST by lifeofgrace
In the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks and related hostage-taking and murder at a Kosher meat market, the Left, the media, and much of the world is pretending they can beat the Kobayashi Maru. They gathered in a giant show of solidarity Sunday in Paris with the slogan “je suis Charlie”—over 1.6 million people.
The world leaders — including President François Hollande of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain — joined the march in a solemn line. They moved slowly, clasping arms to show solidarity with the victims. The crowd roared in approval.Like the American reaction to 9/11, there’s a groundswell of unity and “do-something-itis” mixed with national fervor, in this case, French. But little has really changed, and there’s no beating the unwinnable scenario without first addressing its root. We keep hearing that “extremism” is the root, that somehow Christian extremism is equivalent to Muslim extremism, even to the point (as illuminated by Ben Howe) of using Jerry Falwell’s lawsuit against Larry Flynt to compare with Islamic terrorism. In the media, there’s more worry about “backlash” against the Muslim community in America than there is serious discussion about the roots of Islamic terror, and that’s nothing more than trying somehow achieve victory by manipulation without any cost. It might work in Star Trek, but it doesn’t work in the land of real living people.
President Obama didn’t see fit to attend the gathering, and this should be no surprise, given what he wrote eight years ago.
In the wake of 9/11, my meetings with Arab and Pakistani Americans, for example, have a more urgent quality, for the stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific reassurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction. —Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope, page 261, (Vintage, 2008)The winds have decidedly shifted, and now would be the perfect time to use that tailwind to strike another blow to the cancer growing in Africa, Asia, and Europe before it becomes even more deadly (“never let a crisis go to waste”, right?). But our president is determined to ignore the lessons of the past, and this real crisis will be wasted.
“As the camel falls to its knees, more knives are drawn” is a Bedouin proverb.
When dealing with Islam, the price of peace will always be higher than negotiated; the required jizya that infidels must pay will always be made higher and higher. This is a very simple concept. Islam mandates that infidels are not to be left in peace forever—ultimately all infidels must be brought into submission or die. It’s only a question of sooner or later.
The French, and the rest of Europe, rediscovered this the hard way, after forgetting three hundred years of history dealing with Muslims. America’s own lessons should also not be forgotten. Even 11th century traveller Marco Polo is fancied to have said “the militant Muslim is the person who beheads the infidel, while the moderate Muslim holds the feet of the victim.” He may not have said it, or he may have, depending on who you ask. I am pretty sure Polo came across plenty of what we would call “radicalized Muslims” either way.
A point here about Islam. It is a political-religious system, which doesn’t recognize national borders—not in the sense the rest of the world sees them. “I against my brother, I and my brother against our cousin, I, my brother and our cousin against the neighbors, All of us against the foreigner.” Who is the foreigner? Everybody else—the infidels. The jihadist in Paris is the countryman of the ISIS mujahideen in Syria or Iraq and the Hamas terrorist joins with the Saudi Salafist in fighting The Great Satan America. Taking sides in cousin-vs-cousin or neighboring tribal wars among Muslims is like building sand castles in the Sahara. The next wind shift blows the dune in another direction and with it all your work flies away as dust.
Another point about Islam. Piracy, hostage-taking, and slavery are condoned in Islamic law, especially for infidels. The north African slave trade has thrived since at least the 1700’s, when the Barbary pirates plied the Mediterranean. Those pirates raised money not just for their own greed, but to fund ghaziya, the raiding of Christian territory, in order to expand Muslim lands. These days, pirates have sprung up in Somalia, and are likely funding groups like Boko Haram, whose viciousness is matched only by the inhuman savagery of ISIS. The Taliban’s primary means of income is poppy production, leading to refining and selling opium for heroin, up to $30 billion a year of it.
Today’s tactics are nothing new, and treaties, agreements, and negotiating don’t work. As early as 1801, America learned that treaties with Muslims don’t hold up.
To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one only exception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States, had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, and had permitted itself to denounce war, on our failure to comply before a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean. Thomas Jefferson, May, 1801So began the Barbary Wars. Another student of history, Winston Churchill, wrote about Islam,
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property--either as a child, a wife, or a concubine--must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science--the science against which it had vainly struggled--the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome. —Winston Churchill, The River War, first edition, Vol II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).Khaled Mash’al, leader of Hamas, who spent the last shooting war with Israel holed up in a five-star hotel suite in Doha, Qatar, called on European nations to apologize to Islam in 2006,
Tomorrow, our nation will sit on the throne of the world. [..] Tomorrow we will lead the world, Allah willing. Apologize today, before remorse will do you no good. Our nation is moving forwards, and it is in your interest to respect a victorious nation. (Speech in Damascus, 3rd February 2006)Nothing has changed. Islam breeds terrorists like dead carcasses breed flies and spread disease.
Comparing this to Christianity, Judaism, or any other religion is not apples-to-apples, as no major religion seeks world domination through force of arms as its end. No other religion’s founders achieved military victory like the Prophet Mohammed. No other religion reacts to negative portrayals of its central figure like Islam—with murders, fatwahs, and worldwide terror attacks. Whether it’s religious courts sentencing Christians to death in Sudan, or government-sanctioned beheadings in Saudi Arabia, or the Pakistani government looking the other way when churches are burned and women are murdered in honor killings, the embers of terrorist actions around the world rise from the fire of Islamic texts and Mullah’s speeches no differently than the racial hatred and genocidal rantings of other barbarians, past and present.
There is no gaming the system to defeat this foe. There’s no tiptoeing around terms like “backlash” and “profiling”. This is not about religion, which is made plain by the huge gathering in Paris. It’s about humanity. And humans have to take sides. Failure to choose a side means you have taken the side of those who seek to overthrow civilization and replace it with their brand of tyranny, because unless you oppose them, you will be under their boot.
Je suis Charlie. I am Charlie.
President Obama, vous êtes Charlie. You are Charlie.
And all of us, nous sommes Charlie. We are all Charlie.
The problem is not radical islam. Islam by nature persecuted nonbelievers.
Perhaps, and this is a big perhaps, perhaps the French have begun to awaken. It remains to be seen if French government and social policy changes toward the Islamic plague. My guess is that Magic Thinking will be exposed as the French posture yet do zero to actually counter the evil of Islam.
Great article.
What is the Kobayashi Mary reference?
Hadn’t watched hte show in a while but “The Simpsons” gave us this last night;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru
From the webpage:
The Kobayashi Maru test was first depicted in the opening scene of the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan...The test’s name is occasionally used among Star Trek fans or those familiar with the series to describe a no-win scenario, or a solution that involves redefining the problem and testing one’s character.
The notional primary goal of the exercise is to rescue the civilian vessel Kobayashi Maru in a simulated battle with the Klingons. The disabled ship is located in the Klingon Neutral Zone, and any Starfleet ship entering the zone would cause an interstellar incident. The approaching cadet crew must decide whether to attempt rescue of the Kobayashi Maru crew – endangering their own ship and lives – or leave the Kobayashi Maru to certain destruction. If the cadet chooses to attempt rescue, the simulation is designed to guarantee that the ship is destroyed with the loss of all crew members.
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