America: Islam’s Only Hope for Reform

Legendary radio commentator and writer, Barry Farber, in a recent editorial called “12th Century Thinking,”[*] asks an important question:

“We had proven white and black could live together. We had proven Jew and Gentile could live together, British and Irish could live together, French and German could live together. Italian and Yugoslav could live together. Northerner and Southerner could live together ... But now there’s a new question we never thought of before: Can the 21st century live with the 12th century?”

It is very clear that there are only three answers to our problem of modern Muslims; they are, simply put:

Liberals have run with this first option, applying a socialist-behavioristic model to the problem, which basically claims that Muslim rage emanates not from within, but from the way they have been treated. America’s Democrats, in league with the world’s Left, have chosen the “Blame America first” subtext and have stuck with it, even though they can be heard “supporting the troops” and posturing as determined war-time administrators (they have a terrible track record to overcome if they want people to take them seriously). Liberals can’t escape their pacifism, which both denies and perverts reality, always seeking materialistic explanations for the enemy’s aggression, pining over personal fault and systemic guilt, and refusing to slay the dragon that has long left its cave.

When I was a teenager, I became aware of a bully whose thuggish antics made the public pool seem like shark-infested waters. I remember complaining about him to a girl, who excused his behavior by mentioning that he had “problems at home,” and then advised me that I should “stop bothering him.” Having been blessed with a fairly idyllic childhood, I felt bad for this kid, truly I did, but I was doing nothing to bother him, so the next time the little jerk came around in an apparent attempt to drown me, I used an underwater technique that rendered a powerful blow to his groin. He crawled out of the pool and lay on the sideboard long enough to contemplate other means of dealing with his “issues.”

The point is, and the thing that liberals simply cannot comprehend: Appeasing bullies, thugs, and terrorists never makes them go away. In fact, it has just the opposite effect, encouraging them to power. The mystery of this simple truth is that people—supposedly intelligent people—miss it completely, in spite of the ample amount of evidence, including historical evidence, to verify it. The massacre on 9/11 didn’t cure their delusions, either. Just the other day, Al Gore, who, as you may recall, almost became President, kicked his own country in the teeth (again) at the Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia:

“Gore said Arabs had been ‘indiscriminately rounded up’ and held in ‘unforgivable’ conditions. The former vice president said the Bush administration was playing into al-Qaida’s hands by routinely blocking Saudi visa applications.”

Try to imagine that mindset in World War II. Would we have stopped Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo had we worried that our enemies might somewhere be suffering with too little down in their mattresses and not enough exercise, or might not be able to find a legal way into our country? (God help us if Gore ever becomes our Commander-in-Chief.)

It is obvious to everyone but the Left that savage, war-like peoples need to be changed into civilized, peace-loving peoples. The foundation of Islam was built upon tribalistic warfare and hatred for Jews, whereas most other religions, notably the much maligned Christian one, are built on notions of peace and divine love. Even Old Testament Judaism didn’t advocate war for the sake of power, but only as defense and as a way to cleanse God’s land of incorrigible evil.

People in the West have been talking about Islamic reform for years, but President Bush is one of the few world leaders to take the idea seriously. He began in Afghanistan and Pakistan—one by war, the other by diplomacy—and continued into Iraq by both war and the imposition of democracy. Despite the ridiculous rhetoric of brainless fools, this is nothing new. Iraq is not our Vietnam, but it may be our Japan, albeit on a much smaller scale. Roadside bombs and weak domestic support have made us forget that the Japanese once allowed a very ruthless faction to seize its country. The Japanese proved that their “peace-loving” philosophies could not stop them from terrorizing the Chinese with unspeakable crimes, and then they turned their attention to world conquest, using sneak attacks and suicide to wage war. I’m sure people like Osama bin Laden very much appreciate the West’s ignorance of this bit of world history.

The Japanese were kicked out of medievalism by two monstrous bombs that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Utterly defeated, they had nowhere to go but up. Iraq, too, has been defeated, and is now rebuilding, but it remains to be seen if something less than total war can have the same effect that worked so well in Japan. What also is questionable is whether democracy, which does seem to be taking hold in Afghanistan and Iraq, can spread throughout the Muslim world without us having to conquer all of its countries. If this approach doesn’t work, we are left only with ...

This war would seem more fruitful if we could muster up the sense of courage, self-sacrifice, and wrathful indignation prevalent among Americans after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Considering America’s reluctance to jump into that war, it is surprising that such a cowardly attack riled us, but people were not encumbered back then with political correctness and multiculturalism, which has instructed us to call our present conflict “War on Terror” and not “War on Islam,” and keeps us from printing provocative posters that remind us to “stay on the job until every murdering Muslim is wiped out!” Again, it remains to be seen if a war can be fully waged against an enemy that is loosely defined, coddled, and even painted as “peace-loving.”

By saying “kill them,” I’m talking total war, of course. Americans have lost its stomach for such a thing, and this too is a sign of the times—and may mark the beginning of the end for our country. As Mr. Farber pointed out in his editorial, “We’ve long been accustomed to questions about ‘fighting for your country.’ Now there’s a new question: Will you fight for your century? The 12th-century enthusiasts did not need time to think. Yes. They will!”

Whenever I speak to people who believe we should get out of Iraq, I ask them the obvious question: “Okay, what then?” Nine times out of ten, I am given no answer. If I am speaking to a liberal, there is little point in persisting, but if I am speaking to a squeamish conservative, or one who believes that Islamic reform is impossible, I then ask, “If pacifism won’t work, and reform is unlikely, isn’t the only answer total war?”

But we don’t have that in us, do we—and thus the protester’s silence reveals his weak constitution and shortsightedness. We can no longer stomach the extermination of people, no matter how evil they are. To confront an evil entity, one must devalue the life of that entity, but America has lost its ability to do so, which is why this war is waged virtually in secret, without daily news reels applauding our victories, rallying cries from eager young soldiers, or the spontaneous writing of beer-hall war songs. When Lt. Gen. James Mattis publicly admitted that “it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot” terrorists, the media tried to vilify him and the military back-pedaled. Too bad! Mattis’s Patton-like sentiments are exactly what America needs today; instead we get military leaders who know they must protect America’s interests while working under the radar, constantly gauging what they can reveal according to the mood of the day.

Appeasement is a joke. Reform is dicey. Total war is unthinkable. Any other ideas?

President Bush’s foreign policy has many faults, but his two-pronged approach to fighting terrorism—killing the killers and freeing the people—puts all three options into play, including appeasement, which is what he does every time he calls Islam a “religion of peace” or insists mosques as military targets are off-limits. His remarks would be wholly reprehensible were he not also pursuing the other options, at least in part—encouraging Islamic reform through democracy and eliminating the bad guys.

I learned a long time ago that you can’t force people to change unless they want to change themselves. Bush is engaged in a grand experiment that may fail, but even in the area of reform his understanding of human nature is praiseworthy: His plans for both Afghanistan and Iraq have never been to enforce American-style democracy, which is like trying to grow a sugar maple in Najaf. On the other hand, the imminent threat presented by the region demands more than slow cultivation—from seed, as it were. So, what Afghanistan and Iraq are getting are transplants—but the gardeners, Bush has always insisted, must be the people. So far, in this regard, he has not failed to live up to his word.

But, in toto, Bush’s approach may not be enough. On the home front, more can be done. The recent incidents of “cartoon jihad” has done nothing to bolster Bush’s optimism about Muslims’ inherent ability to pull themselves out of the Middle Ages. If the Iraqis and other recently freed peoples are getting that taste of freedom that Bush thinks will win their hearts, they haven’t yet found it wholly agreeable. When a man says, “I want everyone to be free, but not you,” the concept of liberty hasn’t quite sunk in. This may be just a matter of time, but it also may be, as Mr. Farber implied, a matter of centuries of time.

Many moderate Muslims, who don’t like the depictions (and why would they?), still believe that the cartoonists should be able to express themselves, but they also live in fear of the radicals—or so we are told. In most countries this is understandable, but hardly true in America. If a Muslim in America speaks out against radical Islam, does that person have something to fear? Well, danger always accompanies the man or woman who bucks the system (go ask Ann Coulter or David Horowitz), but of all places in the world, here and now, moderates have a chance to change their religion for the better, to truly recreate it as a force of peace.

The government, and the people, of the United States should be doing everything in their power to create a protective atmosphere for moderate Muslims to speak their minds in public, encouraging them to censure crazed leaders, both at home and abroad, protest the mistreatment of women in Islamic countries, call for the freedom of Iran and Syria, demand the end of Hamas and al-Qaida, and open up their mosques to scholarly debate over the true meaning of the Qu’ran. (This last point is the most crucial of all of them, and also the toughest, for it calls for the conversion of meaning itself into something more abstract, symbolic and, at the same time, practical.)

Can we conceivably get along with people still living in the 12th Century? The answer is no. If we truly want to reform the Muslim world, making them see that peaceful coexistence is more desirable than reactive violence, the solution is to bring Islam into the 21st Century. To a small degree, this is already happening abroad, but the true revolution should begin here, right in our own backyard, by the mouth of the so-called enemy of the Muslim world, America. Not an easy thing, to be sure, but neither is total war.

We waged total war on Germany and Japan, but we never had a policy of trying to kill all Germans and Japanese. We fought their governments, and when they were destroyed the war was over.

This war is a lot more difficult, as there is no government to target. But I don't think I'll ever be ready for total war that has the killing of over 1B people as its objective. There's no question we have the ability to do it. I'm just not sure that I want to support or remain a part of the society that would do such a thing.

If we truly want to reform the Muslim world, making them see that peaceful coexistence is more desirable than reactive violence, the solution is to bring Islam into the 21st Century.

That is asking them to give up their religion for worldly gain, and to accomodate the Infidels. Not likely to work.

The plane hijackers had the worldly goods, They gave their lives up for the religion. They had good earthly lives,money education family etc.

Multi millionaire Osama bin Laden had it all, and he gave it up to fight the Infidels . Many well to do suicide bombers came from Saudi Arabia into Iraq and other places, and they gave their lives fighting the Infidel for the belief that paradise would be theirs.

Given a choice between paradise or worldly things, or doing Allah's work on earth;..... killing the Infidel, and the Muslim heretics who collaborate with the Infidel scum, will be the choice of the Muslim believers who follow the dictates of the Koran and the Hadiths.

You are not going to buy them of with an offer of an alternative lifestyle. - tom

Reform Them ... But How?

Will happen when Muslims like Muqtedar Khan become influential leaders in the Muslim world. Though he is reputed to be a vocal critic of Bush's foreign policy, he defends America's role in the world.

He reminded Europe of its double standards. As he puts it: 'Compared to Europe's history American colonial ambitions are insignificant and as far as democracy and freedom of religion was concerned the US was streets ahead of the French ... I reminded them that the US was, as former Secretary of State Albright pointed out, the "indispensable nation".
His allegiance to America leads Khan to delineate the kind of role that American Muslims ought to play as citizens of that country. Writing in the New York Times, he sets the context of his thesis by emphasising that 9/11 has been a traumatic experience for American Muslims. They now face 'hostility and prejudice in many corners of society'. Yet, this traumatic experience also provides a window of opportunity to reconstruct the identity of American Muslims. Some positive changes are underway, such as endowments to fund Islamic Studies in American Universities, but a lot more needs to be done. As he puts it: 'We need to ... demonstrate that Muslims in this country constitute an ethical and philanthropic community that cares about humanitarian causes, about America and Americans and stands for justice and rights as embodied in the Constitution.'
He reminds fellow Americans that there are mutual obligations. 'They cannot allow events overseas to foster anti-Muslim sentiments and Islamophobia at home'. Ultimately, Khan sees a reconstructed American Muslim identity in which '...Muslims must realise that the interests of our sons and daughters, who are American, must come before the interests of our brothers and sisters, whether they are Palestinian, Kashmiri or Iraqi'.
From A liberal Muslim goes to America

Of interest via Wikipedia: Liberal movements within Islam

Door #3 is the one that will have to be opened, but later rather than sooner.

First the American people will have to be outraged, another attack will do it hopefully. Of course another attack may just give Dems chances to blame Bush, and call for a different approach.

Now that I write that, I am depressed. It is obvious what would dominate the news. Although the masses would want revenge, the media would call for thoughtful responses.

Define "them" and I might agree with you.

"Them": Those who would forcibly attack or threaten others so as to impose their beliefs as the only ones allowed in the public sphere, and those who would fight to retain that power.

If a "kill 'em all" battle begins, those mystical, mythical "Moderate Muslims" have the same choice as the rest of us: fight for those who want to impose Islam as the superior faith, fight for those who oppose such subjugation, or sit quietly on the sidelines and pray (to whomever you wish) that the bullets and bombs don't come your way.

The tough part is figuring out who is on which team, especially since they're making asymmetrial warfare an art form... honesty, bravery in the field, targeting only enemy combatants, fighting in plain uniform to avoid loss of innocent life, etc. are all going to be taken off the table for this one, for at least one side... and I don't see "our" side maintaining it's more righteous positions on those matters for too many years if the battle is at all unsure.

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