Posted on 09/09/2009 3:56:32 PM PDT by ventanax5
We like to think Islamism represents only a fringe of the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims. But that’s because we confound Islamists and terrorists. The terrorists — those who commit and materially support violent attacks — are a fringe (bigger than we’d like to think, but still a tiny minority). By contrast, Islamists may be a majority, and, if they’re not, they constitute a very substantial minority.
Islamism is not terrorism. To be sure, Islamism includes terrorism in its arsenal. Still, there is major disagreement among Islamists about when violence should be used and how effective it is. In any event, we must fight the tendency to meld these concepts. Terrorism is a tactic that divides Muslims. Islamism is a belief system that unites tens of millions of Muslims. Abdurrahman Wahid, the former president of Indonesia, estimates what he calls the “radicalized” portion of the umma at about 15 percent. I think he’s low-balling it, but even if he’s right, that would be about 200 million people.
So what is Islamism? It is the belief that Islam is not merely a religious creed but a comprehensive guide to human existence, conformity to which is obligatory, that governs all matters political, social, cultural, and religious, from cradle to grave (and, of course, beyond). The neologism “Islamist” was minted over three-quarters of a century ago by Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. To this day, the credo of the Brotherhood is “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. The Koran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” The Brotherhood claims, preposterously, to have renounced terrorism. It maintains, more credibly, that it is the Muslim Nation, as in a mass movement representing what Muslims, broadly, believe.
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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A long article, but worth reading at the link. We owe that to someone who correctly uses the term Neologism. Put that on Barry's teleprompter tonite and see if he stumbles.
Meanwhile, we must accept that Islamism is our enemy and has targeted our constitutional system for destruction by slow strangulation via sharia. Instead of worrying about democracy in Afghanistan, we need to worry about democracy in America. The surge we need is at home: to roll back Islamism’s infiltration of our schools, our financial system, our law, and our government. In addition to not being universal, the “values of the human spirit” are not immortal. If we don’t defend them in the West, they will die.
Islam IS the enemy of human freedom and dignity. It is a cruel, murderous, mideval mindset that generates poverty and misery, wallows in slavery, revels in atrocity and commits cultural genocide wherever it is allowed to get the upper hand.
It cannot be ‘reformed’.
If it could be reformed, it would no longer be Islam.
Nice to see an adult post a thread re the enemy we face.
There are to many on FR who are anti war and have the same talking points as the Left Wing.
Delt with several last night on FR
They think they make pockets in shrouds
Perhaps, but it seems to me that if we are defending ourselves we are also promoting freedom and democracy. Sounds like a good approach to me. Nothing wrong as far as I am concerned.
I don’t see those as mutually exclusive, certainly not all the time.
...we confound Islamists and terrorists. The terrorists -- those who commit and materially support violent attacks -- are a fringe (bigger than we'd like to think, but still a tiny minority). By contrast, Islamists may be a majority, and, if they're not, they constitute a very substantial minority....and luckily they're easily swayed by the violence of the terrorists among the Islamists. By 'luckily' I refer to the bad kind of luck. The author of the op-ed is mistaken, or perhaps willfully ignorant. Islam is medieval fascism, and the Koran is a medieval Mein Kampf. Period. Islam can't be permitted to survive. Period.
Between the points made here and the ROE that are needlessly getting our soldiers killed, we should get the hell out of Afghanistan.
Obama, Pelosi, Reid et al don’t give two hoots for the lives being sacrificed. Obama played basketball instead of visiting our soldiers.
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