Posted on 01/24/2015 9:19:33 AM PST by Kaslin
Since at least the time of the outset of the Iraq War—and quite possibly well before then—there has been much debate among those to the right over why Islamic militants have set their sights upon America and the West.
George W. Bush expressed the consensus among most Republican politicians and commentators when he remarked that they hate us because of our values.
Ron Paul, in contrast, represents most libertarians when he attributes to America’s enemies a hatred of, not American liberties, but American foreign policy.
Both groups are both right and wrong. For failing to see this, they argue past one another.
Paul, Pat Buchanan, and others are indeed correct when they note that jihadists in places like Iraq and other Middle Eastern lands despise America because of what has been called an “interventionist” foreign policy. Yet they are mistaken—sorely mistaken—insofar as they assume that if only America disappeared from the Islamic world, so too would our problems with Islamic violence disappear.
Republicans too are correct in charging jihadists with despising American and Western values. But they are incorrect inasmuch as they imply that Islamic militants have a problem with liberty, equality, etc. as such. In other words, they are incorrect insofar as they imply that it is the specific content of these value that elicit the homicidal ire of jihadists.
The latter certainly do hate our values. But that’s only because they are our values—and not theirs.
In short, they hate our values because they are not Islamic values.
And this gets to the heart of the matter: the “Bush” and “Paul” camps argue past one another because both fail to reckon with the role played by Islam—not “Islamism,” “Islamo-Fascism,” “Islamo-Nazism,” “radical Islam,” “Islamic extremism,” or some other politically acceptable fiction, but Islam—in these violent clashes with Muslims.
Muslims around the world routinely engage in unspeakable acts of cruelty toward their neighbors in contexts that obviously have nothing whatsoever to do with American values, American foreign policy, or, for that matter, America.
The fierce persecution of Christians courtesy of their Muslim neighbors is an epidemic—and yet it is among the least talked about forms of contemporary oppression. In Nigeria, for instance, the persecution is “extreme,” according to Open Doors, an organization dedicated to combating anti-Christian persecution. There are 183 million Nigerians, of which 89 million are Christian. Yet Boko Haram—an Islamic militant outfit—has rendered peaceful co-existence impossible. In northeastern Nigeria, Muslims have declared a caliphate. Hundreds of children, boys and girls, as well as women have been abducted, and thousands more have been rendered homeless upon the destruction of their homes. In the twelve northern Sharia states, Christians have been all but squeezed out.
Oliver Dashe Doeme of Maiduguri, a bishop and the head of a diocese in northeastern Nigeria, gave an interview with Catholic On-Line. He relays how over the last five years, Muslims have all but reduced his diocese to ashes. Over 50 churches and chapel have been ruined, and hundreds have been abandoned. Worse of all, more than 1,000 Catholics have been murdered.
The Bishop reports that Catholics are forced at gun-point or knife-point to convert to Islam. If they fail to do so, they are slaughtered.
For the sake of saving the lives of Christians, not just in Nigeria, but in the region, he pleads with “Western powers” to intervene. Only something of a military onslaught against Boko Haram can stop it, he believes.
But it isn’t just the Christians of Nigeria that agonize at the hands of Muslims. Nigerians have it bad: according to Open Doors, out of 50 countries worldwide, Nigeria is the tenth worse place for Christians. And it’s true that Muslims aren’t the only persecutors of Christians. But in 40 of the Earth’s 50 countries where Christians are made to suffer because of their faith, Muslims are the culprits.
Open Doors evaluates global persecution of Christians in terms of degrees. The worst is “extreme persecution.” Eleven countries are named here. In 10 of these, the persecutors are Islamic. The second worst type of Christian persecution is “severe persecution.” In 11 of 14 countries, the culprits are Islamic. Next there is “moderate persecution.” In 10 of 14 countries, those responsible for the persecution are largely Islamic. Finally, there is “sparse persecution.” In nine of 11 countries, Muslims engage in the persecution of Christians.
In none of these instances of Islamic violence and oppression does “American values” or American foreign policy play a role.
Islam, however, most certainly does.
Islam needs to be stripped of its religious designation and outlawed.
There’s always a ‘META’ meaning behind things, an unfortunate by-product of over analyzing something or just trying to be too intellectual. The author of the article seems to have fallen in that trap.
Islam is the Italian Mafia x 10. Islam is a patriarchal theocratic form of political rule through violent and punishing fascism. It appeals to the aggressive nature of men. In Islam, women, children and house workers are chattel.
All that is the antithesis of the Christian based and diminishing western cultural standards of life, liberty and happiness.
“....Middle Eastern lands despise America because of what has been called an “interventionist” foreign policy.”
.
On the one hand, we often do interfere in countries where we have no business being and, on the other hand, we invite their citizens who hate us, to come live with us.
Perfect recipe for our national demise.
Outlaw Islam
Expel all Muslims
Stop all aid to Muslim lands
This all goes back to the time of the Crusades, and the reason that a Crusade was even started.
It was started as a dispute over territory, which quickly escalated into a difference of doctrine, and rationalizations by each side why the other side should totally exterminated.
Centuries of nearly unspeakable brutality visited upon the other side proceeded from that really bad quarrel between what had been neighbors, if somewhat uneasy with each others’ presence.
Without going into a detailed history of the various Crusades, let it be said that the push back and forth between Islam and Christianity has undergone a sea change, initiated from within the Christian side, that there should be negotiated peace. While the Christian leaders may have entered into these negotiations with some expectation of a mutually acceptable outcome, the Islamic leaders have been adamant in that their demands were not negotiable, or negotiated on such terms as to be wholly favorable to their cause.
Again and again, the West, representing the Christian point of view, has been suckered and sandbagged, when it became apparent the Islamic leaders were not negotiating from “good faith”, but only as warfare by another means. They lie, feeling no remorse that the lies only masked later treachery or hid future preparations for open and active warfare. To them, it is OK to lie, to gain their objectives, in the expectation it is easier to gain forgiveness (or surrender) than to ask permission.
We shall defend the right of fellow citizens of the bearded barbarian persuasion to express their feelings and acts of hatred toward us.
Now the philosophical question is: is it more important for the 1st Amendment to survive or for the country to continue to exist when the two propositions are mutually exclusive?
We may come to a point in history that we must make such a decision.
Islam needs to be recognized as the religion of evil. Islamists worship torture and blood-letting. How does a religion become more evil than that?
Their acts of hatred include killing nonbelievers. This is murder and against our laws. Therefore it does not fit our society.
There are many things that are illegal because they destroy the order that society needs to be civil. Just because someone says that they are a religion does not give them the right to break laws. Inciting a riot is illegal just as should be inciting murder as Islam does. Just as is slavery which Islam allows.
I do not support the protection of a so called religion when it is used to break our laws.
The only muslim of any possible value, is one who DOESN’T live in the USA. If they come here and start something big, we will “Pasture-ize” them.
” Islam needs to be recognized as the religion of evil.”
It IS, by anyone with half a brain.
Then perhaps it’s time for SCOTUS to, once and for all, establish if Islam is a religion and if its constitution, which promotes the destruction and/or subjugation of all competing religions, supersedes the Constitution of the USA.
It’s not possible to have it both ways.
Islam is NOT a religion of peace and its principles are in total opposition to our Constitutional code.
Deserves repeating:
Outlaw Islam!
Expel all Muslims!
Stop all aid to Muslim lands!
Islam has been at war with all non-Moslems since Mohammed moved his “congregation” to Mecca in 622 AD.
The history of Islam is a history of warfare and conquest.
I agree.
A religion becomes more evil by becoming government, just as Iran has done. Congress needs to pass a bill called, “The Restoration of the USA Constitution as the law of the land for America.”
It will be treasonous for any religion, cult, group or combination thereof to present any code, law, sharia, etc. which attempts to disenfranchise the Constitution of the USA. Any such group, religion, etc. such as Islam, must register its members at the local police station, department of public safety and the federal government via nearest courthouse. Violators will be ordered to prisons in Alaska or deported immediately at violators expense. Trainees at Sharia/muslim camps or rioters or criminals caught in the act will be shot on sight.
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