- Wanted: A Reagan to fight global jihad
"Hello."
Supposedly, if we be nice to evil, maybe evil will be nice to us. "Asia for the Asiatics! Everyone else just MYOB!"
Posted on 06/12/2004 7:09:22 AM PDT by ovrtaxt
Wanted: A Reagan to fight global jihad
By Robert Spencer
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Mark Steyn reminds us that "only Reagan could have stood there and declared without embarrassment: Tear down this wall!" In the warm glow of this week's encomia it's easy to miss the reason why anyone might have felt embarrassed at all. With the dreaded wall long made into paperweights, it's easy to forget that before (and during, largely) the age of Reagan, the idea that communism was evil, and the Soviet Union an "evil empire," was, among the intelligentsia in America and Western Europe, in the worst possible taste.
It should be remembered today that the vicious caricature of the amiable dunce that dogged Reagan throughout his political career originated in great part not from any bumbling or forgetfulness on his part, but from what the media and political establishment regarded as the sheer outrageousness of his political views. In the eyes of the elite, Reagan was primitive and limited primarily because he lacked the sophistication and intelligence necessary to see that the United States and the Soviet Union were essentially the same; talk of good and evil, or of the rights of man, was only rhetorical fodder for the lumpenproletariat, nothing more. No one, the pundits huffed, with even a rudimentary grasp of the subtleties and necessities of realpolitik would dare use such moral language to describe the Cold War. How dare he depart from the gospel of moral equivalence that the media establishment had dinned into the ears of the reluctant faithful for decades? You just couldn't say the things that Ronald Reagan said, and his success so stunned and enraged his opponents that all they could do was try to smear him as a puppet and a fool.
The same scenario is playing out today. America is once again locked in a death struggle with a relentless totalitarian foe about which most people are reluctant to tell the truth. Substitute "Islamophobe" for "Red-baiter," and you can adapt learned political analyses from the 1970s by the ton for use today, except for a few small details.
It is a great failing of our age that there is no Ronald Reagan on the scene. Today's stifling orthodoxy remains largely unchallenged. Not just liberal publications and spokesmen, but conservatives who claim to wear Reagan's mantle temporize and dissimulate about our current despotic antagonist in a way that the man himself would have found contemptible. Leaders and pundits must cling to fond fictions about Islam being a religion of peace that has been hijacked by a tiny minority of extremists. They thus pass up the opportunity to call for a worldwide reform of Islam that starts by identifying the elements of Islam that give rise to violence and extremism and finishes by repudiating those elements – so that Muslims and non-Muslims can live in peace as equals.
"How do you tell a Communist?" Reagan asked in 1987. "Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin." How do you tell a jihadist? Well, a contemporary Reagan might say, it's someone who reads the Quran and Sunnah. How do you tell an anti-jihadist? It's someone who understands how these Islamic texts are used to recruit and motivate terrorists – and who is willing to call upon self-proclaimed moderate Muslims to face this fact and initiate an honest, definitive and thoroughgoing reform. And if they will not? Then at least they should know that the lines have been drawn and that the lovers of freedom are not going to stand for more mayhem wrought by those who would enclose non-Muslims and women behind a wall of oppression.
If Islam is no part of the problem, such reform cannot be part of the solution. By vilifying and attempting to marginalize those who dare tell the truth about Islamic radicalism as Reagan did about communism, today's intelligentsia provides ample cover to radical Islamic terrorists, allowing them to operate under the radar screen of media scrutiny and even law enforcement.
Freedom is under attack by the warriors of jihad; the battle lines do indeed resemble those of the Cold War.
"There are very useful analogies to be drawn between communism and Islam," says Ibn Warraq. "Communism has been defeated, at least for the moment; Islamism has not, and unless a reformed, tolerant, liberal kind of Islam emerges soon, perhaps the final battle will be between Islam and Western democracy."
This is the war we're in now. If only we had a Reagan to fight it.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and the author of "Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West" (Regnery Publishing), and "Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith (Encounter Books).
Fair enough. He has said that. He has also killed off a whole lot of islamist terrorists. Deeds count more than political foofaraw. :)
I'm still open to arguments in favor of the existence of "moderate Islam", however to date, those arguments seem to have come almost exclusively from Western apologists for Islam.
A strong, seriously promoted campaign FOR "moderate Islam" BY Muslims would be a helpful bit of evidence that such a thing exists as more than a tactical ruse to keep the infidels calm until "real Muslims" can be in a position to safely slit their throats, or place their boots firmly on the surviving "dhimmis" who agree to cower and pay their tribute upon demand.
If you run across such evidence, pass it on. Until then, my stance is "Praise the Lord, pass the ammunition, and keep your powder dry."
I really would rather have mutually profitable trade with them, but if the jihadis will accept only slavish submission, then we will have to grant them what they say they are after: a quick "martyr's" death with as little damage to the rest of us as possible.
To the jihadi jeers that "The Western infidels are afraid of death, but we will be victorious because we are not only unafraid of death, but welcome it and glory in it," we can only retort: "As you please, but one of our great generals stated our own posture very well when he said that our goal in battle was not to die for our country, but to make the other fellow die for his. If you would rather fight than trade, then bring it on, and we shall see who has the better plan."
Well said. Terror is only ONE of the weapons.
Post 3, by Sarasota, has the answer. GW Bush is our point man on the terror fight. We have to support him as others are trying to pull out the rug, just as they did to Reagan.
We can't fight every Muslim. We have to direct the fight at the dangerous and violent minority splinter of Islam that is attacking western civilization. The non violent Muslims will then see the light and back us over the bad guys.
"Wanted: A Reagan to fight global jihad"
We've got one. He's in the White House right now.
Oh yeah, brilliant move, change it to the 'War On Islam', and watch a Saudi oil embargo end the recovery, giving us $4 a gallon gas and a President Kerry.
That should be nailed as a 'Palpable Bull' on the front door of every mosque. The deception is over. Underneath the surface of silence lurks a seething cauldron of 'payback.'
And why would be?
President Bush is conducting the war on jihadists in theatres worldwide.
President Reagan was a great man but the failure to recognize jihadism for what it was after the Iranian Hostage Crisis and Lebanon was a mistake. Nobody paid a large price for holding Americans hostage for a year or for the deaths of all those Marines.
We continued to turn the other cheek until 9/11 and now Bush is conducting the war on jihadists on all fronts.
I was a big RR fan and I'm a big George Bush fan. Bush is the man for the times, we don't need to be wishing for what we can't have or, really, don't need.
Spot on.
Bingo. I also believe he would clearly identify the enemy, as he did with communism, something Bush refuses to do now.The article got it right and you got it right: Bush is no Reagan, for sure. Reagan would not have run around the world asking permission to defend our national security.
Bush is IMO a good man, and certainly the best choice on the table right now, but he has nowhere near the strength and resolve of Reagan. Does anyone here think Bush would have the cajones to fire the air traffic controllers as Reagan did? No way.
He's also far too encumbered by the idiocy of political correctness, far too worried about what the rest of the world thinks, and spends far too much time trying to appease those who at best care nothing about us, or at worst hate our guts. And finally, Bush's communication skills are abysmal by comparison.
MM
THAT is W's problem - calling this a war against TERRORISM. This is the same as Reagan saying that he was fighting the nuclear threat.
Reagan made it clear that he was fighting an ideology - communism - embodied in the Soviet Union.
Bush needs to do the same - stop calling it the WAR on TERRORISM and call it what it is - a war against Islamists.
The 'splinter' of Islam cannot be called a splinter when it is attacking civilization in 15 countries, encompassing more than just the west. It's more like a river of logs descending from the forests.
He is slamming Bush because he did not get up and mount a war against the Muslim religion.
Supposedly, if we be nice to evil, maybe evil will be nice to us. "Asia for the Asiatics! Everyone else just MYOB!"
One More Tribute (to President Reagan)
Bill
Well, I just thought of one who is more like Reagan than Bush is: Rumsfeld. He's not much older than Reagan was when he took office. Hmmmmm.
Well, that's just "strategery". If you watch what is actually done, he clearly understands the depth of the problem. If you didn't notice, he has been referring to terrorists as Islamists lately, a subtle but significant change.
That's funny... "rogue states" is itself a euphemism (for "enemy").
Yeah, he might be a good one. If not for the weak heart, I'd like Cheney a lot in the role, too. You know, I can't think of a single ultra-strong bright star in the U.S. Senate GOP ranks. Is there perhaps a bright star governor out there under the radar?
MM
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