$710.96.. The price of freedom.
Posted on 06/21/2004 4:55:42 AM PDT by rdb3
Perhaps the greatest blasphemers in any religion are those who appoint themselves as God’s executioners. When an entire civilization embraces such butchers, both the civilization and the religion are in trouble.
The ritual slaughter of Paul Johnson Jr. in Saudi Arabia wasn’t simply the act of a cluster of terrorists, but a reflection of the failure of the entire Arab world.
Religions are what men make of them. In the Arab heartlands of Islam, Muslims are making a gory mess of their faith. It’s time to end the politically correct baby-talk insisting that Islam isn’t the problem. In the decaying Arab world, Islam is the problem—because of the way bitter old men interpret and deform its more humane precepts while embracing its cruelest injunctions.
The decapitation of yet another American civilian can’t be dismissed as an aberration from “true” Islam. The tradition of beheading unarmed prisoners dates to the earliest decades of the Muslim faith. The butchering of Paul Johnson, Nick Berg and others isn’t a new phenomenon—it’s revivalism, “that old-time religion” returning for a re-match with secular devils.
Millions of Muslims find such atrocities inspiring. Millions more view such cruelty as just. It’s the vicarious revenge of the self-made failure. And for every rent-a-cleric the Saudi government pushes in front of a television camera to condemn such acts, thousands of other mullahs continue to preach anti-Western hatred--the brutal specificity of which would horrify even America’s leftists, if only they stopped apologizing to terrorists long enough to listen.
The Saudis, especially, have sown the wind and now are reaping the whirlwind. I personally have seen their attempts to “purify” Islam and provoke anti-Western rage, from Africa to Southeast Asia, from Central Asia to the Arab homelands. No matter how many terrorists the Saudis kill on their own soil hereafter, they will remain guilty—in great part—for every murder committed by Muslim extremists. They created the monsters who now have run amok.
But the problem is far greater than the degenerate House of Saud. We face a phenomenon new to history: A once-great civilization failing before our eyes. Whether or not one subscribes to the idea of a “clash of civilizations,” we are incontestably witnessing the crash of an entire civilization, that of Middle Eastern Islam.
After centuries of self-destructive behavior, Arab civilization is unable to compete in a single field of human endeavor relevant to progress. Instead, Arab societies are racing backward into superstition, bigotry and a narcotic culture of blame. They have grown so impotent in every other regard—unable even to translate great wealth into minor power—that Arabs rich and poor, educated and illiterate, are enraptured by their rare “triumphs” over the West, from 9/11 to the barbaric murder of Westerners doing the work that Arabs themselves are too slothful or incompetent to do.
Baghdad fell, to the collective shame of those Arabs who prefer homegrown despots to Western-inspired democracy. The Arab revenge is to slaughter innocent captives. It makes no difference that the Koran specifically forbids the mistreatment of prisoners. As with the worst demagogues in every religion, the apostles of terror cite religious texts selectively. But if such practices are limited to fringe elements in other world religions in our time, the perversion of faith pervades today’s Islamic mainstream.
One can’t say that, of course. Arab Muslims are allowed to spew anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-Jewish, anti-Hindu, anti-everybody-else hate speech. That’s just their culture, you see. But it’s taboo for a Westerner to suggest that the roots of terror may go a bit deeper than a black sheep or two in a few Middle-Eastern families.
Leftist apologists for terror here in the United States attack any attempt at a frank discussion of the Middle East’s problems with charges of bigotry and neo-imperialism. But if we examine the madness of the American Left dispassionately, we find that it’s the Noam Chomskys, Susan Sontags and their acolytes from the campus greensward who are the true bigots. Imperialists, too.
By refusing to hold Middle Eastern civilization to reasonable standards of behavior and responsibility, our domestic Left has given new life to the “little brown brother” school of colonialist thought. According to the Left’s internal logic, Arabs aren’t capable of the same moral reflection and behavioral maturity well-educated whites demonstrate. And, of course, Arabs are oppressed (no matter that their oppressors are all Arabs).
Arab extremists and dictators have become the ghetto blacks of hard-Left foreign policy. They’re all victims of Washington and bear no personal responsibility for their own errors, failures or crimes. It isn’t the Saddams, Abdullahs, Assads or Mubaraks who oppress the Arab masses, you see. Despots are never guilty--unless they get too chummy with the Americans. Anyway, dictators are victims, too. The mass graves and misery that haunt the Middle East (if such inconveniences must be mentioned at all) are my fault. And yours, dear reader. We’re to blame for all that’s wrong with the world. And don’t you forget it!
The family secret of the hard-Left is that its followers share one powerful trait with Osama bin Laden: They need to look down on others, to feel superior and just. If the lords of terror dispense with displays of pity for their victims, it’s only because they haven’t yet attained the leftist’s level of hypocrisy.
Why shouldn’t we hold a civilization accountable for its own failures and horrors? Why does our domestic Left revel endlessly in the excesses of a few renegade guards at Abu Ghraib prison while remaining silent on the industrial-scale massacres of Saddam Hussein—and other terror regimes? Why don’t our self-appointed “voices of conscience” speak out against the beheading of Paul Johnson Jr. or Nick Berg? What about the hundreds of Iraqi doctors, lawyers, engineers and educators slain by terrorists for trying to build a humane government in the Middle East? What about the countless civilians killed by car bombs? What about the victims of 9/11?
The silence isn’t just deafening. It’s revolting.
We all await, anxiously, Michael Moore’s film “Trolling For al-Qaeda.” A pity Paul Johnson Jr. won’t be around to watch it.
Ralph Peters is the author, most recently, of Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace.
$710.96.. The price of freedom.
Excellent read.
I'm wondering what it will take for the libs to finally acknowledge that kow-towing to these murderers is NOT going to make them "play nice"! Excellent piece.
The part that got my goat was a paper ran an article stating that because of Abu Gharib, Arabs might perform similar actions on Western detainees.
And I thought, well college pranks are better than beheadings. Of course, this was between Berg and Johnson's savage beheadings.
It's a shame that Islam has come to this. And now they shall learn what the Germans and Japanese already know.
Let's kill them all and bury them in pig fat.
I wondering what it will take to get President Bush to acknowledge that kow-towing to these murderers is not going to make them "play nice"!
Religion of Peace, indeed.
great post. Thanks.
Excellent article.
Great post!
Great question. IM(not so)HO, we are looking at two sides of the same coin. Both the Islamofascists and the left-wing media are driven by ideology. Everything must conform to their ideology, not reality. So, until the lamestream media gets past its ideology, nothing can be done for them. They are enemies of America every bit as much as the Islamofascists.
$710.96.. The price of freedom.
Thanks for pointing this out.
Bump.
In all seriousness, great job by Peters.
I'm afraid that day will never come. For the left to acknowledge that would require them to believe that America has a moral right to do whatever is necessary to defend ourselves, and I'm not sure that the left believes that.
1)Islam since its inception was and still is a barbaric religion.
2) Islam during the 1920s to 1950s experienced civility under the colonial rules of France and England.
3) Islam is always attempting to convert the world, even by force, the idiots in the West could not care less as long as they get bribed by the Saudis.
4) The national wealth of Iran was directed to propagate fanatical Islam after the Ayatollah's revolution.
5) Not to be under spent, the idiot royal family in Saudi Arabia started to dump billions on low life Moslems to make fanatical mujahedine out of them. This was done WITH full knowledge, and participation of the American CIA under Carter/Reagan/Bush/Clinton.
6)The idiots who run the American government are as much to blame as the fanatical Moslems. Our public just waking up to this ten foot pole up our butt, and just realizing it has been inching up gradually as we sleep. Our media has never articulated the danger. I articulated the danger here on this forum many times, and NO ONE EVER commented on my proposal. HERE it is again for the sleeping JOE-SIX-PACKs: Bush calls the King of Saudi Arabia, hello there King, say you send money to the US to build mosques and propagate Islam in the American prisons, we would like reciprocation of that. We will send missionaries to your prisons, and we will start building churches all over your kingdom. If you don’t allow us reciprocation, we will demolish all the mosques that were built with Saudi moneys. If Bush and the American public are unwilling to do such proposal, then we are the bitch in this relationship.
7) This is not Republicans against Democrats, this is ALL these low life politicians are on the take from the Saudi Royal family largess (to name a couple big names on both sides: Henry Kissinger, Bob Strauss!)
Now may be I get some reaction from some of you, don’t you all speak in the same time now!
I visited Jeddah, Saudi Arabia about thirty years ago. I will never forget the sight of thousands of ships anchored in the bay waiting to offload goods from around the world to supply the modern city being built. But, after leaving the city limits, I was flabbergasted to see an unending horizon of desert sands surrounding the city! There is truly nothing in Saudi Arabia but sand and oil!
I recall that the Saudi citizens were completely averse to operating and maintaining all of the new machinery and other systems that were being installed. They were totally dependent on foreign assistance. In fact, Saudi citizens all received monthly checks for doing absolutely nothing, simply because they were Saudi citizens. The oil revenue was just divvied up amongst the populace, with the lion's share going to the royal family. You could not imagine a more dysfunctional society! Yet this arrangement was allowed to continue because of the political and economic realities of the Cold War.
We've now been kicked in the teeth because of our own complaisance and obliviousness to the monster that we've been creating while focusing on other threats and concerns. The problems and dangers that Peter's identifies are real and terrible. I cannot imagine how the current situation will eventually turn out.
Based on the confused, cowardly, and treasonous response of practically half of the people of this country to this new threat, I do not believe that victory is assured, all of the political happy talk to the contrary notwithstanding.
What do you think about the above idea?
BTTT...
"If Bush and the American public are unwilling to do such proposal, then we are the bitch in this relationship, and happy to accept that."
Given what we've seen concerning our unwillingness to avenge the murders in Fallujah and the other Americans hacked to death by these Moslem bastards, I would have to sadly agree with your conclusion.
So do you suppose the anti-Bush media would keep pushing him to act a "cowboy" towards the Saudis - agenge the 3000 murdered Americans in 9/11 by 15 Saudi citizens, or simply ignore the ten foot pole up our butt? Forget that crap about we are the "ONLY SUPERPOWER"; just admit that we are the little bitch in this American Saudi relationship.
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