Posted on 02/16/2005 1:14:26 PM PST by rob777
The famous AP photograph of a killer in Baghdad shooting a pistol into the head of one kneeling election worker, while another lies crumpled on the street, throws a burst of illumination onto the face of our enemy.
It is the face of Muslim fascists murdering Muslim liberals.
The victims were public servants of the people of Iraq. They were election workers– agents of the will of the people. They sprang from the millions proud and eager to vote for the first time in their lives.
To kill election workers is a great sin against the will of the people. It is a cardinal sin against human rights, like killing a judge.
The force that would do such a heinous deed did so in cold blood and in deliberate, full view of the world. Thirty heavily armed men allowed a photographer calmly to shoot a whole reel of film, right under their guns. Their aim was propaganda as well as murder.
These killers learned their techniques of propaganda and terror, of organization by cells and public acts of violence, from the Fascists who occupied much of the Middle East from the 1920s on, and from Communist afterwards. The AP photographer may or may not have been trying to assist the Islamofascists. Whatever his intentions, he revealed as starkly as one photo can the face of fascism: a pistol fired into the head of an election worker.
The well-known “clash of civilizations,” then, does not so much pit a Jewish-Christian-humanist West against an Islamic East. It pits a small but ruthless Muslim minority whose ideological sources are fascist and communist against a large Muslim majority, whose political views are unformed, but whose leading desires are more normal and understandable. They want their children to share in the prosperity, opportunities, and freedoms from secret police that they see all around the world except in the Middle East.
This fact came clear to me when I was asked to give a week of lectures on religion and democracy to the forty field commanders of the Sudanese Resistance. I had expected that most of them would be Christians or of native African religions, but half or more were Muslims. All were tough leaders. All spoke of the cruelties and tortures of the Khartoum regime. The Muslim colonels told of the barbarities inflicted on their own families.
Two of the Muslim colonels were university professors, one from Canada, the other from France. Why, one of them asked me, when we only want to be devout Muslims, do they always quote against us some text from the Koran, and tell us we are opposing the Prophet? Why must we practice the barbaric punishments of the seventh or eleventh century?
“I am no expert in Islam,” I replied, “but I can tell you how we Catholics have come to reject practices that were common centuries ago among our own ancestors.” And I laid out some arguments.
But why, they went on, when Bin Laden wanted to show young Muslims how to be effective in the twenty-first century, did he choose the methods of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin? Why couldn’t he have brought Islam up to date with democracy and the International Declaration of Human Rights? Why did he choose the worst of modernity, not the best?
I learned from this experience that “the Coalition of the Willing” in the fight against Islamofascism is far larger than many think; and that, indeed, the world of the free is lucky. For Islamist extremists have come to power in our time in at least three regimes, and these have been three of the most ruthless, violent, unpopular and ugly in our time: Afghanistan under the Taliban, Iran under the Ayatollahs, and Sudan under the Janjaweed. The cruelty and grisly ruthlessness of Al Qaeda under Zarqawi in Iraq and Bin Laden (in hiding) are fed by the same bloodlust. Such men will slay Shi’ites, Sunnis, Kurds–anyone who stands in their way. In cold blood, with public display.
That is one reason why all around the Middle East the long-suppressed forces of democracy are slowly gathering conviction, courage, and numbers. People want to bring democracy to life, every bit as much as the terrorists wish to murder democracy in its crib.
It is true that Islam has a long and violent history in every land it has conquered since the time of Mohammad, and so the agitators for jihad and murder and terror constantly cite authorities and precedents on their side. Furthermore, of the wars being fought in Africa and Asia and the Middle East today nearly all of them involve Muslims committed to terrorism. As one Muslim journalist wrote this past year, “It is certainly true that not all Muslims are terrorists, however, sadly we say that the majority of terrorists in the world are Muslims.”
Yet we must not allow ourselves to overlook the great numbers of Muslims who long to share in the opportunities, freedom, and prosperity possible in our age–and who believe deep in their souls that it is impossible that freedom, individual dignity, equality under the law, and the rule of law should belong only to Christians, Jews, and humanists. They know these must flow also from Islam; they must belong also to Muslims. They long for an intellectual and political breakthrough.
They cite some precedents on their side. A small number of Islamic democracies, mostly in Asia, have experienced peaceful changes of government twice or more. Islam is a religion of reward and punishment; hence, in some sense, of personal responsibility. Islam has a long tradition of working from consultation and consensus, there are heavy religious proscriptions against taking the lives of civilians, and in recent years significant currents of democratic thought, often repressed, have begun stirring in more and more institutes, journal articles, and democratic associations. Something big is afoot.
In Iraq, the most important Shi’ite clerics–leaders of some 65 percent of the Iraqi population--have urged strong public participation in the coming democratic vote January 31. They have insisted that the vote not be delayed. For more than thirty years, they have suffered agonies at the hands of a contemptuous Sunni minority, against whom they had no democratic protections. By a kind of Via Negativa, they have learned what protections democracy can give. The interim Constitution that the Shi’ites and other Iraqi now work under is a huge step forward.
In this month of January alone, in two major hot spots of the Arab world–Palestine and Iraq–democratic elections are taking place. And so it happens that in Iraq and in Palestine, and all around the Muslim world, a great contest is being fought out in the hearts of the majority: Which form of Islam will they support? The fascist, terrorist sort?–-or the sort compatible with democracy and human rights, with the dignity and freedom of the individual, with economic growth?
That is where the main election is taking place–in the souls of individual mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. In personal decisions of fateful consequence for all of us.
Can't some IslamoCommos be found to conteract them?
bttt
Their brutality springs from ISLAM not from European fascism (the Europeans may have learned from the Islamists who tried to conquer Europe centuries before.
This guy starting reading up on Islam yesterday apparently. Even FR Islamolurkers wouldn't make such a stupid statement.
Islam is quite the opposite. It is about placing the blame elsewhere.
Why does this author think women are forced to where burkas? Why are victims of rape NOT the perp stoned to death? Why is criticism of Islam and their pedo-prophet apostasy? It certainly ain't due to the assumption of responsibility.
BUMP!
He is referring to Judgment Day, where sinners will be punished and servants of God rewarded.
He is not talking about whether all Muslims assume proper responsibility for their own actions in this world.
"It is the face of Muslim fascists murdering Muslim liberals."
What a false dichotomy this is! It seeks to imply that non-liberals are fascists. In fact, they both seek to promote the state over the individual. The fact is, these were fascist/liberals versus the conservative/individualists. I hope none on FR ever cease to hold liars accountable.
"It is the face of Muslim fascists murdering Muslim liberals."
What a false dichotomy this is! It seeks to imply that non-liberals are fascists.
He is using the term "liberal" in its classical sense, not in its modern sense. The modern usage of the terms liberal and conservative, at least in the U.S., are exactly the opposite of how they are used in their classical sense.
It is built into Islam the goal of world rule. The country where a Muslim resides is not important. Muslims will not adopt political practices of any host country, except to demand local issues favor them.
The end game of Islam is to kill or enslave all non-Muslims.
No other religion behaves this way.
"He is using the term "liberal" in its classical sense..."
You are right, of course. I should have read much more of the article than I first did.
I think it is worth remembering that Ted Kennedy, the Democratic Party under Howard Dean, Jimmy Carter, Michael Moore, Al Franken, Al Gore, Katy Couric, most of Hollywood, most professors at Liberal Arts colleges, work for, are aligned with and support the same exact cause as the people who murdered those election workers.
The lies and propaganda of Zarqwi could have been copied word by word from the moveon.org web site.
Before the election there was at least a tissue of an excuse for their actions. Now what we are dealing with is simple un-ambiguous treason.
I no longer feel like engaging in polite deabte with these people and I have little respect for those who continue to act as if we are dealing with the "loyal" opposition.
The position of the MSM and the Liberal Establishment on the war in Iraq; is the moral and legal equivalent of Jane Fonda's position on the war in Viet Nam.
He is referring to Judgment Day, where sinners will be punished and servants of God rewarded.
He is not talking about whether all Muslims assume proper responsibility for their own actions in this world.
He is saying that the social application should not contradict implied theological premises. The reference to judgement day and its application for personal responsibility is a point he applied to all religions that teach a doctrine of reward and punishment. This is spelled out in more detail in his latest book. Again, he is trying to supply would be Muslim reformers with theological ammunition against the Islamofascists. Personally, I think that he is on the right track.
And while we're counting the GREAT NUMBERS of them, let's keep track of those who say one thing in public and quite another in mosques around the world.
bump
In Islam, all it takes is some extremist to trot out the life of the prophet to prove how violent and treacherous Islam is at its foundation. In Christianity, we can point to Jesus. All Muslims can do it point to Mohammed. I imagine you know what that means.
The greatest danger to facism and totalitarianism is personal freedom. The success of the Iraqi elections was like throwing scalding water on these Islamo-facist scum. They can never succeed without creating a police state.
Or an Islamic theocracy.
The importance of the elections is that most Iraqis are Muslims, and the vast majority of them voted that they do not want Islam in Iraq to be like Islam in Iran or Saudi Arabia or pre-9-11 Afghanistan -- and the Shia supremo, Sistani, was encouraging them in this. Who's going to stop them from shaping Islam in Iraq exactly the way they want to?
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