The West's Muslim Allies

FrontPage Magazine ^ | 31 MAY 2005 | Andrew G. Bostom

[rdb3]

One would be wrong to think that Islamic sympathizers are only on our political Left. We have more than a few on the Right as well.

[E Rocc]

Pretty much any faith's harshest critics will be former members. I know a former Mormon who can't really be called anything other than bigoted against the LDS. We see the same phenomenon with the Roman Catholic Church. This is not to say that their points on specific views should be dismissed, but the personal animosity should not be discounted.

As President Bush has said repeatedly, we're not at war with Islam. We're at war with a certain radical branch of Islam, a branch which not only targets us, but moderate and even conservative Islam as well.

Indeed, the radicals who are our enemies are trying to drive a wedge between us and their Islamic targets. The selection of predominantly Saudi citizens for the 9/11 attacks reflects this. As a secondary goal of the attacks, Al Qaeda hoped to make the US suspicious of the Saudis. While this failed at a governmental level, it has had some success among our general population.

Islam has many faults and has a couple centuries of growing up to do. But right now, most Muslims are our allies against those who seek to distill the faith into its worst and most regressive tendencies.

-Eric

[Sam Cree]

read later

[thoughtomator]

There's no amount of "growing up" that can fix the fundamental fact of Islam being established on hostility to all other ways of life. We have no true Muslim allies, by the very definition of what it means to be Muslim. All we have are apostates and heretics, and those who will temporarily work with us in order to gain advantage over another adversary.

[Cacique]

we're not at war with Islam. We're at war with a certain radical branch of Islam

Nonsense, that statement could have been made about communism, i.e. we're not at war with communism. We're at war with a certain radical branch of communism or we're not at war with nazism. We're at war with a certain radical branch of nazism.

It neglects the fact that we are at war with an ideology that has changed little since the time of Mohamed. We would not have made such ridiculous statements about communism or nazism. Why do we therefore fall into the trap of making them about Islam?

[Cacique]

ping

[Maceman]

As President Bush has said repeatedly, we're not at war with Islam.

I have no way of knowing whether that is true, other than having to invest maybe 10,000 hours studying the Qur'an and Muslim culture before I can form an educated opinion as to whether or not it is the Religion of Peace.

Frankly, I have better things to do with my time, and I resent that Muslim fanaticism has placed the burden on ME to undertake such a project.

Before 9-11, I didn't know that much about Islam, because it never interested me, although I spent a few years studying Buddhism and also took an interest in Hinduism. I always thought Islam was maybe a little weird, and definitely not my thing, but I figured "live and let live."

Since 9-11, I have grudgingly and resentfully accepted the necessity for learning more about Islam purely as a matter of survivial -- my own survival, that of my family, and that of my beloved America.

And I have to tell you -- the more I have learned, the more I have become appalled. If the proof is in the pudding, then a look around the planet at the poverty, terrorism, brutal injustice and ignorance that prevails in virtually every Muslim society is all the proof I need that Islam is no force for good in this world.

If Islam has any redeeming qualities whatsoever, they have yet to be revealed to me.

I know that there have been a small handful of Muslims that have publicly registered their objection to the homicidal cultish violence that has become the public face of Islam. But based on what I have seen, these individuals are only a teeny, tiny minority. They are the 1% that has been given a bad name by the other 99%.

I can understand why Bush must publicly state that we are not at war with Islam. If I were him, I would make the same statement purely as a pragmatic policy. But that's just politics. What has become abundantly clear is that the world would be much more peaceful and far more better off if Islam went away tomorrow, and if its practitioners did, in fact, convert to some other religion.

[Gritty]

BTTT

[squirt-gun]

Re your # 2

Muslims are our allies against those who seek to distill the faith into its worst and most regressive tendencies.

Oh contrar!!

Islam is, above all, a militant political organization whose goal is the subjugation of the world. Make no mistake about it.

Just follow the achievments this so called "religion" proudly reveals for us every day (repeat,every day!) in horrifying acts of inhumanity.

Sophistry and excuses can't hide this fact.

A wolf in sheep's clothing is always a wolf and should be seen as such.

[monday]

"As President Bush has said repeatedly, we're not at war with Islam."

Which is why Bush will lose this war. No one has ever won a war while being unable to identify the enemy. Make no mistake, Muslims are the enemy and Islam is the malignant ideology which they follow. It is as dangerous to freedom and human rights as communism or fascism. In many ways it is worse.

Churchill had it right when he wrote: "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. " -- Winston Churchill

Islam must be crushed if the western world wants to continue to live in freedom.

[E Rocc]

There's no amount of "growing up" that can fix the fundamental fact of Islam being established on hostility to all other ways of life. We have no true Muslim allies, by the very definition of what it means to be Muslim. All we have are apostates and heretics, and those who will temporarily work with us in order to gain advantage over another adversary.

Most religious faiths, in principle, consider non-adherents to be second class citizens at best. Most grow up over time. With the exception of terrorism (a relatively recent innovation in and of itself) there is little Islam has done that other faiths have not done. We had riots over the translation of the Bible as recently as the 19th century even in the US.

-Eric

[E Rocc]

Nonsense, that statement could have been made about communism, i.e. we're not at war with communism. We're at war with a certain radical branch of communism or we're not at war with nazism. We're at war with a certain radical branch of nazism.

Naziism was a branch of fascism, and we weren't at war with Franco. Near the end of the Cold War China, while never renouncing communism, was our ally.

-Eric

[E Rocc]

Ping

[thoughtomator]

My friend, you need to read up on your Islam. I can name quite a number of things that are unique to Islam that don't appear in other religions. Jihad, for example, has no equivalent in any other religion. Other religions may have "holy wars" but no other religion demands of its followers the eternal state of war against all who don't share their beliefs. No "Dar el-Harb" in other religions. No jirza - a tax specifically for non-believers. There's no other religion with an equivalent of dhimmitude, or taqiyya. No other religion you will ever find has hudna or any near equivalent established as doctrine.

Nor is terrorism a new phenomenon; Mohammad himself practiced it (read the Koran). Muslims have been engaged in it for as long as there have been Muslims - the United States fought its first post-revolutionary war against the very same (War against the Barbary States, 1802).

That the most recent example you can find in another religion dates back two centuries should throw in stark relief the savagery and barbarity that is Islam. Islam remains savage and barbaric not because it is simply awaiting reform or maturity, but rather because it demands such behavior from its followers.

Don't fool yourself. Islam is not just another religion. It is a totalitarian creed little different from Nazism and Communism, and every bit the mortal threat to the free people of the world.

[E Rocc]

I have no way of knowing whether that is true, other than having to invest maybe 10,000 hours studying the Qur'an and Muslim culture before I can form an educated opinion as to whether or not it is the Religion of Peace.

The US government has people working time on analyzing Islam and the various Islamic nations. Yet our President (who most of us here trust) not only emphatically denies that we are at war with Islam, but backs his views up with policies and actions. In addition, impeccably credentialed conservatives from Tom Clancy to Grover Norquist insist that Islam is not our enemy.

-Eric

[E Rocc]

1) If all of Islam is at war with all of non-Islam, how are nations such as Turkey, Indonesia, Jordan, and even Egypt relatively peaceful and on good terms with non-Muslim neighbors?

-Eric

[Maceman]

In addition, impeccably credentialed conservatives from Tom Clancy to Grover Norquist insist that Islam is not our enemy.

I repeat: If Islam has any redeeming qualities whatsoever, they have yet to be revealed to me.

[thoughtomator]

Well, let's see... Turkey - a lot more recently than your "Bible riots" example, slaughtered 1.5 million Armenians, something it still won't admit to doing, because they were Christians... they're still embroiled with the Kurds as well. Jewish synagogues were bombed not long ago - has it even been a year? - even though the Jewish presence that country is miniscule. Although the best of the Muslim world they are not in as good a shape as you would like to think. It is largely because secularization is enforced by a despotic military that it is not otherwise. Jordan - the King happens to be Christian... not like that stops plenty of Jordanians, like Abu Zarqawi, the second-most-wanted man in the world, from waging jihad. Jordan as a state doesn't because they haven't the capability, they've gotten their butts kicked by Israel too many times. Also we bribe the hell out of them to keep them quiet. Indonesia - please tell me that you are not unaware of the regular massacres of Christians in that country. East Timor, 1998, hundreds of thousands slaughtered. Bali, 2002 - and a two-year jail sentence for the mastermind of the mass murder. Indonesia is famous for its terrorist groups and the government's unwillingness to do anything about them. Egypt - not peaceful if you happen to be a Coptic Christian. Like Turkey, it is kept in line only by a secular dictatorship. But Egypt still exports Islamic terrorists all over the world. Mohammad Atta, who flew a plane into the World Trade Center, plus three other of the 9/11 hijackers, were all Egyptian. No matter how hard you wish to deny the overwhelming mountain of evidence that Islam is a religion of murder and mayhem, it will only continue to aggregate.

[rmlew]

Norquist married a Muslim woman and may well have converted.
Tom Clancy is a fine novelist (I am a fan of the books he actually writes, rather than much of the crap he licences) but he is not a deep political thinker.
Go read Huntington and get back to me.

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

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