"Muslim Opinion" Be Damned

The Ayn Rand Institute ^ | Monday, February 6, 2006 | Alex Epstein

[Exton1]

"Muslim Opinion" Be Damned Monday, February 6, 2006 By: Alex Epstein

America's attempts to appease "Muslim opinion" are depraved and suicidal.

As Muslim groups express outrage and issue death threats over cartoons depicting Mohammad, many Western leaders are responding, not with condemnations of the death threats, but with condemnations of the cartoons--and of the newspapers that published them.

This is the latest example of the apologies and hand-wringing that occur anytime there is any widespread display of Muslim anger. To listen to most of our foreign-policy commentators, the biggest problem facing America today is the fact that many Muslims are mad at us.

"Whatever one's views on the [Iraq] war," writes a "New York Times" columnist, "thoughtful Americans need to consider . . . the bitter anger that it has provoked among Muslims around the world." In response to Abu Ghraib, Ted Kennedy lamented, "We have become the most hated nation in the world, as a result of this disastrous policy in the prisons." Muslim anger over America's support of Israel, we are told, is a major cause of anti-American terrorism.

We face, these commentators say, a crisis of "Muslim opinion." We must, they say, win the "hearts and minds" of angry Muslims by heaping public affection on Islam, by shutting down Guantanamo, by being more "evenhanded" between free Israel and the terrorist Palestinian Authority--and certainly by avoiding any new military action in the Muslim world. If we fail to win over "Muslim opinion," we are told, we will drive even more to become terrorists.

All of this evades one blatant truth: the hatred being heaped on America is irrational and undeserved. Consider the issue of treatment of POWs. Many Muslims are up in arms about the treatment of prisoners of war in Iraq and at Guantanamo--many of whom were captured on battlefields, trying to kill Americans. Yet these same Muslims are silent about the summary convictions and torture--real torture, with electric drills and vats of acid--that are official policy and daily practice throughout the Middle East.

Or consider "Muslim opinion" over the United States' handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which the United States is accused of not being "hard enough" on Israel--a free nation with laws that protect all citizens, Jew and Arab alike--for Israel's supposed mistreatment of Palestinians. Yet "Muslim opinion" reveres the Palestinian Authority, a brutal dictatorship that deprives Palestinians of every basic freedom, keeps them in unspeakable poverty, and routinely tortures and executes peaceful dissenters.

So-called Muslim opinion is not the unanimous and just consensus that its seekers pretend. It is the irrational and unjust opinion of the world's worst Muslims: Islamists and their legions of "moderate" supporters and sympathizers. These people oppose us not because of any legitimate grievances against America, but because they are steeped in a fundamentalist interpretation of their religion--one that views America's freedom, prosperity, and pursuit of worldly pleasures as the height of depravity. They do not seek respect for the rights of the individual (Muslim or non-Muslim), they seek a world in which the rights of all are sacrificed to the dictates of Islam.

The proper response to Islamists and their supporters is to identify them as our ideological and political enemies--and dispense justice accordingly. In the case of our militant enemies, we must kill or demoralize them--especially those regimes that support terrorism and fuel the Islamist movement; as for the rest, we must politically ignore them and intellectually discredit them, while proudly arguing for the superiority of Americanism. Such a policy would make us safe, expose Islamic anti-Americanism as irrational and immoral, and embolden the better Muslims to support our ideals and emulate our ways.

President Bush, like most politicians and intellectuals, has taken the opposite approach to "Muslim opinion": appeasement. Instead of identifying anti-American Muslims as ideological enemies to be discredited, he has appealed to their sensibilities and met their demands--e.g., sacrificing American soldiers to save Iraqi civilians and mosques. Instead of seeking to crush the Islamists by defeating the causes they fight for--such as Islamic world domination and the destruction of Israel--he has appeased those causes, declaring Islam a "great religion" and rewarding the Palestinian terrorist Jihad with a promised Palestinian state. Instead of destroying terrorist regimes that wage war against the West--including, most notably, Iran--he has sought their "cooperation" and even cast some as "coalition partners."

Such measures have rewarded our enemy for waging physical and spiritual war against us. "Condemn America," they have learned, "and American leaders will praise your ideals and meet your demands." "Attack America via terrorist proxy," terrorist states and movements have been taught, "and America will neither blame you nor destroy you, but redouble its efforts to buy your love."

Every attempt to appease "Muslim opinion" preserves, promotes, and emboldens our enemies. Every concession to angry Muslim mobs gives hope to the Islamist cause. Every day we allow terrorist regimes to exist gives their minions time to execute the next Sept. 11. America needs honest leadership with the courage to identify and defeat our enemies--"Muslim opinion" be damned. They should begin by declaring that militant groups and states that threaten anti-Western violence in response to free speech will be met, not with appeasement, but with destruction.

Alex Epstein is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, CA. The Institute promotes the ideas of Ayn Rand--best-selling author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and originator of the philosophy of Objectivism.

[M. Espinola]

"We turned our backs on our dead Marines in Lebanon and Iran's mad mullahs were afforded victory over us by Jimmy Carter, who also treasonously delivered our Panama Canal to Peking's psychopaths. And set off World War Four."

I fully agree with that overview.

The plans to decapitate the current Iranian and Syria terrorist exporting leadership are already on the table. Broad-based, round-the-clock surgical air strikes, combined with Persian Gulf naval counter terrorist measures will be carried out through a combined, selected Allied effort.

Iran must be prevented from triggering a doubling of present oil prices and a Wall Street meltdown, by way of attacking other regional oil exporters, along with sabotaging their own vast crude oil and natural gas infrastructure, once the rogue régime fathoms "time's up".

Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities will be neutralized. Iranian & Syrian funded, trained and armed jihadist proxies, such as Hizballah, Hamas, Islamic jihad coupled with jihadic terrorist groups in Iraq and Afghanistan will also be dealt with. This is no drill!

In addition to Iran's fanatical Mahdi worshiping thugs attempting to gain a nuclear weapons edge, Tehran's other economic objective is to destroy the U.S. Dollar (USD) via convincing fellow Islamic OPEC members, other non-OPEC oil producing states plus Iran's leading trading partners (Putin's Russia & Red China) to dump the USD in favour of the Euro. Saddam was on the verge of attempting the same currency blackmail, and he is on trail for war crimes.

It would not surprise me in the least if Iran, Syria & their jihad proxies are confronted before April 15th.

[ichabod_65]

The koran says to kill all infidels (i.e. people who will not convert to islam) The moderate muslims you speak of are sure beating a path to their local media outlet and voicing their concerns. THe ones who do voice opposition are shouted down or next to nothing is written about them. The vast majority of muslims want their religion to rule the world at ANY cost.So, if a couple of well placed daisy cutters at the next hajj alleviates some jihadists count me in. ANd if a daisy cutter wouldn't be harsh enough then by all means dust off our arsenal of nukes.

[uzitiger]

I'm fed up with everyone cowering to savage Muslims rioting (that's right rioting not demonstrating) because of a cartoon they find 'offensive'. What twisted minds they have! Every day Muslims publish anti Jewish and anti Christian cartoons WITH the intent to offend the infidels who won't belive in their so called 'allah' but they cry when someone shows a cartoon of the madman pedophile they call a prophet with a bomb on his head. I don't see anyone else being a suicide bomber since the kamikazes in World War Two. The only suicide bombers are Muslims. Don't forget how millions of Muslims celebrated the attack on the World Trade Center while people were still trapped inside the wreckage. Did they find the WTC towers 'offensive'? Is it because they can't build such tower without western technology or is it because the towers represented a bigger phallic symbol than the Quabaa in Mecca which they call their 'allah'. I for one am offended by Isalmic violence and it's time to quash it.

[Charlespg]

President Bush, like most politicians and intellectuals, has taken the opposite approach to "Muslim opinion": appeasement. Instead of identifying anti-American Muslims as ideological enemies to be discredited, he has appealed to their sensibilities and met their demands--e.g., sacrificing American soldiers to save Iraqi civilians and mosques. Instead of seeking to crush the Islamists by defeating the causes they fight for--such as Islamic world domination and the destruction of Israel--he has appeased those causes, declaring Islam a "great religion" and rewarding the Palestinian terrorist Jihad with a promised Palestinian state. Instead of destroying terrorist regimes that wage war against the West--including, most notably, Iran--he has sought their "cooperation" and even cast some as "coalition partners."

Bush has long ago crossed the line from caution to appesement

[Cannoneer No. 4]

How do you propose to get ISAF and OEF out of Central Asia after you have incited the entire populations of Afghanistan and Pakistan?

How do you propose to get OIF out of Iraq after you have incited the entire populations of Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Qatar, Oman and Iran?

I have friends down wind.

[Sabramerican]

Brokeback Jihad

[ichabod_65]

A long war indeed. One which will be fought in the trenches in the United States. People have not yet awakened to that possibility, but I see it coming. That's why we must fight these jihadis elsewhere while we can. The minute a nuke goes off in the states our economy will go to shambles. What's worse (and I don't think many people are aware of it) is the fact that Zawahiri invited Bush to convert to Islam. Bush's refusal can only bring about one result, his assassination. When that happens I see civil war erupting and then we'll be easy pickings for the jihadists. Fatalistic? Maybe, but the koran calls for the murder of those who are offered the call to convert to islam and refuse. Just a thought.

[ichabod_65]

THe whole Islamic world is pissed at us already. Remember we're the great satan. Besides they'll be worried about nuclear downwind currents soon enough when Iran nukes Israel and possibly our troops in Iraq. And oh yeah, thanks to their buddies in North Korea they now have missles that can reach Europe. We'll see just how much France likes being turned into a nuclear wasteland. I'll continue this debate later on tonite because I have some ratkilling to tend to.

[jabotinsky]

you are not alone sir. I remember in the days post 9/11, all the talking heads said how we failed to imagine what the terrorist butchers could pull off.

we have to stop thinking about this existential fight in traditional western terms of army mass and mobility and need to realize that the enemy has no scruples what so ever, will do what ever it takes, and has no achilles heel. its real simple. do or die.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

All your thinly-veiled calls for genocide can be cut & pasted and used against us.

It may well eventually come to that. We wouldn't be who we are unless we waited until it is almost too late before we go that far.

[Lurker]

More self-evident good sense from the folks at ARI.

Thanks for posting it.

L

[Brian Allen]

<< The question is, of course, what to do now. >>

I would suggest we first root out of the US Department of State the Socialist Internationale-serving, bastard offspring of the Soviet-agent Alger Hiss branch of the Communist Party of America-descended brahmanas and its exclusively carefully-cloned-idiot-savant peopled Foreign Service that has so efficaciously, systemically, insidiously -- and frequently treasonously -- subverted America's interests these past almost eighty years.

Practically, that probably requires that we simply close down State and fire its every entrenched self-annointed, self-appointed and self-perpetuating dole-check recipient.

And, once having started on the feral-gummint's permanent bureaucracy, we might as well - given that its every actually-ever-performed task has long been farmed out to of-necessity every-bit-as-corrupt "contractors," keep up the good work and get rid of its every otherwise-deservedly-unemployed layabout.

Quite as important as ridding our nation of its principle bureaucratic subverters, however, must be our ridding it, by the imposition of back-dated term limits, of its self-annointing, self-appointing and self-perpetuating and overloaded with interest-conflicted lawyers permanent political classes. And by then impeaching every last one of the judicial-fiat-perpetrating tyrannical lawyer-with-political-connections tyrants in black robes who back that class and who have long excercised self-granted powers that England's George Three would have killed for.

And come to think of it, did.

After all of that our Republic would be largely restored and we'd be half way on the road to at least another unassailable two-hundred and thirty years!

And extremely fit and lean and mean and well prepared to at any time and place of our own choosing preemptively take on any adversary that'd dare to offer itself up for our attention.

To do, that is, whatever is necessary to success. Something I am afraid -- and despite "our guy" won -- our nation presently probably lacks the requisite ruthlessness to guarantee.

BUMPping

[grey_whiskers]

It would not surprise me in the least if Iran, Syria & their jihad proxies are confronted before April 15th.

Kicking Muslim Terrorist Ass...in time to pay our taxes!! :-)

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

In addition to Iran's fanatical Mahdi worshiping thugs attempting to gain a nuclear weapons edge, Tehran's other economic objective is to destroy the U.S. Dollar (USD) via convincing fellow Islamic OPEC members, other non-OPEC oil producing states plus Iran's leading trading partners (Putin's Russia & Red China) to dump the USD in favour of the Euro. Saddam was on the verge of attempting the same currency blackmail, and he is on trail for war crimes.

With the amount of US dollars held by China in US Treasury securities, would they really be likely to go along with that?

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

"Brokeback Jihad"

LOL. You did see the three "forged" photos that the one Imam showed around the Middle East, claiming that they were part of the original 12 cartoons, didn't you?

Full Disclosure: Look at your picture and then think of "Rover"...

[livius]

How do you propose to get OIF out of [Muslim country] after you have incited the entire populations of [Muslim countries]

This is a significant problem. I think the cartoon riots were staged basically to stir up Muslims internationally so that they would be "in place" and psychologically prepped to attack our forces and interests in the event that we attack Iran. I also think that is one of the reasons Iran is trying to provoke us into attacking them, so that they can claim to be the injured party. This may be one of the reasons that we are trying to ignore them.

However, Iran is probably going to attack somebody soon anyway, whether us, the Israelis or even another Muslim country that it considers not pure enough, so I certainly hope we are planning what to do with our forces in these places. It is also possible, btw, that certain countries, including Saudi Arabia, are not eager to see Iran upset their apple cart and would not encourage Muslims to attack even if we had to attack Iran. The Saudis probably love their fancy palaces, yachts, super-model call-girls, gold toilet fixtures, etc. more than they love the mullahs of Iran.

[JDoutrider]

BFLR

[Cannoneer No. 4]

NATO faces its last chance in Kandahar

[M. Espinola]

"With the amount of US dollars held by China in US Treasury securities, would they really be likely to go along with that?"

Very valid economic point. Moscow and Peking will do what's in their strategic and monetary interests. If they believe Iran is a lost cause, the Mullah's currency scheme will go by the wayside.

[livius]

Interesting article. Whatever happens, though, I doubt that our approach or that of the other NATO members who may be in place would be the same as it was last time.

Essentially, in Iraq we tried to inflict as few "unnecessary" casualties as possible and did not do the severe pacification common after wars (even though this forebearance cost us some of our own soldiers, I'm afraid). But I don't think it would be the same this time, regardless of the scenario that got us to the point of war.

Everybody, the US and NATO forces included, would be much more aggressive. And in the case of Afghanistan, NATO troops would be fighting in an area where the US had already taken out a lot of the bad guys and their infrastructure, and about which there was now a lot of on-the-ground information. So I don't think the prospects would necessarily be as bleak for the NATO forces as might seem.