Posted on 02/11/2006 12:32:55 PM PST by 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.
NO- they do not find the WTC offensive. Nor do they see any reason why we should be offended by that, or beheadings or calls for our deaths. That is because WE are not 'people'. We are the infidel enemy. Only MUSLIMS are 'people'.
They think of us as we think of ants. Do we consider the ants feelings when we bring out a can of Raid? Of course not- they are vermin and should expect to be exterminated.
So it is with all non-Muslims. We should understand and accept our fate as victims or subjugated slaves. It makes perfect sense to the diseased minds that are taught Islam.
We are not PEOPLE. Remember that. That is how they can talk about 'non violence' and Islam forbidding the murder of others. WE think they mean humanity in general. They really mean Muslims- NO ONE ELSE is granted human status.
So, of course, non-humans cannot be offended by inhuman treatment!
Think 'Planet of the Apes'- we are the animals.
Whether you like it or not the ideology of islam wants to kill you and CPT Benton and take over the world by force if necessary. It is time to oppose evil in the form of islam and free the world of its slavery, muslims hurt feelings be damned.
You don't know enough about me to be able to say with any accuracy whether or not I care about pretty little Afghan girls growing up in slavery. Advocates of genocide wouldn't have them grow up at all.
It is not yet time to burn down the barn to kill all the rats. I pray that time will never come.
Meanwhile, some freepers can hardly wait. Your words on the Internet will be cut & pasted and used to make good guys jobs harder.
I like the burn down the barn to kill the rats analogy.
Good point. Thanks sugar.
I see you're making friends where ever you post. My advise to you is get in touch with your travel agent, book a one way ticket to jihadistan, pick up arms against the Americans and they'll make sure that you get to meet Allah face to face. Best Regards, Ich
One other note: I would also not be surprising if Iran & their terrorist allies attempt to use biological weaponry, coupled with a mega-destructive computer virus targeting stock and commodity exchanges - unless they are stopped cold!
The Iranians were stopped in their tracks and held for eight years at the point of Saddam Hussayne's bayonet.
We twice defeated the best Hussayne could muster, once in three weeks and on the other occasion in 100 hours.
We can and will deny Iran the acquisition of any nuclear capability - "peaceful" or otherwise and, despite there'll likely be some follow-up clean-up, it will all be over for them within the first twenty-four hours.
Your advice is about as useful and intelligent as anything else you have said.
likewise
No, I want to combat the evil ideology that keeps these people in hatred and slavery. Big difference.
The nuke them now crowd sound like a bunch of small boys with their army toys and everybody knows it is just testosterone talking. Nobody in their right mind believes that nukes will ever be used against islam to wipe it out, so getting all hot and bothered is a waste of time.
Nukes will be used only if a WMD is used against us or one of our allies and it would never be used to wipe out every last muslim.
Oh please, most people know exactly what the type of kid or blustering man the nuke them now crowd represents and none take them seriously.
As for cutting and pasting peoples words, most are becoming to savvy to fall for it, and besides you can find a viewpoint for everything on the internet to support what ever point you are trying to make about your enemy no freerepublic needed.
As for the good guys job being made harder....we have not even begun to fight the real fight and that is one against what islam teaches. Until we do that we are just plugging holes in a leaking damm.
Someone in the public eye with some stones needs to come forward publically and tell American citizens the truth:
Jihad to a Muslim means: "They will not rest until the last infidel is hanging from the intestines of the last Christian priest".
They are taught that and they believe that. IMO, there is no such thing as a "moderate Muslim. They are just sleeper cells waiting until they can rise up against us.
We have a larger problem than they had with the Trojan Horse in Troy.
So we've all just been pissing in the wind and haven't even begun to fight.
You can tell that to the next of kin of the troops we have lost.
A lot of people are not in their right mind. That's what this whole thread is about.
A lot of people have time to waste.
I hope there are one or two lawyers remaining who still love the USA enough and have the skills to win such a case. You know who I mean, a lawyer who does not subscribe to the Ramsey Clark doctrine.
Sign me up for $100 towards the defense fund.
Most people in the Muslim world are not that savvy.
I don't think it is good for Free Republic to be a source of attributable anti-Muslim genocide rhetoric. Do you?
We should generate fear and terror by machinegunning rioters and killing them until they learn better behaviour, or until their are none left.
When dealing with slam, fear and terror are MUCH better than "respect."
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