Posted on 03/25/2006 12:34:52 PM PST by the anti-liberal
The fragile Afghan state is protected by American, British, Canadian, Australian, Italian and other troops, hundreds of whom have died. You cannot ask Americans or Britons to expend blood and treasure to build a society in which a man can be executed for his choice of religion. You cannot tell a Canadian soldier serving in Kandahar that he, as a Christian, must sacrifice his life to create a Muslim state in which his faith is a capital offense.
As always, we come back to the words of Osama bin Laden: "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse." That's really the only issue: The Islamists know our side have tanks and planes, but they have will and faith, and they reckon in a long struggle that's the better bet. Most prominent Western leaders sound way too eager to climb into the weak-horse suit and audition to play the rear end. Consider, for example, the words of the Prince of Wales, speaking a few days ago at al-Azhar University in Cairo, which makes the average Ivy League nuthouse look like a beacon of sanity. Anyway, this is what His Royal Highness had to say to 800 Islamic "scholars":
"The recent ghastly strife and anger over the Danish cartoons shows the danger that comes of our failure to listen and to respect what is precious and sacred to others. In my view, the true mark of a civilized society is the respect it pays to minorities and to strangers."
That's correct. But the reality is that our society pays enormous respect to minorities - President Bush holds a monthlong Ramadan-a-ding-dong at the White House every year. The immediate reaction to the slaughter of 9/11 by Western leaders everywhere was to visit a mosque to demonstrate their great respect for Islam. One party to this dispute is respectful to a fault: after all, to describe the violence perpetrated by Muslims over the Danish cartoons as the "recent ghastly strife" barely passes muster as effete Brit toff understatement.
Unfortunately, what's "precious and sacred" to Islam is its institutional contempt for others. In his book "Islam And The West," Bernard Lewis writes, "The primary duty of the Muslim as set forth not once but many times in the Quran is 'to command good and forbid evil.' It is not enough to do good and refrain from evil as a personal choice. It is incumbent upon Muslims also to command and forbid." Or as the Canadian columnist David Warren put it: "We take it for granted that it is wrong to kill someone for his religious beliefs. Whereas Islam holds it is wrong not to kill him." In that sense, those imams are right, and Karzai's attempts to finesse the issue are, sharia-wise, wrong.
I can understand why the president and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would rather deal with this through back channels, private assurances from their Afghan counterparts, etc. But the public rhetoric is critical, too. At some point we have to face down a culture in which not only the mob in the street but the highest judges and academics talk like crazies. Abdul Rahman embodies the question at the heart of this struggle: If Islam is a religion one can only convert to, not from, then in the long run it is a threat to every free person on the planet.
I agree.
We're not even anywhere near close to deporting Muslims.
Europe will deport them first...and many here will insist we take them.
Where were they shipped out to?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
Muslims do not have the right to impose Shariah on the rest of us, nor do they have the right to slit my (or your) throat.
That's what they are trying to do, now, here.
Whatever you do to American Muslims can be done to you.
Feminism and the queer agenda means they are producing fewer new Europeans while muslims are producing new muslims at a much faster pace - eventually muslims will out-reproduce Europeans within the next several generations and thereby take over European land.
If our women continue to choose career, abortion and queerdom over motherhood and family the same will happen here.
Right, but that will take a few more years.
With history as any guide, the Europeans will eventually expel the Muslims.
As it stand right now, the Muslims are winning (considering they have 8 kids each, considering how they have forced every Western liberal to kowtow to their views, etc.)
Thanks tremendously! Real Player always try to insert itself into windows start up. I down loaded media player classic and it does the trick! I'm getting rid of real player!
But has Europe ever been so full of weak-kneed pansies as it is now? I prefer not to be pessimistic, but it's increasingly difficult to maintain optimism these days.
Am using it right now. I was looking for a Real Pl substitute. Thanks!
I just finished a book that described in detail the UK (and to a lesser extent France's) policy of appeasement in the 30's.
And, imo, no, it's not as bad today (hopefully not yet) as it was back then.
Bck then, this story of the Afghan Apostate would have totally been quashed, by the Western media.
I've had previous versions of MPC that didn't work very well, but I think they've fixed alot of the bugs. I went a while without any .rm files just because I was so sick of Real Player, so I'm glad they kept working on MPC.
That's good to hear, but I wonder how today's circumstantial environment - globalization, the Internet, feminism, 'queer'-dom, 'enlightenment', etc... - effects that equation.
What rights do we allow to US citizens who practice murder?
Not all Muslims seek actively to murder non-Muslims. But all Muslims subscribe to a religion that justifies and even commands as a religious duty (an imperative that trumps the law of the state) the subjugation or murder of non-Muslims.
So what do you do? Nothing? That will probably work, and imperfectly, only so long as Muslims remain a minority in a non-Muslim country.
I love this guy!
This was mild for Steyn. He is brilliant, and IMO superior to Malkin. He's exceptional at writing as a Briton or Canadian would in our press, but in a way that we can understand their systems better... and I am told he writes as an American with the same eye-opening clarity in the British and Canadian press.
Now that I think of it, he does seem to be wearing this suit backwards...
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
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