This cartoon sums it up perfectly.
Posted on 09/29/2006 1:14:54 AM PDT by goldstategop
I am a bigot, a Klansman "with higher-thread-count sheets," the "enemy within," part of "the rotten core of American extremists" who are making it harder for moderate Muslims "to recapture their own faith."
So says Ralph Peters, retired military man, establishment conservative and eternal optimist.
In a commentary in the September 7th New York Post, Peters went postal on those who believe (in his words) "that Islam can never reform, that the violent conquest and subjugation of unbelievers is the faith's primary agenda."
Us Islamophobes fantasize about the "Protocols of the Elders of Mecca," imply that Muslims are "evil and sub-human," and thus spread baseless hatred wherever we go, Peters charges.
I am mortified and deserve to be sentenced to a sensitivity-training session forthwith.
Ralphie explains it all so clearly. Muslim fanatics are "a minority of a minority," says he. And, while Peters admits that Islam as it's perpetrated in the Middle East is less than delightful, still, "from Senegal to Sulawesi, from Delhi to Dearborn, I've seen no end of vibrant, humane, hopeful currents in the Muslim faith," the columnist insists.
Excuse me while I gag.
In an interview on the Laura Ingraham show later in the week, Peters elaborated on his list of Muslim paradises. Indonesia "the world's most populous Muslim country," in harmony central, he assured us.
When trying to present the sunny side of Islam, it helps to be as uninformed as Ralph Peters.
According to The Voice of the Martyrs, all is not tolerance and brotherhood in "the world's most populous Muslim country." In Indonesia, the nation's Muslim majority (88%) plays Nazis and Jews with its Christian minority (8%).
Last October, three Christian schoolgirls were attacked with machetes and beheaded on their way to classes on the island of Sulawesi. But, us rotten extremists are probably to blame by making it harder for moderate Muslims (those would be the ones without machetes) to reclaim their peaceful faith.
Voice of the Martyrs further informs us: "Militant Islamic militia groups, such as the Laskar Jihad, have orchestrated an Islamic jihad against Christians in some areas of Indonesia, killing thousands of people and destroying hundreds of churches and homes, often supported by government troops."
Another of Peters' examples of the "hopeful currents in the Muslim faith" is Dearborn, Michigan, with its concentration of mosques and American mujahedeen.
In an article in Front Page Magazine ("What I Saw in Dearbornistan," July 28, 2006), Debbie Schlussel writes of a community meeting at the Bint Jebail Cultural Center during the recent fighting in Lebanon.
Schlussel describes the affair as "a Nazi-style hate-fest." The 3,000 in attendance chanted prayers for "the martyrs of Hezbollah," and described Jews and Americans as "diseased." Mohammed Turfe, the Center's founder, predicted that after Armageddon "only a few thousand Jews will survive." Apparently, every imam in Dearborn was on hand to hear these words of reconciliation. At an earlier Dearborn rally, in memory of Yasser Arafat, one of these worthies held a poster of his favorite moderate Muslim - the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Sounds more like the low end of the cesspool that a "current of hope."
Coincidentally, the day that Peter's pollyannic prose was published, the Times of London reported on a British Parliamentary Enquiry into Anti-Semitism. The report noted that 37% of British Muslims believe the Jewish community in Britain is a legitimate target in the "ongoing struggle for justice in the Middle East." Meaning: If you're unhappy with the actions of Israel or America - for any reason - kill a Jew, any Jew.
An earlier Parliamentary survey noted the results of a Study of Global Anti-Semitism by two Yale University scholars, which showed that a European Muslim was 800% more likely to harbor overtly anti-Semitic attitudes than a European who was not a member of the religion of peace.
Stephen Steinlight, formerly director of education at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, repots there are an average of 12 assaults a day by Muslims on Parisian Jews - comparable to Nazi attacks in the last days of the Weimar Republic.
Verses in the Koran fomenting hatred of Jews, describing them as evil incarnate, and inciting genocide are too numerous to mention here.
Jew-hatred isn't confined to the Muslim fringe. It permeates mainstream Islam.
Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, Grand Imam of Egypt's Al-Azhar Univeristy (the most authoritative voice in Islam) notes the Koran "describes the Jews with their own particular degenerate characteristics" as "the enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs." But, the Grand Imam's perspective on Jews isn't entirely negative. He acknowledges: "All Jews are not the same. The good ones become Muslims, the bad ones do not."
Mahathir Mohamad, prime minister of Malaysia for 22 years, claims the Jews "invented and successfully promoted Socialism, Communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so they may enjoy equal rights with others. With these they have now gained control of the most powerful countries and they, this tiny community, have become a world power." Mohamad admits: "There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim."
Pope Benedict XVI caused a stir at Regensburg University in Germany, on September 12, when he quoted the 14th. century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Paleologus, in a conversation with a "learned Persian."
The emperor asked his guest: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread the sword by the faith he preached." The Vatican expert for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica said of Benedict's speech "the text reveals his deep mistrust regarding the aggressive side of Islam." Is there another side?
In the face of fury in Jihad-land, the pontiff said he was "deeply sorry" that Muslims were offended. To show just how outraged they were by the suggestion that Islam promotes violence, Muslim pacifists - murdered a nun in Somalia, burned the pope in effigy in Pakistan, firebombed seven churches in the West Bank and Gaza, threatened to "break the cross and spill the wine" in the "house of the dog from Rome" and pledged to "hunt down the pope" and "kill him on the spot." Moderate Muslims were unavailable for comment.
His apology aside, Benedict's concerns about Muslim immigration to Europe are well known. Besides not approving joint prayers with Muslims and being wary of inter-religious dialogue with the faith, as a cardinal, Benedict opposed Turkey's membership in the European Union.
As pope, he granted a private audience to Oriana Fallaci - a self-described atheist who died on September 15th.
Once the world's most famous journalist (she interviewed both Arafat and Khomeini, as well as Kissinger and Castro), later in life, Fallaci became part of the rotten core of Italian extremists who make it harder for moderate Muslims "to recapture their own faith."
In her 2001 book "The Rage And The Pride," Fallaci (who fought in the anti-fascist resistance as a young girl in World War II) could have been addressing Peters when she warned: "You don't understand, you don't want to understand, that a reverse Crusade is underway - a war of religion they call Holy War, Jihad. You don't understand, you don't want to understand, that for those reverse Crusaders the West is a world to conquer and subjugate to Islam."
In the same book, Fallaci described the Religion of Peace as "the mountain which emerges from the abyss." (Mountains are monolithic, as they not?) The real protagonist in terrorism's war on civilization isn't bin Laden, or Saudi Arabia, or Iraq, Iran or Syria, Fallaci cautioned.
Instead, our adversary "is the Mountain. That Mountain which in one thousand and four hundred years has not moved, has not risen from the abyss of its blindness, has not opened its doors to the conquests of civilization, has never wanted to know about freedom, civilization and progress. In short, has not changed. That Mountain which in spite of the shameful richness of its retrograde masters (kings and princes and sheiks and bankers) still lives in the monstrous darkness of a religion which produces nothing but religion."
Trusting souls like Peters are always waiting for the alleged majority of moderate Muslims to assert themselves, put down the Koran-spouting fanatics and "recapture their religion."
How did they lose it in the first place? How did Islam become the domain of suicide-bombers, mass murderers, lunatic theocrats, raving anti-Semites, America-haters, nun-killers and those who bear grudges for perceived wrongs from the 11th. century?
If the fanatics and extremists are a minority, they are a very active minority - while the moderates are practically invisible.
The "minority of a minority" are they killing Christians, Hindus and Jews from North Africa, to Sub-Saharan Africa, to the Middle East, to Kosovo, to the Caucuses, to the Indian subcontinent, to Indonesia and the Philippines.Wherever Moslems in significant numbers come in contact with any other faith, World War III ensues.
If the moderates are just biding their time, waiting to assert themselves and reclaim their honorable heritage, why is it no mainstream Muslim group ever disavows the most horrific acts committed in the name of their religion? The pope is expected to wear sackcloth for quoting a 14th-century Byzantine emperor. Where are the Muslim apologies for the nun who was murdered yesterday?
On the anniversary of 9/11, a writer who used to be in Peters' camp published a mea culpa in the Baltimore Jewish Times.
Columnist Ira Rifkin confessed that in 1985 he was one of the first to push a Muslim-Jewish dialogue. Rifin says he "sought participation in Jewish-Muslim interfaith activities; I've broken bread with Muslims at their homes and at mine, and at the White House at official presidential Ramadan break-the-fast events."
Rifkin ruefully admits: "I fully embraced, even relished these opportunities. Information and dialogue, I believed, could lower if not eliminate the barriers of suspicion that kept Muslims and Jews from understanding each others' hopes and fears. We live in the United States, not the Middle East, I told myself. Here, reason might prevail."
However, the more time he spent with Muslims the more he concluded that "as a group, their worldview and that of most Jews are in such profound conflict as to render real dialogue meaningless."
"That's because a prime tenet of Islam is the uumah. The notion that there is an essential unity among all believers, regardless of where they live, and that it transcends nationality, race and ethnicity. Religious solidarity comes first. Islam is the primary social identity. This helps explain why American Caucasian converts to Islam with no direct link to Middle East tensions, tend to adopt anti-Israel and anti-Jewish attitudes."
Rifkin believes, "The Muslim animosity has gone beyond anti-Zionism. Anti-Semitism festers within the Muslim community like no other."
To wit, "At a pro-Hezbollah August rally in Washington (DC) sponsored by leading American Muslim activist groups, the crowd extolling Hezbollah's leader, chanted 'Nasrallah, Nasrallah: the martyr is the beloved of Allah; the Zionists are the enemy of Allah.' Across the continent in San Francisco, at another pro-Hezbollah demonstration the same day, participants carried signs that read: 'Nazi kikes out of Lebanon."
Friend Ira, welcome to the rotten core.
Rifkin has left the Happy Land of Make-Believe. Peters still resides there.
While he's exposing the rotten core of American Islam-haters and waiting for the moderates to emerge from the bunkers and recapture their faith, Peters can also : 1) Anticipate the emergence of a kinder and gentler mafia, 2) Look forward to the day when responsible National Socialists recapture their party and 3) Wait for the price of oil to dip below a dollar a gallon.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Didn't rush interview this guy for his magazine a few months back?
Actually, it sounds like Ralph Peters has it about right, as he usually does!
John Carey
Fellow Columnist
http://peace-and-freedom.blogspot.com/
Anything with the "-phobia" modifier indicates an "irrational fear of." Where the evil POLITICAL cult of Islam is concerned, we need not say we suffer from a "phobia" any more than those of whom abhor Naziism, its ideological half-brother. There should be worldwide condemnation of any ideology that is, at its core, anti-life and anti-humanity. Islamofascists are, properly identified, nothing but Humanophobes.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
This cartoon sums it up perfectly.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
...and whomever would choose to speak out would immediately be dubbed a traitor/infidel and a fatwa would be issued. C'est la vie for an evil political cult.
All that taken into account, these folks are very, very wrong about what Islam represents. Islam represents mandatory submission to faith by the sword. Islam itself is the antithesis of every American value on freedom of religion. Islam is the anti-freedom faith. Islam is pure evil, though Muslims individually and as a group can be very nice people.
The problem is the trust issue. It's very unlikely that a local Baptist, Lutheran, or fundamentalist Christian kid will grab a sword or gun and go on a killing spree in the name of Christ (even if they should be vehemently pro-life). However, any Muslim kid who takes his Quran seriously, or worships earnestly at his local Mosque, would likely take up his Jihad for Allah, and become a threat to his non-Muslim neighbors.
Islam is the enemy; Muslims are Islam's foot soldiers. An extraordinary number of Muslims will have to die before the Islamic world will reevaluate Jihad and the faith. There's very little that the U.S. institutionally can do to dissuade thise religious zealots, for whom the penalty is death if they should decline their Jihad and abandon Allah. And of course, some of these "radical" Muslims see real opportunity for power and riches on earth if they realize their goal of a worldwide caliphate.
As unfortunate as it may be, if these Muslims do not die, many Americans and other non-Muslims certainly will. The only way to win this war is to break the Shiite and Sunni Wahhabi interpretation of Islamic faith. We must inflict massive pain on persons and targets of value to Muslims. We have no alternative but to test their oft stated premise that they prefer death over life. There will be no "Martin Luther's" in Islam based on the current Quran, unless he's wielding a sword, killing non-Muslims, and raping non-Muslim women into submission.
SFS
I read that Ralph Peter's column. Truly it was "pollyannaish". Sure, the vast majority of Muslim's aren't bloodthirsty Jihadis, but that's about as important as the fact that most Germans weren't bloodthirsty Nazis. The current mind set of world Islam is a choice between either slavish obedience to oppression and brutality or murderous rage. We'd better all expect it to get a lot worse before it gets better.
I don't buy it. Why then haven't the Muslims in this country spoken out? Here, where they would have the support of the rest of the nation. They could be the driving force for the moderates around the world but they don't say anything.
""It's easy to see that it is extremely crucial for religious leaders on both side(s) to continue their efforts in reaching out to each other to mend relations.
These fringe groups do not represent the faith or the genuine teachings of the prophet Muhammad."
The only 'moderate' Muslims in the USA are those too intimidated (Thank God) by our laws and police to join the jihad.
If they thought for a minute that American society would accept their monstrous ideology, they would join fellow Islamo-fanatics with all four feet.
I wouldn't characterize any vision of a Muslim as "real" opportunity.
After all, there are scant (if any) devout Muslim countries which have created a society of "riches" and technological advance without the help of the US or the Brits.
Pure Islam never leads to riches or the technological betterment of society.
The only thing holding up the crazy Muslim countries now is the billions of $$ in oil money going their way.
Rush interviewed him for last month .. and I don't see any relation to this screed and the real Ralph Peters.
I don't know where they're getting their information, but Peters didn't say any of these things in his interview with Rush.
Muslims blame their failures on the West. Their perpetual sense of victim-hood and perceived right to rule drives their religious fervor. Muslims collectively are "nobodies"; Allah makes them somebody, tells them who to kill to avenge their hopeless status, and promises them title to our lands, property, and as concubines and slaves, our women and children as their just reward.
SFS
He demonstrates ignorance of religions, and religious differences. He ignores significant context in his evaluation.
As an example, as a person with a Christian world view who is convinced by historical evidence of Biblical truth, and from that the truth of Christ, His Gospel, heaven and hell, and right and wrong, I can identify with the Muslim "extremist" who kills for Allah and sends Muslim kids out to die for Allah in attempts to kill innocents. I understand their faith and their conviction, even it they are wholly deceived and too ignorant to understand that they have been deceived. Their ideal of God is a lie, and their understanding of "God's Will" is Satanic. However, I understand a faith that's worth dying for, which gives me an clear understanding of the seriousness of the threat of Islam. Peters lacks this understanding, which is why he misunderstands Islam.
As we used to say in the Navy, "This is not a drill". Islam is a real threat, and will be a persistent threat, until they suffer sufficiently crushing defeats and enough Muslims die to convince them that they may have misinterpreted Allah's will. The Muslims have spoken in one voice, and claim that they prefer death to life, that there is nothing they might lose that could dissuade them in pursuit of Jihad. However, that is an Islamic lie; everyone has something they value and cannot tolerate losing. The West needs to apply the appropriate amount of "pain" to the appropriate targets that Muslims do value, to end their war. They need to conclude that "perhaps Allah intends Muslims to just leave the 'dhimmitude' alone". Until Islam speaks that message with one voice, our lives are in constant peril; all the Muslims need are the modern weapons and the means of conveyance.
SFS
"Muslims blame their failures on the West. Their perpetual sense of victim-hood and perceived right to rule drives their religious fervor."
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