Posted on 11/12/2006 6:27:25 AM PST by Valin
I was in a recent discussion about the war on terror and the nature of the Radical Wahhabi sect of Muslims. One person felt that war is wrong and that a pacifistic approach would be more successful. To engage in war was to become like your enemy, and to retain our humanity we must be pacifists.
This person cited Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Jesus as examples of successful pacifists. I agree that pacifism is preferable to war in instances where it is logical to follow that path. In other words, it has to work.
In the case of Gandhi, it worked because he was fighting a country that had moral lines that they would not cross. He wore the British down. They would never have gathered up their enemies and gleefully beheaded them with dull knives. That would have been contrary to what a civilized nation does to its subjects. So in the case of Gandhi, pacifism worked.
It worked for Martin Luther King because he was in America. Again, America does not believe in the use of dull knives and beheading as a means to an end. In America, among other rights granted in our constitution, people are guaranteed the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It worked for Jesus' followers when society adapted its beliefs to a more Christian outlook. Jesus was a martyr, and it took many years for Christianity to catch on.
Historically, pacifism didn't work to stop Hitler. When he rose to power, Jewish pacifism made it easier for him to round them up. One neighborhood put up a fight, but that was only after they realized what was happening to the other Jews already taken. By then it was too late. Negotiations went on with Hitler for seven years before World War II finally broke out. That gave him seven years to round up the undesirables and deposit them into his death camps. Six million people were murdered. You can kill a lot of people in seven years while negotiating in bad faith. Hitler had his plan and he stuck with it. It did not stop until war broke out, and he was forced to stop.
Let's look at Stalin. Seven million purge victims were put in labor/death camps, on top of the hundreds of thousands who had been slaughtered outright.
Neither Hitler nor Stalin seemed to have much patience with objections from their citizens. Logically I can't see passive resistance as an option to stopping their plans.
So will pacifism work in the case of radical Muslim terrorists ? Well first off, if you have read the Koran, there are many passages advocating the killing of infidels. The Wahhabis whole-heartedly agree with these passages and interpret them to mean all non-believers. In fact, it is the only holy book that I know of that can be interpreted to advocate the killing of non-believers. These fascists hold the power in the Muslim world. The Muslims who disagree are for the most part silent. And can you blame them? The crazy guys have the guns. They believe they have Allah on their side, and will kill Muslims just as easily if they disagree. The Wahhabi fundamentalists also believe in expansionism and have been working to achieve that goal since this crazy sect was first restarted back in the beginning of the 20th century. And it seems to be working.
Radical Muslims have caused the deaths of more than 10 million people in half a century. The count continues to rise. They continue to move into other countries and demand their religious rights. When enough arrive and the local population refuses to convert, they are killed. More than two million Christians have been killed by Wahhabi Muslims in Sudan since 1989. Now African Muslims are being killed by these radicals in the Darfur region. Algeria has a death count of a quarter-million Muslim citizens being killed by Wahhabis. In Spain, protests have been breaking out and rioting has occurred in the streets. In the Philippines, kidnapping and assassinations are occurring more often. There are problems in Chechnya, France, Denmark and Norway. The United States was attacked on 9/11. Radical Muslims are behind all of this. In Palestine, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, money is funneled to support this terrorism. Saddam Hussein, former ruler of Iraq, also gave money to terrorist bombers, and turned a blind eye to terrorists meeting within his borders because promoting unrest in the Middle East allowed him a firmer control of his own corrupt and murderous government.
If you do not convert to their radical form of Islam, then you are an infidel. You can be lied to, and killed without any consequences. When you are not even granted basic civil rights, which we here in America take for granted, how do you expect passive resistance to work?
Pacifism helps radical Muslims, just as it helped Hitler during World War II. Pacifism allows the killing to continue.
You mean redeploy and cower in the corner isnt a sound
policy. You mean they wont just go away if we ignore them?
There are certainly situations in which pacifism works, but this war against radical/fundamental islam isn't one of them.
Yeah, it worked so well with Hitler.
You can say that again.
Dear Sandra,
Basically you are right, however Hitler didn't round up his victims during the seven years prior to the out break of war. Yes he started the concentration lager but the extermination camps only after war had begun and the vast majority of the killing was done in the later six months of the war.
t.
"This person cited Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Jesus as examples of successful pacifists"
But they forfeited their lives in the process.
One thing we can debate is whether the Commandment says 'Thou shalt not kill' or 'Thou shalt not kill thy neighbor.'
http://www.google.com/search?hl=xx-elmer&q=%22liberal+iraq+war+plans%22
Your search - "liberal iraq war plans" - did not match any documents. Oh, dat scwewy wabbit!
ping
The gist of it was: To what extent do you have the right to permit evil or to accept evil done to others? You yourself can accept it, if it happens to you in a way that you can't avoid, but don't you also have the duty to protect others if you can? Saying "Peace" is such an easy and false solution.
You understand this, I understand this. So why doesn't the left? Are we that smart, or are they that dumb?
bookmark ping-a-ling & THANKS Valin
Mohandas Gandhi -- murdered at age 79 by a Hindu extremist; His beloved India then descended into civil war, poverty, and starvation that continues even today with the ever-present friction between India and Pakistan.
Martin Luther King -- murdered at age 39 by a racial extremist; Protested the unequal treatment of black Americans through a series of marches, speeches, and nonviolent demonstrations. His cause was taken up by a group of self-serving whores who perpetuate racial tension in order to maintain their status as "black leaders."
Jesus Christ -- murdered at age 33 by Jewish Establishment types. His followers spread his teachings throughout the known world, and codified a religion that has become the dominant moral authority in the world. Men still steal, murder, rape, and elect Democrats.
In the end, how "successful" were any of them?
While pacifism may be the route to martyrdom, it has known only marginal success as a defensive strategy. And while this flower child may be willing to lay down /hisher life to avoid spilling anyone's blood, he/she has no right to demand that others make the same sacrifice.
Gandhi's pacifism succeeded because he appealed to a moral principle. The same with Martin Luther King. Christ was the AUTHOR of much of that moral principle.
"Moral" does not describe our Muslim enemies. By their very nature, terrorists are not bound by any moral code save that they write themselves as a justification for their barbarity. You can scream platitudes into an empty cave with more effect than an appeal to the conscience of a people who have none.
I don't understand the attitude of pacifists, especially in the case of Islamic fanatics.
The fanatics are like schoolyard bullies, who will continue to bully others until somebody comes along who refuses to knuckle under and kicks the bully's butt. They'll then decide that bullying doesn't pay.
The reason we have won previous wars is that the people we were fighting didn't really want to themselves die. Radical Islamists believe that death is preferable. You can't negotiate with people who have no regard for their own lives. You just have to kill them. I hope the people soon to be in charge get this. But I'm sure they don't.
Some years ago, there was a point made that some men suffer from a "Peter Pan" syndrome (I think I might have at that time). It seems the left, as a voting bloc, still suffers from a "Peter and Wendy" syndrome.
They haven't yet attended and graduated from the School of Hard Knocks.
I'm not a pacifist, but all three were profoundly successful and, in the case of Jesus, His success is profound because of His death.
btt
How?
Did Gandhi succeed in unifying India? Did King eradicate racism? Did Christ build a world of love and brotherhood?
No. They all did their piece, and they are monuments to ideas. But human flaws will always triumph over human ideals.
We simply can't reach the heights we can see.
And Christ's "success" came not because of His death, but because of His resurrection.
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