Islamophobia (review of "Engaging the Muslim World") (barf alert)

New York Times ^ | May 7, 2009 | David Sanger

[reaganaut1]

...

Like Lawrence Wright’s remarkable “Looming Tower,” published almost three years ago, this field guide to the politics of modern Islam traces the history of the different movements, whose violent offshoots are still morphing into new forms. Along the way, Cole, a historian at the University of Michigan, explores what he sees as the twin dynamic of “Islam Anxiety” in the United States and “American Anxiety” in the Arab world.

Readers of Cole’s blog, Informed Comment, will find many of the arguments familiar, though they are well assembled here, with essays on the myths surrounding Saudi Wahhabism, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the unintended side effects of American meddling in Iran. Cole starts his book in the right place: America’s addiction to Middle Eastern oil, which has skewed policy and often led us to support dictators we would ordinarily put on the list of human-rights violators. (The Saudis would probably qualify.) And he declares a truth that should be sobering to President Obama: “The fact is that we are likely to become more dependent on Islamic oil in the coming decades, not less,” he writes, noting that 11 of the top 15 exporters of oil are countries with Muslim majorities.

Oil, he points out, got us into Iraq in the first place. Faced with a coup in Baghdad in 1958 that overthrew a friendly government, President Dwight Eisenhower declared, “We have to act or get out of the Middle East.”

Cole is at his most effective in making the case that Western politicians who talk of Islamofascists not only insult an entire religion, they also misidentify the enemy. The terror groups we face are trying to hijack a religion.

[reaganaut1]

Later in the review even David Sanger admits that Juan Cole does not make sense. An FR search of "juancole" is informative. It would be nice to ignore such people, but he is a tenured professor of history at U Michigan and has probably influenced thousands of people.

[LS]

Wright makes it absolutely clear that far from "hijacking" a religion, these guys are rapidly BECOMING the religion.

I have a new book in the works called "Eight Events that Changed America," and one is Reagan's decision to first deploy "peacekeeping" troops in Lebanon, then after the Beirut bombing, to pull them out. That was two errors rolled into one. Reagan later recognized the first and called it his "greatest regret." He was only coming around to the second reality and never completely got it, that until Islam reforms itself (if at all possible), there really are no "moderates." He said almost this much in "An American Life."

[libertylover]

The terror groups we face are trying to hijack a religion.

Hogwash! If it were true then the leaders and ordinary followers of Islam would be fighting back against the "hijackers" and asking for help. Instead these leaders promote the killing of any and all non-believers.

[Cvengr]

The fundamental error in Islam is a failure to understand the perfect holiness of God. His Holiness is not only composed of His Perfect Righteousness, which they readily grasp, but also His Perfect Justice, which they seek to counterfeit.

Until His Perfect Justice is satiated by a proper atoning propitiating sacrifice to redeem any and every sin of humanity an each and every human, then we remain in a state of condemnation inherited from Adam, without a regenerated human spirit.

As humans, we all have the ability to identify good and evil (another consequence from original sin), so we still sense righteousness and yearn for justice, but while out of fellowship with God, we only sense an impending wrathful indignation from perfect righteousness when faced with unrighteousness or injustice.

Those who reject God's provision, will react in any number of alternate ways to their perceptions. Many confuse forgiveness with grace, and forgiveness with omission of judgment. Perfect justice demands judgment to be righteous, but judgment by the unrighteous is still unjust.

Until one operates through faith in Christ, a litany of unjust or unrighteous implications arise leading to even more unjust or unrighteous behavior in the consequence of evil.

[PGalt]

“Later in the review even David Sanger admits that Juan Cole does not make sense.”

Cole is an idiot.

A Citizen Warrior has a better grasp of Islam. “The Terrifying Brilliance of the Islamic Memeplex”...here...

http://www.citizenwarrior.com/2007/10/terrifying-brilliance-of-islamic.html

[Islaminaction]

Exactly! Mohammad himself was a terrorist. Professor Cole is just a leftist coward.