Posted on 01/15/2015 11:16:04 AM PST by Servant of the Cross
It is settled: The Paris terror attacks had almost nothing to do with Islam.
If there is any doubt about this, consider that on the one hand, you have the chilling new tape of the Charlie Hebdo attackers declaring, “We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad,” and on the other, you have the tortured reassurances of White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
Which are you going to believe?
The Obama administration’s mind-bogglingly determined refusal to say that we are at war with “radical Islam,” together with the left’s evasions about Islamic terrorism, means that there has been a haze of euphemism and cowardice around what should be a galvanizing event in the West’s fight against terror.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, Howard Dean opined on “Morning Joe” that the Muslims who had killed the staff of Charlie Hebdo aren’t Muslims. Not usually known as a leading Orientalist, the former Vermont governor shared his interpretation of one of the world’s leading Islamic terror groups, “I think ISIS is a cult. Not an Islamic cult. I think it’s a cult.”
Dean didn’t specify what kind of cult ISIS is, if not Islamic. Or what otherwise accounts for its strange obsession with taking over territory in Syria and Iraq to establish a caliphate and to impose a harsh version of Islamic law.
Obviously, not all Muslims, or even a majority of them, support terrorism. We don’t want to be needlessly insulting to Muslims or alienate allies in the Muslim world. But it is possible to avoid those pitfalls and still be truthful about the threat that emanates from within Islam, which serves the cause of intellectual clarity.
Forget clarity—the administration has lapsed into unselfconscious ridiculousness. Asked why the administration won’t say we are at war with radical Islam, Earnest on Tuesday explained the administration’s first concern “is accuracy. We want to describe exactly what happened. These are individuals who carried out an act of terrorism, and they later tried to justify that act of terrorism by invoking the religion of Islam and their own deviant view of it” (emphasis added).
This makes it sound as if the Charlie Hebdo terrorists set out to commit a random act of violent extremism and only subsequently, when they realized that they needed some justification, did they reach for Islam.
The day before, Earnest had conceded that there are lists of recent “examples of individuals who have cited Islam as they’ve carried out acts of violence.” Cited Islam? According to the Earnest theory—if this formulation is to be taken seriously—purposeless violent extremists rummage through the scriptures of great faiths, looking for some verses to cite to support their mayhem and often happen to settle on the holy texts of Islam.
It was in this spirit that State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf said on Fox News that the militants of Boko Haram “claim to be active in the name of Islam” (emphasis added). So add alleged insincerity to the list of offenses that can be attributed to the hideous group formally known as People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad.
The problem with all this dancing around the obvious is that it makes it impossible to take Islamic terrorists seriously on their own terms. Both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were “violent extremists,” but it is impossible to understand either without acknowledging their ideological motivations—and calling them by their proper names.
Perhaps the administration’s highest-profile initiative in response to Paris is a Summit on (what else?) Countering Violent Extremists. It seeks “to prevent violent extremists and their supporters from radicalizing, recruiting, or inspiring groups in the United States and abroad to commit acts of violence.”
Who are these violent extremists with such magnetic pull and global reach? They could be anybody, to believe the administration. It is certainly true that you will always have random haters and nuts, including Christian nuts like the evil Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik. And it is certainly true that there are a few non-Islamic groups on the State Department terrorism list.
But they aren’t top of mind, and for good reason. The Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo isn’t launching many attacks on the West. Basque terrorists aren’t recruiting would-be operatives around the world to come back to Spain and learn how to make bombs for spectacular attacks overseas (in fact, the ETA has declared a cease-fire).
In a piece at the Daily Beast arguing that the threat of Islamic terrorism is exaggerated by the media, Dean Obeidallah cites all the separatist groups in Europe committing terror attacks, including the FLNC, which agitates for Corsican independence. Perhaps when the FLNC knocks down its first skyscraper in the United States or shoots down its first newsroom full of Western journalists, it will get the dire media attention that Obeidallah thinks it deserves. (Surely, somewhere in Corsica the equivalent of MSNBC is arguing that the FLNC isn’t truly Corsican.)
One of the differences between random killers and Islamic terrorists is that the latter have a significant physical and ideological infrastructure behind them, including terror groups that hold territory and Islamic authorities who justify jihad.
The Ayotollah Khomeini didn’t think Islam is what we would understand as a religion of peace. Was Khomeini, despite his lecturing for decades at centers of Islamic learning, and notwithstanding his leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran, not a Muslim?
Saudi Arabia, the Sunni counterpart of Shia Iran that also imagines itself the keeper of the faith, promotes a harsh version of Islam that has proved a potent breeding ground for terrorism. Are the Saudis not Muslim, either?
On the ground, Muslim popular sentiment often is, at the very least, inconsistent with modernity. According to the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, 74 percent of Egyptians support making Sharia the law of the land, and of those, 70 percent favor corporal punishment for crimes such as theft, 81 percent favor stoning for adultery and 86 percent support the death penalty for converts from Islam.
It is possible to support all those things and still be appalled by the Charlie Hedbo attack (about 20 percent of Egyptians have a favorable view of Al Qaeda, according to Pew), but the point is that there is a broad war of ideas within Islam between the forces of reaction and violence and the forces of moderation and modernity.
The threat of radical Islam won’t diminish until that war is won, no matter how much the U.S. government wants to obscure it with its verbal fog machine.
Well we got this Islam thing going on , the Catholics want to turn the world communist Im thinking a cage match between the two and the rest of us sane people can be left alone.
Obviously, not all Muslims, or even a majority of them, support terrorism. We don’t want to be needlessly insulting to Muslims or alienate allies in the Muslim world.
This is a professional writer? Can someone please get this guy an editor? This reads as if it were written in Hindi and translated using Google Translate
I’m all for insulting the false prophet Mohammed as much as possible and making him a perpetual object of ridicule!
>Obviously, not all Muslims, or even a majority of them, support terrorism.<
.
Although that statement is meticulously repeated over and over again, not enough data has been made available to support its use.
1. A muslim believes in the absolutism of the Koran. Any deviation in belief in strict interpretaion of the Koran, Hadith and Surah, and one is not a muslim, moderate or otherwise.
2. The Koran advocates the slaying of all infidels (non-believers of Islam.)
3. The Hadith advocates the establishment of a world caliphate, Dar al Islam. This can only be accomplished by conversion to Islam, death to the infidel, or slavery (dhimmitude.)
So, just what does toleration of moderate Muslims really mean to the Western Civilization?
Do the Muslims worry about offending people when they murder innocents?
Josh’s boss told him to say nice things about the bearded savages. He obeyed. Josh is a first class liar. He’s real good at it. Maybe he should get a job as a used-car salesman after 0 is out of office.
It would seem everything done on the name of Islam has nothing to with ialam.
But put a crosshairs on a pamphlet and every tea parier is a blood thirsty murderer.
Perhaps the administration’s highest-profile initiative in response to Paris is a Summit on (what else?) Countering Violent Extremists. It seeks “to prevent violent extremists and their supporters from radicalizing, recruiting, or inspiring groups in the United States and abroad to commit acts of violence.”
Who are these violent extremists with such magnetic pull and global reach?
Rich Lowry still doesn't get it. Obama is after conservatives... I'll be back with the link...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3246444/posts
links at link... Rich Lowry - what if this list was made up of hand picked left leaning groups?
It is a list of 72 types of Americans that are considered to be “extremists” or “potential terrorists” in official U.S. government documents. This list will really give you a good idea of what Barack Obama means when he uses the word “extremist”. Each of these 72 items is linked, so if you would like to go see the original source document for yourself, just click on the link. As you can see, this list potentially includes most of the country…
1. Those that talk about “individual liberties”
2. Those that advocate for states’ rights
3. Those that want “to make the world a better place”
4. “The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule”
5. Those that are interested in “defeating the Communists”
6. Those that believe “that the interests of one’s own nation are separate from the interests of other nations or the common interest of all nations”
7. Anyone that holds a “political ideology that considers the state to be unnecessary, harmful,or undesirable”
8. Anyone that possesses an “intolerance toward other religions”
9. Those that “take action to fight against the exploitation of the environment and/or animals”
10. “Anti-Gay”
11. “Anti-Immigrant”
12. “Anti-Muslim”
13. “The Patriot Movement”
14. “Opposition to equal rights for gays and lesbians”
15. Members of the Family Research Council
16. Members of the American Family Association
17. Those that believe that Mexico, Canada and the United States “are secretly planning to merge into a European Union-like entity that will be known as the ‘North American Union’”
18. Members of the American Border Patrol/American Patrol
19. Members of the Federation for American Immigration Reform
20. Members of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition
21. Members of the Christian Action Network
22. Anyone that is “opposed to the New World Order”
23. Anyone that is engaged in “conspiracy theorizing”
24. Anyone that is opposed to Agenda 21
25. Anyone that is concerned about FEMA camps
26. Anyone that “fears impending gun control or weapons confiscations”
27. The militia movement
28. The sovereign citizen movement
29. Those that “don’t think they should have to pay taxes”
30. Anyone that “complains about bias”
31. Anyone that “believes in government conspiracies to the point of paranoia”
32. Anyone that “is frustrated with mainstream ideologies”
33. Anyone that “visits extremist websites/blogs”
34. Anyone that “establishes website/blog to display extremist views”
35. Anyone that “attends rallies for extremist causes”
36. Anyone that “exhibits extreme religious intolerance”
37. Anyone that “is personally connected with a grievance”
38. Anyone that “suddenly acquires weapons”
39. Anyone that “organizes protests inspired by extremist ideology”
40. “Militia or unorganized militia”
41. “General right-wing extremist”
42. Citizens that have “bumper stickers” that are patriotic or anti-U.N.
43. Those that refer to an “Army of God”
44. Those that are “fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)”
45. Those that are “anti-global”
46. Those that are “suspicious of centralized federal authority”
47. Those that are “reverent of individual liberty”
48. Those that “believe in conspiracy theories”
49. Those that have “a belief that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack”
50. Those that possess “a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism”
51. Those that would “impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)”
52. Those that would “insert religion into the political sphere”
53. Anyone that would “seek to politicize religion”
54. Those that have “supported political movements for autonomy”
55. Anyone that is “anti-abortion”
56. Anyone that is “anti-Catholic”
57. Anyone that is “anti-nuclear”
58. “Rightwing extremists”
59. “Returning veterans”
60. Those concerned about “illegal immigration”
61. Those that “believe in the right to bear arms”
62. Anyone that is engaged in “ammunition stockpiling”
63. Anyone that exhibits “fear of Communist regimes”
64. “Anti-abortion activists”
65. Those that are against illegal immigration
66. Those that talk about “the New World Order” in a “derogatory” manner
67. Those that have a negative view of the United Nations
68. Those that are opposed “to the collection of federal income taxes”
69. Those that supported former presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin and Bob Barr
70. Those that display the Gadsden Flag (“Don’t Tread On Me”)
71. Those that believe in “end times” prophecies
72. Evangelical Christians
Do you fit into any of those categories?
Personally, I fit into a couple dozen of them.
That is why alarm bells should go off whenever Barack Obama speaks of the need to crack down on “extremism”.
If Barack Obama wants to denounce Islamic terror, he should do so.
It's true. But not all Germans or even a majority of them, supported murdering Jews and their children in World War II Germany... but 'the quiet ones' were cowards - and their silence gave permission. A majority of Russians didn't favor staving hundreds of thousands of Russians to death to prove the value of collective farms either. Or the lie of collective farms... (Hello New York Times enablers - you won a prize for that one)...
"So what" you might ask. And you'd be right to wonder...
So what if most people of any religion or racial group just wants to 'live their lives and be left alone'... Policy can never be made based on that group... never on the silent ones... the cowards... They're only good for the thugs to point to... 'see how good we are?'
Our battle must be open - and obvious - and our battle is with the movers and shakers of radical Islam... It doesn't matter how the 'quiet' muslims feel... they have no say... and never will... by choice.
“the Catholics want to turn the world communist....”
Balderdash.
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