Krauthammer: The Enemy Is Not Islam. It Is Nihilism

As a leader of Hamas declared at a rally three days after the World Trade Center attack, "the only solution is for Bush to convert to Islam."

This is a pretty good post. People need to keep in mind Muslims mean something other than what we think when they say they are "peace-loving", they believe they will be as soon as the whole world is living under Islamic law and forced to practice this faith. This is the peace they are after and to them the ends justifies the means.

On the up side---they'll have Hillary, Janet Reno, Jane Fonda and all the feminists in long garments and veils over their faces.

I have been predicting that this would devolve into a war of the USA against Islam from Sept. 11 on. The kicker is that we know Pakistan has Nukes (acknowledgement of William Jefferson Clinton's contribution hereby made). The means to deliver nuclear weapons do not have to be sophisticated unless we are engaged in a total war from our side. The involvement of China is yet to be determined and I am not optimistic about how that will turn.

It is going to get a whole lot uglier here. I refer once again to the ongoing harassment attacks of Anthrax. Yes they are "pinpricks" in one sense but they keep us very busy with little real expenditure of resources on their part. Each letter with talcum powder cuases a reaction and costs us far more than the $.34 stamp on the letter. Hazmat crews are getting exhausted and labs that test the powders are getting very tired. The US Post Office is perhaps an unplanned target of these attacks.

I am concerned about what these pin priclks are diverting our attention from.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

I think we will find oil all over the place when the arab oil stops flowing!

And our petroleum industry will BOOM! Lots of jobs in ASAP oil extraction.

The sooner all islamic nations are quarantined the safer we will be.

The first attack on the WTC killed about ten people, the next attack killed 6,000.

The first anthrax attacks killed one, (so far), when they perfect their delivery systemn the next attack will kill??

I worry that in the confusion of the coming overthrow of Musharraf, some of the Paki nukes will disappear. Months later, they may "turn up" in a shipping container in Long Beach or Norfolk.

Did you read Pat's latest rant on his web site? The whole thing was basically a "Bush needs to be careful" piece. Trust me. the Patsies are laying low now because they are waiting to see what happens.

Remember in the Guld War how Buchanan said that their would be thousands of our troops killed? This time around the BUSH he sees that it's wisest to keep his mouth shut. That way he can ramp up the criticism when the going get tough.

I agree entirely with your post. It's extremely accurate regarding European history.

The Enemy Is Not Islam. It Is Nihilism

In its nihilism, its will to power, its celebration of blood and death, its craving for the cleansing purity that comes only from eradicating life and culture, radical Islam is heir, above all, to Nazism.

Sorry Charlie, the enemy is not nihilism, or even radical Islam (which is a self-redundant phrase). The enemy is the Koran itself:

Medina Suras
The Chapter of Women
[Chapters from the Koran]
The Harvard Classics 1909–14
But if there befalls you grace from God, he would say—as though there were no friendship between you and him—‘O would that I had been with thee to attain this mighty happiness!’ Let those then fight in God’s way who sell this life of the world for the next; and whoso fights in God’s way, then, be he killed or be he victorious, we will give him a mighty hire.
What ails you that ye do not fight in God’s way, and for the weak men and women and children, who say, ‘Lord, bring us out of this town 19 of oppressive folk, and make for us from Thee a patron, and make for us from Thee a help?’
Those who believe fight in the way of God; and those who disbelieve fight in the way of Tâghût; fight ye then against the friends of Satan, verily, Satan’s tricks are weak.
Do ye not see those to whom it is said, ‘Restrain your hands, and be steadfast in prayer and give alms;’ and when it is prescribed for them to fight then a band of them fear men, as though it were the fear of God or a still stronger fear, and they say, ‘O our Lord! why hast thou prescribed for us to fight, couldst thou not let us abide till our near appointed time?’ Say, ‘The enjoyment of this world is but slight, and the next is better for him who fears;’—but they shall not be wronged a straw.

...
Why are ye two parties about the hypocrites, when God hath overturned them for what they earned? Do ye wish to guide those whom God hath led astray? Whoso God hath led astray ye shall not surely find for him a path. They would fain that ye misbelieve as they misbelieve, that ye might be alike; take ye not patrons from among them until they too flee in God’s way; but if they turn their backs, then seize them and kill them wheresoever ye find them, and take from them neither patron nor help,—save those who reach a people betwixt whom and you is an alliance—or who come to you while their bosoms prevent them from fighting you or fighting their own people. But had God pleased He would have given you dominion over them, and they would surely have fought you. But if they retire from you and do not fight you, and offer you peace,—then God hath given you no way against them.
Ye will find others who seek for quarter from you, and quarter from their own people; whenever they return to sedition they shall be overturned therein: but if they retire not from you, nor offer you peace, nor restrain their hands, then seize them and kill them wheresoever ye find them;—over these we have made for you manifest power.

Great post Jason, far better thought out historically than my quick rant. But I must disagree on a couple of points. The Moslems will not ever "get it" as they are stuck in a Mohammad is purity, we got to go there first thing. Until they succeed in pushing back the clock to 650ad they will never listen. New ideas are an anathema to them, you will never teach them any western ideas. It is true that internal corruption has been the driving force behind Islam, but for a religion founded on conquest, and the spoils of war, it is the best you can hope for. I guess the difference between Hinduism and Islam vs. Christianity in my mind is that there is a Christ, who actively intervenes in the affairs of mankind. Man much prefers religion to reality, and I am speaking of the reality of God. Man can control religion, he can not control a God who intervenes. I would guess that over 75% of all major scientific breakthroughs were made by either Jews or Christians in history. While one man with a close relationship with God postulates that the earth is round, many men with Power by Religion fight him. Funny, Jesus when he came hated the lawyers and the Religious leaders. Dead Laws are not his friends.

We reach the end of communication when I say that I believe in the workings of God, as I have seen them in my life. I can just say "I believe". I also believe that the focal points of mankind’s advances were in most cases people who believe. I think that if you compare the Babylonian empire to the Roman Empire (and make adjustments by the time differential) or the Egyptian empire, that the Babylonian and Egyptian Empires were far and away beyond what Rome Achieved with far less technology. Where is Iraq now, Egypt now, vs Rome now?

I do not have near your grasp of the minutia of history, hats off. But the macro picture? Since Islam, No Moslem nation has ever achieved much of anything except conquest. If Saudi Arabia lost its oil (which is a limited resource) would you invest in hi tech there or any other Islamic country? Medicine? Manufacturing? Agriculture? About a third of the world is under Islam’s thumb. Gives us a great selection. Why is the bottom of the worlds productive (intelectualy) areas all in the Moslem nations? It is not a coincidence. Islam appeals to the unlearned, the fleshly. Kill and die for virgins and feasts indeed!

I am perhaps too religious, I believe America is great Because of God, not despite God. Anyway, thanks for the post, I will print it out and study it. Blessings!

They can find the lessons in their own history, if they will listen to reason. Moorish Spain practiced religious tolerance at a time when the west was still uniformly intolerant. You can notice this sort of thing with a theologically important "predictor" about the status of religious minorities, in the treatment of the Jews.

The Crusaders of the first crusade spent the day after taking the cross murdering Jews. Meanwhile Moses Maimonides, the greatest Jewish medieval scholar, was a respected figure at court in Egypt and Syria. When Moorish Spain was reconquered by Christians, many of the Jews fled to Turkey or Holland to avoid the persecution that immediately followed. Some of those that went to Holland remembered what religious tolerance had been like, and not long afterward the Dutch revolt from Spain was the first successful Protestant revolt from a Catholic king. Tolerance had to be relearned in the west, and medieval Islam had a small part in that process.

And they did listen to reason in theology at one time. Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes were not committed to darkness and persecution of free thought. They even influenced western theology, particularly that of Acquinas. Some of their own theologians opposed these tendencies, out of fear of secularism. They threw the baby of reason out with the bathwater of unbelief, and the Islamic world has produced precious little in the way of science or learning since. Some thinkers in the Muslim world in our own day have recalled this, and suggested it was the key mistake. Avicenna could have been their Acquinas, if they had listened. It is not too late for them to start listening now.

I understand your religious outlook on history, but it seems to me it leaves too little room for the known nuances of wickedness. If Christianity taught that all Christians are righteous, your reading, true or false, might be the Christian one. But that is not Christian doctrine. Christianity does not insist on the universal righteousness of Christians, but on the universal fallenness of all men. All men can be evil. Many outwardly profess what they in no way understand in their hearts. Many crimes caused by human passions - greed and hatred, ungoverned zeal, love of power - have been dressed in pretty language. This makes it untrustworthy to judge men and deeds by outward professions of religious affiliation.

As Lord Acton put it, "in judging men and things, ethics go before dogma, politics, or nationality. The ethics of history cannot be denominational. Judge not according to the orthodox standard of a system, religious, philosophical, political, but according as things promote or fail to promote the delicacy, integrity, and authority of conscience. Put conscience above both system and success.

"The moral code is not new, it has long been known. It is not universally accepted even in Europe, even now. The difference in moral insight between past and present is not very large. But the notion and analysis of conscience is scarcely older than 1700, and the notion and analysis of veracity in history is scarcely older than our own time. In Christendom, time and place do not excuse - if the Apostle's Code sufficed for salvation. A good cause proves less in a man's favor than a bad cause against him.

"Faith must be sincere. When defended by sin it is not sincere; theologically, it is not faith. God's grace does not operate by sin. Transpose the nominative and the accusative and see how things look then (i.e. apply the golden rule). The systems of Barrow, Baxter, Bossuet are higher, spiritually, constructively, scientifically, than Penn's (Quakers). In our scales his (Penn's) high morality outweighs them."

In addition to Acton's wise words on the subject, I point out the effect that religious tolerance in the Muslim world would have for your own religious outlook. Missionaries can operate wherever there is tolerance, but cannot breath where it is not recognized. Islamic orthodoxy today regards apostacy from Islam as not only a sin, but as a capital crime. There is little prospect of evangelizing the Muslim world before they learn the principle of freedom of conscience.

Religious confidence ought not to shrink from freedom of conscience. To confess a dependence on intolerance, or on fighting another religion as an implacable enemy with physical rather than spiritual arms, is to confess a lack of faith in the attraction of truth. It is in the interest of your religious views too, no less than in the interest of justice among Muslims, and in our country's interest in its relations with Muslim countries, to see religious tolerance established in that part of the world.

Nor are you "allowed", theologically, to give up on one sixth of the human race. Justice may arise where it is least looked for, even in a despised malefactor at the gallows - when no one else understood - if only he is willing to say rightly "but this man has done nothing wrong." Charity, Chesterton once said, is a mystical agnosticism about the complexities of the soul. For what it is worth.

Don't be a simpleton. The jihadists did not destroy the Bamiyan Buddhas because of a Jewish connection. There is no Jewish connection in the South Philippines, Indonesia, Kashmir, Chechnya, Sudan, Algeria, Nigeria, etc etc.
The problem is the insane death cult called radical islam.

Exactly, this isn’t about Judaism or Nihilism. Its about Islam.

patent +AMDG

Don't be sorry when expounding the truth.

Here's my new slogan:

"ISLAM HAS A DEATH WISH!"

That is both on an individual "martyr's" level, as well on the macro level where islam is rushing like lemmings to the sea in a last ditch go for broke final jihad.

When I was a youngster, the phrase "the only good jap is a dead jap" was not only PC at the time, it was true. People counted seconds by saying, "one dead jap, two dead japs, etc,". Well, that war is over and the japs are OK now, after being straightened out atomically.

We are now faced with a new situation. A situation not unlike the one we faced in 1941. Strange zealots for whom suicide is not only acceptable, but an honor. Ignorant of the ways of the real world, they are frightened and suspicious of anyone who is different from them. Requiring each others' approval, destroying that which they do not understand is the only road they know to travel.

It may take a while for our current flavor of PC to wear off, but as moslems here are pretty clear in their tacit approval of the actions against the "infidel" or "kafir", it's just a matter of time before the PC wears off and we call the moslem community to account.

It might interest some of the younger folks to know that when the japs were put into the internment camps, it was done for their own protection. The government and the media was full of "kill the buck toothed monkey jap" posters because that's how wars are won.

I hope we all retire PC and see these anti-American moslems for what they are. No matter where they live.

Outstanding posts!

Mmmmmm..........? No!

It's Islam.