Start Of West's Fight Against Islam

The Boston Globe ^ | 1/19/03 | Jeff Jacoby column

[Gothmog]

It is clear that the president gave more thought to the conflict between militant Islam and the West than his father ever did when he was president. The George Bushes? No, the John Adamses.

The year was 1829, and John Quincy Adams was preoccupied with the Greek revolt against the Ottoman Empire that had raged for most of the decade. As Richard Samuelson explains in the new Claremont Review, Adams foresaw that the war for Greek independence was just the start of what would be a prolonged clash of civilizations. In an essay written shortly after he left the White House, Adams predicted that the Christian West, with its Enlightenment ideals of liberty, tolerance, and progress, would always be at daggers drawn with the Islamic East and its drive to bring the world under Koranic law.

It dismayed the former president that European elites were blind to the real stakes in the fight over Greece. The Ottomans, by contrast, understood exactly what they were fighting for. Adams quoted the Sultan: ''This is not like former contests, a political war for provinces and frontiers.... This war must be considered purely a religious war and a national war.'' Muslims must fight the infidels wherever they found them, the Sultan decreed, for West and East were now in a struggle for supremacy.

The war we are in is an old one. It didn't begin with Osama bin Laden.

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[ThirstyMan]

Jacoby is a bright light in a dark city.

[Savage Beast]

"When homicidal tyrants are appeased instead of crushed, young artists die in concentration camps."

Here's a more concise idea, Jeff:

"When homicidal tyrants are appeased instead of crushed, the innocent die."

Americans do not want war--ever.

We have already sent our sons to die on the beaches of Normandie. They walked directly into machinegun fire and gave their lives. Most were less than 20 years old.

They died because appeasers, such as Neville Chamberlain, could not learn from history and because too many fools believed that weakness and capitulation--not strength and courage--would somehow provide the path the peace.

Americans are the most peace-loving people in the history of the earth. However, the price of peace is the willingness to fight.

"Speak softly, but carry a big stick."

And do not hesitate to use it if you must.