Stop calling Islam the enemy

The International Herald Tribune ^ | Thursday, December 5, 2002 | William Pfaff

[Kaiwen]

PARIS A part of the neoconservative intelligentsia in Washington is trying to turn the Bush administration's "war against terrorism" into a war against Muslim civilization and the Islamic religion.

Such influential figures as Eliot Cohen of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Kenneth Adelman of the Defense Department advisory policy board, a former Reagan administration official, criticize President George W. Bush for his efforts to assure Muslims that his war is against terrorism, not against their religion.

[Dec31,1999]

I come across Muslims in my every-day life in NYC. None have ever denounced the attacks of the WTC.

Just doesn't happen.

[FBD]

This is a group of MUSLIMS holding a NAZI flag, to intimidate some Jewish people. And we who find this behaviour alarming, are BIGOTS?

[DoughtyOne]

When I think of this problem, I look back on those funerals with Moslem priests making many of the public comments. The family members not only had to suffer through the pain of the incidents themselves, they had to have the funerals taken over by people who most closely resembled the attackers. I thought that was about the most insensitive thing I had seen in my life. My opinion of that hasn't changed one iota.

[Stultis]

This author is really amazing, he just dances around and around trying to put the west to blame for all of the evils being thrown into our faces.

I don't see that he did that at all. For instance with respect to this:

"The Bush critics say Islam itself is America's enemy because Islamic religion and civilization are intolerant, hostile to Western values, proselytizing, expansionist and violent.

Note that the author, whatever he may privately think, never argued that this perception was necessarily wrong. Instead he confined his argument to the claim that targeting the culture as such is wrong. He further allowed that targeting instead the individuals, institutions and political entities that immediately manifest or promote such qualities (intolerance, hatred & violence) is legitimate, or at least that it is a different matter not suffering from the same illegitimacy as targeting the whole civilization or culture and (imlicitly) all its members. (It is not clear which of the two views the author actually holds.)

[lavaroise]

They are not a war of religion, and it is deeply irresponsible to try to turn them into one.

And who is turning them that way? It seems like the author is inconclusive, but brings up a good issue. We did not start this and Islam is well known to be in the business of telling others what their business should be. Women and children are used in Islam for Jihad, regularly. There is no sanctuary in Islam, all muslims have a duty to fight.

[lavaroise]

Today's clashes between America and elements of Islamic society reflect a power struggle inside Islamic society between fundamentalists and others;

Bull, moderate muslims, like the good Germans of WWII, are not fighting back. They are passive at best. Just look at Algeria where the GIA kills people just like that and people let them do it.

[Mark17]

And all wars have a solution. It's called victory--and it is achieved by defeating the enemy.

Carthage must be destroyed, I mean Islam must be destroyed.

[lavaroise]

These clashes between Muslims and Americans are important, dangerous and potentially even more violent than they have already become.

I disagree with the author too: who would be making the situation potentialy even more dangerous here? Us? We're just warning people that we have a job to do and we doubt Islam is compatible with that, because Islam has not sided with the US and Israel on the punishment of key terrorist acts.

WE cannot even do our jobs for goodness sakes while they are free to build mosques all over the country!!!

Someone saying we started it and that Islam is peace and containst moderates is dead freaking wrong.

[Dec31,1999]

Excellent point.

[lavaroise]

And all wars have a solution. It's called victory--and it is achieved by defeating the enemy.

ANd making sure the treaties' words are kept. How many time did Islam grow by breaking treaties, it is in their books and their methods. Islam is not a religion of G_d, it is a god self-privileging religion. It is Orwellian in its iconoclasm inherently. Enough said.

[dwills]

Given my acceptance of reasonable estimates that 150 million muslims are terrorist sympathizers and a sizable chunk of the remainder are anti-American, I labor under none of the illusions that you attribute to me. However, since you're living on the front lines, I'll ignore your incivility for the moment (though i wouldn't ignore that of a muslim extremist) and hope you've got a rational opinion on this question:

Does the pro-Americanism of Iranian students, or the sacrifice of Paks who die 10 to 1 capturing high level Al Qaeda (much also to their families' peril), give you any hope for humanity that transcends putative religious differences?

[lavaroise]

I know, the title would have been more useful if it said: Stop calling America the enemy

America-bashing is anti-Americanism at its most radical and totalizing. Its goal is not to advise, but to condemn; not to fix, but to destroy. It repudiates every thought of reform in any normal sense; it sees no difference between American liberals and American conservatives; it views every American action, both present and past, as an act of deliberate oppression and systemic exploitation. It is not that America went wrong here or there; it is that it is wrong root and branch. The conviction at the heart of those who engage in it is really quite simple: that America is an unmitigated evil, an irredeemable enormity.

[Caipirabob]

Perhaps when their Imans stops preaching incitement to murder all non-Muslims.

[FreedomPoster]

>>moderate muslims, like the good Germans of WWII, are not fighting back.

Here's an excellent article that well-uses that exact argument. I post it a lot when people defend "the good, peaceful, friendly Muslims":

Of course, the great majority of Muslims are peaceful -- so what?

[Kaiwen]

Sorry, posted this just before getting off work.

What is my thinking concerning Islam? I don't have a problem with it. I have a problem with people that commit specific acts. If they don't do anything, then leave them alone. There is no such thing as thought crime, or religion crime.

The whole idea that 'Islam' is inherently anything is ridiculous--that includes peaceful, warlike, whatever. There is no monolithic Islam. There are Wahhabis, Salafi, Sufis, Shi'as, Ismailis, etc...

If specific groups target innocent people, they should be delt with the way our president is dealing with them. This rhetoric that 'Islam is the enemy' is stupid and counter-productive. Attacking Islam will hurt our relations with those allies we need to win the war on terrorism, as well as hurt any Muslim voices who try to speak out against extremism.

[Kaiwen]

And if you really believe all Muslims are our enemy, check out the Islamic Supreme Council of America.

Or read their section on extremism, or their press releases.

This group has been warning the world about Wahhabism and bin Laden since long before 9/11.

[Celtic Conservative]

A reasoned and reasonable approach. I have struggled with this issue, as many of us have since 9-11, with the "religion of peace" and "nuke mecca" ends of the spectrum. I don't want to hate them, but prudence and a sense of personal and national self preservation dictate that I distrust islamic societies until it is proven they are NOT a threat to western culture and society. I want to trust them, but I am not an idiot , and they will have to earn every bit of that trust. And after 9-11 that is a tall order.

Slainte,

CC

[kabar]

Militant Islam is indeed the enemy and should be identified as such. The Islamic zealots are intent on forcing their world view and values on the rest of us. Khomeni's victory over the Shah fueled this movement and others like the Taliban replicated it. You cannot fight the enemy without identifying him, political correctness aside. We are not against Islam but only a virulent form of it.

[Destructor]

"Such influential figures as Eliot Cohen of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Kenneth Adelman of the Defense Department advisory policy board, a former Reagan administration official, criticize President George W. Bush for his efforts to assure Muslims that his war is against terrorism, not against their religion."

Islam is a religion founded on violence and deception! Terrorism is the equivalent of a sacrament of Islam.