The Fiction That Muslims Will Stop Trying To Blow Us Up If We Get Out Of Afghanistan
It's Islam that commands them to do it, not the fact that we're fighting the people who throw acid in the faces of little girls who want to go to school, who stone women for adultery when they're raped, and all the charming rest. Joel Mowbray writes at the Washington Times about why Obama's apologetic stance toward Muslim countries is a poor strategy:
At his 2003 sentencing hearing, convicted "shoe bomber" Richard Reid explained his utter lack of remorse. "Your government has sponsored the rape and torture of Muslims in the prisons of Egypt and Turkey and Syria and Jordan with their money and with their weapons. I don't ... see what I have done as being equal to rape and to torture, or to the deaths of the 2 million children in Iraq. So for this reason, I think I ought not to apologize for my actions. I am at war with your country."His attempted attack occurred in December 2001, long before the Iraq war and just two months after the war started in Afghanistan. Thus his list of grievances includes neither war.
Regardless of actual events, the Jihadist narrative places Muslims as victims and the West (or specifically America/Israel) as the aggressor. In the 1990s, for example, the United Nations-approved sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Iraq was the Jihadists' cause du jour; this was Reid's (flatly untrue) reference to "the deaths of the 2 million children in Iraq."
Our enemies need no extra fodder for recruitment and motivation. Their propaganda is no doubt bolstered by having real wars in Muslim lands to cite, but they've proven how little they actually need. Embassies were burned and people murdered over cartoons.
The tragedy is that Mr. Obama has unprecedented credibility in the Muslim world for an American president, given his Muslim father and stepfather and formative years spent in Indonesia.
Rather than focusing on apologizing for America, Mr. Obama should use his bully pulpit and unique status to remind Muslims that though imperfect, America has been as good as any nation to the Islamic world, from stopping the genocide of Bosnian Muslims to helping Afghans defeat Soviet aggression.
Although he won't win the hearts and minds of hardened Jihadists, Mr. Obama could convincingly sell America's virtues to tens of millions of Muslims worldwide--or perhaps more.
If he continues his apologetic posture, however, his only success might be perversely reinforcing the rallying cry used to inspire attacks against America.
Mowbray, like so many Americans, is not that informed about Islam, and doesn't understand that, as a former terrorist noted: You don't win against the Islamists with concessions or shows of weakness. To the Islamists, they are invitations to attack again.
I had someone tell me, "if we would just stop supporting Israel, the Islamic world would not be doing what it is doing". My response was, "Sure. The madness they espouse about the west being the infidel will stop immediately once Israel ceases to exist".
Maybe a glimmer of hope exists that over the next 50 years we can affect change in the Islamic world. Maybe the change will come about because we tried to win their hearts and minds through decency and diplomacy. I, however, wouldn't bet a nickle on that outcome. There are many millions of uneducated, disaffected people having propaganda drilled into their heads from early childhood. That propaganda says their god hates us (and our ways) deeply and even violently. If the west isn't adamant that our way is a better way (and their way isn't) and we aren't willing to stand very strong on that belief, how is it possible they would believe it? How would it be possible to change the hearts and minds of the disaffected, propagandized masses?
Teddy Roosevelt said, "speak softly and carry a big stick". We do have the means to deal fairly and honestly with them (maybe even more than fairly). However, as long as they continue on the path they are on, fairness and honesty equals 'You can keep these views and actions in your own world, or the big stick will be put into action'. Unfortunately I just don't see any other good option......
TW at July 3, 2010 3:00 AM
I thought Charles Krauthammer had an excellent article yesterday about the ridiculousness of the current administration not even being willing to acknowledge the dark side of Islam. It is bad enough that the President apologies creating the thought of weak resolve from the US, but he goes further by trying to hide that there is a problem.
A snippet of Krauthammer's article states well, I thought, on why we should not allow that to happen:
"There's a final reason why the administration's cowardice about identifying those trying to kill us cannot be allowed to pass. It is demoralizing. It trivializes the war between jihadi barbarism and Western decency, and diminishes the memory of those (including thousands of brave Muslims — Iraqi, Pakistani, Afghan and Western) who have died fighting it.
Churchill famously mobilized the English language and sent it into battle. But his greatness lay not just in eloquence but in his appeal to the moral core of a decent people to rise against an ideology the nature of which he never hesitated to define and describe — and pronounce ("Nahhhhzzzzi") in an accent dripping with loathing and contempt.
No one is asking Obama or Holder to match Churchill's rhetoric — just Shahzad's candor. "
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/539272/201007021859/The-Cowardice-Of-Not-Calling-Them-Enemies.aspx
Soul at July 3, 2010 4:56 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2010/07/03/the_fiction_tha.html#comment-1729067">comment from SoulGreat stuff, Soul. This, from K-hammer's piece, was right on as well:
Amy Alkon
at July 3, 2010 6:45 AM
I see Obama's rhetoric and policies regarding terrorism as basically continuing those of his predecessor (who I think was the one who termed Islam a "religion of peace"). He has doubled down in Afghanistan and has not accelerated withdrawal from Iraq. He pushed for, and got, stronger sanctions against Iran (and undercut two allies to do it). He has increased the rate predator strikes against terrorist targets in Pakistan. Military commissions for trying Gitmo terror suspects have not been eliminated. These things have enraged the far left in the U.S. At most, Obama's tone has been somewhat milder than Bush's, but as far as what actions he has authorized, the differences are not that great.
Christopher at July 3, 2010 12:01 PM
In the news today, the father and brother of a Muslim actress who appears in the Harry Potter films have been arrested on charges of attempting to kill her. It took People magazine to reveal the likely motivation:
"Afshan Azad...was allegedly attacked May 21 because her family, who are Muslim, did not approve of her relationship with a Hindu man, according to a spokesman for the Crown Prosecution Service."
Not a word on the motivation in the Daily Mail article. Are they legally prohibited, or self-censoring?
rosalind at July 3, 2010 6:31 PM
Truly "faithful" Muslims will not rest until the entire world is under sharia law--i.e. Islamic law. That, and Israel and all her sympathizers are obliterated from the planet. Pretty simple, actually.
We are war with an ideology that is poisonous and vile and at war with freedom at its core. The battle is for the hearts and minds of a population that knows nothing other than the darkness and oppression of a religion and resultant that has had a grip on this region of the world for centuries. Is this an achievable task? Time will tell.
other Beth at July 4, 2010 4:05 AM
Wow, Joel Mowbray is pretty disrespectful, I can't believe he referred to the President as "Mr. Obama" several times in his article. Not ok!
Anyone on either side of the fence should agree it's not proper even if they have to do it while gritting their teeth!
BS at July 6, 2010 12:46 PM
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