Muslims have revealed that they have a sensitive side. Any cartoon of the Prophet is forbidden and if you draw, print or read one they will have to kill you. They have no trouble killing Nuns, letting girls burn to death or breaking a child’s arm but a cartoon is just over the line.
I am so glad this man finally came to his senses. It will benefit us all.
One view we might take would be to faithfully apply the Geneva Convention standards for the treatment of prisoners to countries that have committed to treat American prisoners by the Geneva standard. This would leave the terrorists ‘out in the cold’ so to speak.
Has anyone actually read Pope Benedict’s recent speech? While the ancient reference to a 14th century Byzantine emperor was politically inept, it was part of a larger theme. More precisely, faith and reason are not only compatible but intertwined and that violence is not a good way to advance one’s spiritual convictions.
How do Muslims react? “Do not say that Islam is violent! If you say that Islam is violent, we will kill you and bomb the Vatican.”
There is an intense media effort to defend true Islam as peaceful. There is an equally concentrated attempt to condemn Christianity for every injury or death possible in the last 2000 years. So, when Muslim terrorist’s kill a Nun it barely warrants 2 column inches on page 8.
How do moderate Muslims react? Do they condemn such violence? Do they call on terrorists to cease perverting true Islam and cease their activities? Do they point to their scriptures and demonstrate the peaceful nature of their teacher? To all these things NO.
The silence from the moderate Muslim community is quite loud. So who is pushing this “True Islam is peaceful” theme? The Americans.
Why does the world press give Muslims a free pass on outrageous behaviour? Why does the American press condemn Americans for slights both real and perceived but ignore shocking, even murderous, acts by Muslims?
Read Brent Bozell’s view on Islam’s special standard
Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan: There is No Clash of Civilizations but a Clash between the Mentality of the Middle Ages and That of the 21st Century.
Following are excerpts from an interview with Arab-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan. The interview was aired on Al-Jazeera TV on February 21, 2006. See the video here.
“The Jews have come from the tragedy (of the Holocaust), and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror, with their work, not their crying and yelling. Humanity owes most of the discoveries and science of the 19th and 20th centuries to Jewish scientists. 15 million people, scattered throughout the world, united and won their rights through work and knowledge. We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. The Muslims have turned three Buddha statues into rubble. We have not seen a single Buddhist burn down a Mosque, kill a Muslim, or burn down an embassy. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people, and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them.”
Over the centuries, evil men have executed evil plans in the name of Christianity and Islam. Often against one another. In the 21st century, most Christian leaders and activists acknowledge the past evil and seek to apply the love of Jesus in a Godly and peaceful way. While this does not exclude the use of military force, it does guide its use.
Based on this, many writers and commentators condemn the entire Christian faith. When a handful of people carryout their evil acts in the name of Christ, Christians must speak the truth in love and condemn evil, especially when it is done by those that claim the mantle of faith in Jesus.
In the same way, the leaders of Islam must condemn the constant use of violence by those claiming to be followers of Islam if they want to assert that Islam is a religion of peace. Hezbollah cannot use children as human shields while firing their weapons and then condemn Israel because children were killed in the ensuing military conflict. When terrorists, in the name of Islam, send teenage children strapped with explosives into shopping malls to kill innocent Jewish people, Islam has forfeited the `moral high-ground’ they so fervently wish to occupy.
Can you imagine the outcry if there had been 5000+ acts of terrorism in the name of Christianity or Judaism? The horror of the Holocaust and Nagasaki would pale in comparison to the ensuing political meltdown.
Those that bash Bush, hate America, and condemn Israel must make at least a token attempt to be fair and even-handed in this debate. There have been many terrible decisions and outrageous failures in the last 50 years of Middle East conflict and a large number since 9/11.
It seems to me at least 5711 of the evil acts have been done in the name of Islam by those claiming to follow the Prophet and Allah.
I stumbled across a brilliant column by Victor Hanson outlining the futility of the politics of appeasement. Fascism and Terrorism do not allow us the option of peaceful coexistence. I will be reading more of Mr. Hanson’s work in the future.
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It is easy to damn the 1930s appeasers of Hitler such as Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain in England and Edouard Daladier in France given what the Nazis ultimately did when unleashed. But history demands not merely recognizing the truth post facto, but also trying to reconstruct the rationale of something that now in hindsight seems inexplicable.
Appeasement in the 1930s was popular with the European public for a variety of reasons. All of them are instructive in our hesitation about stopping a nuclear Iran, or about defending the right of Western newspapers to print what they wish or about fighting radical Islamism in general.
Read the rest of “Appeasement 101”
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