Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
An excellent and valiant column by Ricochet's brilliant friend Jonah Goldberg today: "Who Are The Real Hijackers of Islam?" Who indeed?
For years, we’ve heard how the peaceful religion of Islam has been hijacked by extremists.
What if it’s the other way around? Worse, what if the peaceful hijackers are losing their bid to take over the religion?
Jonah is reacting to the truly foul murder of Pakistani governor Salman Taseer. Taseer was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards after expressing some doubts about the nation's blasphemy laws. Why? Well, it seems a Christian woman was gang-raped for defending her faith... after which a local judge sentenced her to death for blasphemy.
The fall of nuclear Pakistan to these Islamist monsters is what I dream about when I have bad dreams. At the very least, it could mean the world won't survive long enough to see a Muslim version of The Cosby Show.
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May '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
This is one of the most passionate topics surfacing periodically on Ricochet. It would be great to turn it into a special event.
A podcast where Claire and Jonah argue the merits of either side of this question would be fascinating. Or better yet, just to mix media a bit -- maybe Peter could have the two on Uncommon Knowledge together. An honest debate where the two sides are really getting at the intellectual core of the issue rather than trying to spin the program toward some large agenda would be a real intellectual treat.
May '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
What could be more heart-warming than ol' Cos getting Theo to take out one of his sisters in an honor killing?
But seriously, it's like the British appeasers of the 1930's waiting for the "good Germans' to take out Hitler. The "good" Muslims, the folks who just want to live quiet, decent lives are the disorganized and unarmed ones. Mostly they want to fly under the radar so no one in their families get hurt.
Aug '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
So a cult became a religion and now it threatens to turn back into a cult ?
May '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
I agree with Trace. Claire said the purpose of her "good Muslim conduct" posts (as I put it) is the following:
"I'm going to put this in the simplest terms possible. If I walk into a bar unarmed and all 20 people there are resolutely, philosophically bent on killing me, I'm doomed. If half of them--or even a third--are on my side or might be persuaded to be, I've got a fighting chance. What people seem determined to miss--but what is utterly obvious to anyone in the Islamic world--is that the conflict between Islam and the West is the sideshow. The primary conflict is a civil war within the Islamic world. The Islamists' primary goal is to seize control of the Islamic world. We have natural allies in the Islamic world, and it is simply suicidal for the West to discount them as inexistent or so trivial in numbers as to be unworth our alliance."
Nevertheless, in her posts we end up talking about bad Muslim behavior.
Edited on Jan 7, 2011 at 9:42amMay '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
By the way, Andrew, clever headline. This week's sermon by Rev. Klaven will tackle the subject of Jonah and the Wale. But didn't you mean "wail?"
Wales, is of course, a country in the UK and, medically speaking, raised welts.
Unless you meant, today Islam, tomorrow the welt.
Nov '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
From Jonah's article:
"Bibi had offered some fellow farm laborers some water. They refused to drink it because Christian hands purportedly make water unclean. An argument followed. She defended her faith, which they took as synonymous with attacking theirs. Later, she says, a mob of her accusers raped her."
So, because of a simple act of Christian kindness, Bibi is now raped, defiled and awaiting execution. This is sub-human lunacy. I cannot begin to express my fury and outrage without violating every rule in the Ricochet CoC.
Maybe that is because Muslims make themselves so damn conspicuous by behaving really, really badly, in really nasty ways — all over the world.
After a while, the "Moderate Muslim of the Week Show" becomes a sick joke. It does not tell us anything useful if the Muslim in question is deemed a "moderate" simply because he has not recently burned down a school full of girls.
Nov '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
EJHill
What could be more heart-warming than ol' Cos getting Theo to take out one of his sisters in an honor killing?
I beat you to it, EJ:
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/News-Item-Katie-Couric-Maybe-we-need-a-Muslim-version-of-The-Cosby-Show
(Scroll down to Post #4)
Jan '11
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
EJ Hill, the name is Wales, Jonah Wales.
Dec '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
The Outlaw Jonah Wales.
May '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
Lady Kurobara I beat you to it, EJ:
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/News-Item-Katie-Couric-Maybe-we-need-a-Muslim-version-of-The-Cosby-Show
(Scroll down to Post #4) ·
LK, my apologies, but please understand I try hard not to dwell on anything with Ms. Couric's name attached to it. She is so vapid. I heard her deliver a commencement address last spring and it sounded like someone took a pile of greeting cards and Bartlett's Quotations, tossed them in a blender and asked Stevie Wonder to glue back together.
Edited on Jan 7, 2011 at 12:00pmDec '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
I pointed out in the Member Feed that Pakistan is now a cauldron of Islamic fundamentalist hatred with a thin upper crust of modernism and tolerance. Every elected administration since the nation's founding, and at least one of its military dictatorship interregnums, has sought to harness and co-opt the fundamentalists, and the cumulative result is that the fundamentalists have the ability to make and break governments and to dictate Pakistan's domestic and foreign policy.
Nov '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
I do not see a happy ending for Pakistan, that is for sure.
Jan '11
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
I was talking to a guy born in Pakistan, he said if Taseer hadn't been assassinated, his conduct might have sparked a civil war. Chew on that thought for a while!
Dec '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
There are two other alternate answers as well.
1) Don't go into that bar.
2) Come armed and bring your friends with you.
Dec '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
Lady Kurobara
I do not see a happy ending for Pakistan, that is for sure. · Jan 7 at 12:24pm
And because of that, I do not foresee a happy ending for any of the rest of us either.
When terrorists have access to reliable nuclear weapons, it will not be a question of IF, but rather WHEN the first infidel city turns into a portabella shaped cloud of vapor.
This nomenclatural argument (moderate vis-à-vis extreme Islam) has been largely academic for the past several years, because the baddies have been content to blow one another up in distant lands using whatever they can fabricate to go boom.
When they lay hands on nuclear materials and the triggers to reliably touch them off, the game is going to change dramatically. What you call them notwithstanding, the bad guys are going to have the ability to hit very hard with basically no warning, and they will use it.
We need to stop arguing about which side of Islam is the "true" side, and instead start arguing about how we go about defeating the side that wants to kill us.
Continued . . .
Edited on Jan 7, 2011 at 7:36pmDec '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
While moderate Muslims remain neutral (IE not actively resisting the extreme elements of their religion), they are irrelevant (if not outright detrimental) to the fight.
If most of them want to worship and be left alone, that is great, I am much the same (sans the worship part). However, if some random dude from my home town decided to go blow people up in the name of Rednecks everywhere, I would not feel at all bad if the people he was trying to blow up actively hunted and killed him. Why should moderate Muslims feel any differently about western forces hunting down and nerfing their extremists?
Unless the "moderates" aren't neutral at all, but rather in favor of (or ambivalent towards) the extremist view, and just not actively engaged in the fight.
How do you sort it out? If the neutrals and persuadables are indistinguishable in word and deed from the baddies and the tacit accepters, how can you possibly hope to sort one from another and make your case?
I don't think you can.
Continued . . .
Dec '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
Now, that doesn't mean I think genocide is the answer (it clearly is not), but rather that this argument over nomenclature is pointless.
We must draw our line in the sand, and do in those that cross it, whatever you want to call them.
Extremists are not famous for being persuaded by eloquent arguments.
Dec '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
Double Post.
Edited on Jan 7, 2011 at 7:49pmAug '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
There is a cure for Pakistan, it's called India.
Have you noticed that much trouble is in the places that the former British Empire created with pencils on maps in an office in London ?
Iraq, Israel, Pakistan have all suffered horribly from the miscalculation of a failed colonial master. Now that we see what England is capable of, when left to it's own devices, and what an utter failure it appears to be, should there be any wonder as to it's ability to govern ?
These are the same people who empowered the Bedouin, the Hashemites, and the rest of the invented royalty of the Middle East to grab assets from the Seven Sisters and turn the world upside down with their oil wealth and small minded manipulations.
The flow of money into Wahhabist madrassas has created a monster that threatens to consume us all. Fie on John Bull !
Edited on Jan 8, 2011 at 7:33amOct '10
Re: Jonah Wales on the Bad Guys
Trace Urdan: This is one of the most passionate topics surfacing periodically on Ricochet. It would be great to turn it into a special event.
A podcast where Claire and Jonah argue the merits of either side of this question would be fascinating. Or better yet, just to mix media a bit -- maybe Peter could have the two on Uncommon Knowledge together. An honest debate where the two sides are really getting at the intellectual core of the issue rather than trying to spin the program toward some large agenda would be a real intellectual treat. · Jan 7 at 8:30am
OR... bring in Eli Lake, who is a defender of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.