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How Can a President Tell the Truth About Radical Islam?
From a weekly column by Rev. George Rutler:
Exactly 229 years ago this month, when the Barbary pirates were menacing ships of the newborn United States off the coasts of Tunis and Algiers, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met in London with a Muslim diplomat representing the Bey of Algiers to inquire why his religion made his people so hostile to a new country that posed them no threat. They reported to Congress through a letter to John Jay, then Secretary of Foreign Affairs, the ambassador’s explanation that:
“Islam was founded on the Laws of their prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to paradise.”
….[I]f God is pure will without reason, whose mercy is gratuitous and has nothing to do with any sort of moral covenant with the human race, then irrational force in his name is licit, and conscience has no role in faith. This is not the eccentric interpretation of extremists; it is the logical conclusion of the assertions in the Koran itself.
May we grant that Fr. Rutler is onto something here, namely that: a) “Irrational force,” as he calls it, is indeed consonant with the underlying Islamic worldview; and that, b) Muslims have been visiting violence upon the West for a very long time, as demonstrated by the depredations of the Barbary pirates (not to mention the conquest of Byzantium and Spain and the various attempts to invade Europe proper).
Grant all that, and you still end up with a difficult question about just what American diplomats and high officials — above all, of course, the president — should say. How is President Obama — how is his successor — to tell the truth about radical Islam without inciting civilizational anger on the part of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims? How?
Image Credit: “EnterpriseTripoli” by William Bainbridge Hoff (died 1903) – http://www.archives.gov/research/military/navy-ships/sailing-ships.html. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Published in General
Isn’t it? Obama’s making a fool out of himself with the Iranians, and as for the boots on the ground bit, I gather you’ve still not read the papers…
I’ve never been to Georgia either, but probably ought to go, because I suspect my understanding of it is distorted. Expats in Turkey think of the entire country as “where to go for a decent bottle of wine.” I’m absolutely sure there’s more the country than that–always is–but when anyone in Istanbul says, “Come on over, I’ve just come back from Georgia,” you reckon there might be something on the table worthy of the detour, or at least better than a bottle of Angora Kirmizi.
Lots of journalists brought back some great table wine in 2008. (They went there figuring for sure that if the Russian 58th Army and airborne troops were in South Ossetia, someone was going to buy that article, but all they came back with was wine. And we needed it, too, because the financial crisis had by that point destroyed whatever was left of our careers. Or Western journalists’ careers, anyway. It was a banner year for Kremlin-aligned journalists. But it’s not exactly like Russian imperialists think of the Caucasus as “the place you visit for the inexpensive and surprisingly drinkable wine.”)
Weirdly:
It was meant to be a triumphant comeback that would patch up sour diplomatic relations between former Soviet republics and satisfy Russia’s thirst for quality wine. But following a six-year ban from the country, Georgian wines are facing an uphill battle in the market and experts say they are unlikely to regain their former glory.
Actually he’s giving military aid to both of them – in Syria (no moderates around except for [relatively] Asad, but to the Free Syrian Army fwiw) and the Kurdish proto-states in Northern Iraq.
These are both Muslim dispensations of some sort. The Kurds are somewhat moderate wrt social issues, but not so much when it come to ethnic nationalism (and that’s a problem in a heterogenous area).
You tell me how Obama could have made an alliance with them while declaring that the West’s problem is with Islam. I don’t think it would have been possible.
When I was a kid my dad would go off for the weekend to hunt ducks with my uncles. When he brought them home he would identify them for me: this one is a mallard, that one is a pintail, and that one is a ruddy duck. I thought it was neat to learn about all these different variations on the duck, but I always wanted to see a regular duck. But he never brought one.
Years later, it became a running joke with my friend as we took fishing trips and caught all kinds of “exotic” fish like bass, sunnies, and walleye. But we were always giving each grief about never catching that elusive regular fish.
I think we should retire the idea of “moderate Islam”; it implies that nonviolent Muslims are not devout, only lukewarm or fence-sitting in their faith. Not only is it patronizing and devaluing of sincere religious belief — but who wants to rise up and take a stand for “moderation”?
Instead we should talk about regular Muslims in the same sense we say “regular Joe”. It’s easier for a regular, but fervent, people to stake out a position and excommunicate the extremists* than it is for someone called “moderate” to stand for a belief system that, as a moderate, they really don’t believe in too seriously.
*Nobody considers William F. Buckley, Jr a “moderate” for his casting out the John Birch Society.
The RNC.
<blockquote>Mark Wilson
I think we should retire the idea of “moderate Islam”; it implies that nonviolent Muslims are not devout, only lukewarm or fence-sitting in their faith. Not only is it patronizing and devaluing of sincere religious belief — but who wants to rise up and take a stand for “moderation”?
Instead we should talk about regular Muslims in the same sense we say “regular Joe”.</blockquote>
Well said. This is the same feeling I am reachng for in “peace-loving Muslims, who want to raise their kids just like we do”. I try to describe, rather than label.
I’m with Diamond Ball here, Mark. This is an important observation, very well stated.
It’s the same reason why I rejected “Fundamentalist Muslim” to describe the terrorists. You’ll sweep up too many non-violent Muslims who identify with the label “Fundamentalist” as a signal that they are devout.
I think we focus too much on the roughly 1.2 billion Muslims and go too far to accomodate and avoid offense. This does not make us enlightened or better human beings. It makes us suckers and an accessory to our own demise. This is a culture war, where one side is playing to the death, and the other refuses to face this fact. Just because the majority are not at war with us does not mean they are on our side. There comes a point where the need to stand up for yourself and assertively promote your beleifs and culture outweighs the need to keep the peace. Especially when failure to do so can lead to irreparable harm to first dozens, then hundreds, then thousands, and then millions of innocents.
I don’t read papers. That’s so 1995. I’m not sure you have, however. Otherwise you’d have read about the bombing campaign against ISIS that pushed them back from Kobane and many places in Iraq.
Well, my point was the “travel article” is very silly. It’s just a list of countries no one ever visits. But “dangerous”? How is Georgia or Algeria…or even Iran…dangerous places to visit? Iran maybe if you’re an American, but that’s for political reasons.
If you want to find dangerous places to visit, look south of the US border, or, 90% of the rest of the planet that isn’t Europe or rich Asian countries. Pretty sure I’d be a lot safer traveling through Algeria, than traveling through Brazil.
That’s the bombing campaign that he’s doing after he pulled our troops out from a largely-peaceful Iraq without leaving anyone around to ensure the peace was kept, thus allowing groups like ISIS to re-emerge in Iraq? Just making sure it’s the right bombing campaign…
I just got around listening to Peter’s interview with General Mattis, aka “Jim”.
I think he answers Peter’s question quite well.
I agree that it’s a culture war and have no idea who’s refusing to face the fact. Let’s assume we agree about that, and are discussing strategy. “Divide and conquer” is not exactly some radical new idea, is it? Especially when a large number of the people we’re talking about are very eager to fight on our side.
Well, if you need an idea… Because there’s clearly a large constituency for putting one’s head in the sand and ignoring the culture war:
“Obama Tries To Change Terrorism Rhetoric, Remove Terms Like ‘Islamic Radicalism’ From National Security Document”
“Army brass promoted Fort Hood gunman Nidal Malik Hasan even after attempt to contact Al Qaeda”
Oh, and I neglected to include this:
“Judicial Watch has released hundreds of pages of FBI memos and other documents revealing that, in 2012, the agency purged its anti-terrorism training curricula of material determined by an undisclosed group of “Subject Matter Experts” (SME) to be “offensive” to Muslims. The excised material included references linking the Muslim Brotherhood to terrorism, tying al Qaeda to the 1993 World Trade Center and Khobar Towers bombings, and suggesting that “young male immigrants of Middle Eastern appearance … may fit the terrorist profile best.””
No, must be some other fictitious country you’re speaking of. I can’t recall any “largely peaceful” place called Iraq.
Perhaps you weren’t paying attention. You can find relevant information at http://icasualties.org/iraq/ByYear.aspx and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
Iraqi civilian casualties were about 29,000 in 2006 and 25,000 in 2007, falling to about 9,000 in 2008, 5,000 in 2009, and 4,000 in 2010 and 2011. Coalition military deaths were about 900/year from 2004 to 2007, falling to 322 in 2008, 150 in 2009, 60 in 2010, and 54 in 2011. These figures show that Iraq was a “relatively peaceful” place after the success of the surge in 2007.
I don’t know, but I’d certainly expect that Saddam Hussein’s government was killing more than 4,000 Iraqis a year before the war. Thus, it seems likely to me that Iraq in 2009-2011 was more peaceful than it had been in decades.
Yeah! 4,000 deaths by terrorist a year sounds like a really peaceful place. Almost Switzerland levels.
It would be fine by me if you called them Islamic progressives or Islamic liberals, but seriously, I’m in two minds about the label Daesh. I know why Emperor Barak and John Kerry (who served in Vietnam) might prefer the label Daesh. To western ears it does not say Islam. However, if what I’ve read can be trusted, it’s the term of derision used by arabic speakers who do not love them and feel they are safely out of reach. Those within their reach do not because they are likely to have their tongues cut out.
As for Islamic “moderates”, I think our understanding of their situation and their probable behaviour would be better if we referred to them as hostages.
I’m in two minds about the label Daesh. I know why Emperor Barak and John Kerry (who served in Vietnam) might prefer the label Daesh. … if what I’ve read can be trusted, it’s the term of derision used by arabic speakers who do not love them and feel they are safely out of reach.
The stuff I’ve read is slightly different (I’ve seen only Kerry and not Obama use the term, and then only once, but that’s neither here nor there). The Kurds use the term freely, including (especially?) the ones in frequent contact with Daesh, the Peshmerga. The Kurds use the term for two reasons, apparently: it’s the acronym for the Arabic version of Islamic State in Iraq/the Levant, and the acronym is a rough homonym for a rude thing to call someone.
I’m down with Daesh. That it’s a homonym for an insult to these terrorists is just icing on the cake.
Eric Hines