We wrote a piece the other day about the malaise we sense in the US. Perhaps we did not go far enough. Our reader Steven M. Warshawsky makes a good case that an important part of the malaise originates with the refusal of the President and the Republican leadership to join the ideological struggle against Islam as it is practiced in much of the world, and the system of repressive legal and governmental regulations called sharia. We will reprint Mr. Warshawsky’s comments below; first, to give them some context, let’s take a look at Steyn today, commenting on how Muslims get all worked up about anything they deem “precious and sacred” — from Cartoons to Apostasy and much in between:

Unfortunately, what’s “precious and sacred” to Islam is its institutional contempt for others. In his book “Islam And The West,” Bernard Lewis writes, “The primary duty of the Muslim as set forth not once but many times in the Quran is ‘to command good and forbid evil.’ It is not enough to do good and refrain from evil as a personal choice. It is incumbent upon Muslims also to command and forbid.” Or as the Canadian columnist David Warren put it: “We take it for granted that it is wrong to kill someone for his religious beliefs. Whereas Islam holds it is wrong not to kill him.” In that sense, those imams are right, and Karzai’s attempts to finesse the issue are, sharia-wise, wrong.

I can understand why the president and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would rather deal with this through back channels, private assurances from their Afghan counterparts, etc. But the public rhetoric is critical, too. At some point we have to face down a culture in which not only the mob in the street but the highest judges and academics talk like crazies. Abdul Rahman embodies the question at the heart of this struggle: If Islam is a religion one can only convert to, not from, then in the long run it is a threat to every free person on the planet.

What can we do? Should governments with troops in Afghanistan pass joint emergency legislation conferring their citizenship on this poor man and declaring him, as much as Karzai, under their protection? In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of “suttee” – the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. Gen. Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural: “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks, and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”

“Command and forbid” is an unacceptable way for Muslims and Islam to interact with the West. Absolutely unacceptable — both on procedural and substantive grounds. It is about time to stop being sensitive to a system of laws that produce unfree, brutal societies that are inferior in most of the things we value in the West. We will let Mr. Warshawsky’s words speak for themselves:

[U]nlike Anchoress and most others, I DO believe that the blame for the current “malaise” rests squarely on the shoulders of President Bush and the Republican leadership.

Not for the idiotic reasons that Democrats claim — but because President Bush has failed to lead us in an ideological war against our sworn Islamic enemies. After 9/11, a clear majority of Americans were prepared to take up arms and resolve this 30+ year conflict on the field of battle. President Bush failed us in this respect. His war aims from the beginning were limited (even if his rhetoric was bracing), and he capitulated from the start to “Muslim sensibilities” — something that demoralized, and continues to demoralize, the majority of Americans who want to fight for their culture and way of life.

Islam as it is currently taught and practiced across the globe is the enemy. It is a backward, barbaric creed that is fundamentally incompatible with our way of life. The sooner we acknowledge this, the better. We can’t ignore it. Islamists have attacked us, killed us, and openly threaten to do it again and again, until we submit to their way of life. They declared war on us. We must fight back.

Yes, there are “good” Muslims, both here and abroad. But they have been awfully quiet the last 4+ years, and there are precious few of them who are willing to speak out openly against their terroristic brethren. Fair or not, the burden is on Muslims to demonstrate their good intentions, to demonstrate their loyalty to our society (if they live here) or to demonstrate their commitment to peaceful international coexistence (if they live in foreign countries). If they are not willing to do this, then too bad for them. Besides, I’m sure there were “good” Germans and Japanese during World War Two, and “good” Russians during the Cold War. Unfortuantely, they suffered because of the horrible people around them. But we did not then, and cannot now, let their existence deter us from doing what we have to do to defeat the enemy and protect our way of life.

I agree, there is a creeping “malaise.” I feel it. It is the sense that, for all our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, we haven’t accomplished anything significant or lasting in the clash of civilizations that 9/11 brought to a head. Witness the French Muslim riots and the Cartoon Jihad. Westerners feel they have lost control of their own countries. (Even though these events took place in Europe, Americans are affected by them too.) The institutions that are supposed to protect us — the police, the military, the intelligence services — are not taking the fight to the enemy, are not striking at them before they strike — again — at us.

It’s worse in Europe, where the Western governments and populations are so cowed and demoralized that Islamic militants openly proclaim their intention to inflict “a real holocaust” and “another 9/11″ on their host countries. And what happens? Nothing. No mass arrests. No mass deportations. No closing down of Islamic mosques, schools, media, and organizations that spread the radical, terroristic message. So the ordinary European can only sit there and wait to see what horror happens next.

We Americans view these events with disbelief, but we also notice that the dynamics in Europe are not so different from how our government treats Islamists here (with kid gloves), and we wonder: How would our government and people react to similar scenes of Muslim violence and threats taking place in this country? President Bush’s constant references to Islam as a “religion of peace” do not inspire confidence.

I certainly have little faith in the willingness of our governmental institutions to take strong action to prevent here what is happening in Europe. I have more faith in the American people. But, contrary to popular image, we are not a country of vigilantes. We rely on our governmental institutions (police, military, intelligence services) to protect us and to ensure that “justice” is done when our rights are violated. Where would the masses of ordinary people come from needed to oppose Muslim threats and riots? If our leaders will not use our police and military to protect us — as Europe’s leaders have failed to do there — then, as we see in Europe, the Islamists will be emboldened to shout their threats in the hearts of our cities, to plan their acts of terror in their schools and mosques, and to carry out their terror against the very countries in which they live. Is that the future here in America? Where are the leaders who will prevent this? It is certainly not any Democrat, and it is not President Bush either.

Today, even many “conservative Republicans” have been infected by liberal ideas of multiculturalism and “sensitive” wars. The very notion of fighting Islamic radicalism by trying to “win the hearts and minds” of Muslims is an oxymoron, and clear evidence that the West (or at least its leadership — except, perhaps, in Australia) lacks the will for an existential conflict.

We probably couldn’t even fight and win World War Two today, given how much handwringing we still do over the decision to firebomb German and Japanese cities and drop the A-bomb. War is ugly. Human existence is not always a pretty thing. But it’s no coincidence that we won World War Two, totally and unconditionally. Our enemies’ countries were utterly destroyed. And, significantly, millions of their young people were killed. That’s what allowed us to impose our will on Germany and Japan after the war, and re-build their societies into something better than they were before. But first there had to be a lot of killing. We will never “reform” the Muslim world until huge numbers of the present generation of young Islamists who believe in the terroristic ideology and the older men who treach them this ideology are killed. It’s as plain and ugly as that.

But this isn’t what the “War on Terror” is about. Under President Bush, we are trying to fight against Islamic militancy, at the same time that we accommodate ourselves to the most barbaric Islamic realities (e.g., the imposition of sharia law — see the Afghani man who was threatened with death for converting to Christianity). The American people, including many who strongly support President Bush (I still would vote for him over any Democrat), are starting to realize that this approach to the War on Terror is intellectually incoherent, strategically inept, and emotionally unacceptable. But there’s nothing we can do about it. Our “conservative,” “warmongering” President firmly believes he is pursuing the right strategy.

He’s wrong.

We’ve been among the hair-splitters. We’re not against Islam, only Islamists. We’re not against Islam, only Sharia. We’re not against Islam, only Islam as it is practiced as a system of government in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, probably-soon-Iraq, and much of the rest of the terribly backwards Islamic world.

We’re not against Islam, at least the Islam of someone like Mansoor Ijaz: “The second truth — one that the West needs to come to grips with — is that there is no such human persona as a ‘moderate Muslim.’ You either believe in the oneness of God or you don’t. You either believe in the teachings of his prophet or you don’t. You either learn those teachings and apply them to the circumstances of life in the country you have chosen to live in, or you shouldn’t live there.” We’re not against the Islam of worldly men like Mansoor Ijaz or Fareed Zakaria — not at all. But do they represent closer to 99% or 1% of Islamic opinion — that’s the question, and the answer seems clearer and clearer with every day that passes.

UPDATE

For your edification, we present, via Rossputin, an excerpt of a sermon from September 26, 2002 in the very heart of Islam, a mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia:

If the infidels live among the Muslims, in accordance with the conditions set out by the Prophet—there is nothing wrong with it provided they pay Jizya (a sort of tax on infidels) to the Islamic treasury. Other conditions are…that they do not renovate a church or a monastery, do not rebuild ones that were destroyed, that they feed for three days any Muslim who passes by their homes…that they rise when a Muslim wishes to sit, that they do not imitate Muslims in dress and speech, nor ride horses, nor own swords, nor arm themselves with any kind of weapon: that they do not sell wine, do not show the cross, do not ring church bells, do not raise their voices during prayer, that they shave their hair in front so as to make them more easily identifiable, do not incite anyone against the Muslims and do not strike a Muslim…If they violate these conditions they have no protection.”

Question: what do Fareed Zakaria, Mansoor Ijaz, Whalid Phares, Iyad Allawi, and Amir Taheri, among others, have in common? Answers: (a) we like them; and (b) they are not in charge of anything in the Islamic world.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 25th, 2006 at 10:13 am and is filed under art, culture, General, Left of Left, Religion, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.