[lit-ideas] Is there any such thing as a Moderate Muslim?
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2006 13:35:44 -0800
Here is an interesting article by Jack Kelly, ["Jack Kelly, a syndicated
columnist, a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant
secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national
security writer for the Pittsburgh (Pa.) Post Gazette"].
Lawrence
This article appeared in the "Commentary" section of the National Weekly
Edition of The Washington Times, March 13-19, 2006:
"Josh Manchester, a Marine veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, asks in his
Web Log (Adventures of Chester) the central strategic question in the war on
terror: Is Islam compatible with a free society?
"Dancing around this question is dangerous, because as Mr. Manchester notes:
'A "yes" answer offers a far different set of strategic imperatives than a
"No" answer.' President Bush has answered emphatically 'yes.' We are at
war not with Islam but with a radical subset that could be described as
heretical.
"Osama bin Laden, conservative columnist Ann Coulter, and some Christian
preachers say no, all Islam is at war with the values of the West. It would
be inconvenient if they were right.
"There are approximately 1.4 billion Muslims in the world. Blood will flow
in rivers if we have to fight them all.
"But if being a Muslim is as inherently threatening to liberty and democracy
as being a Nazi was then we must either convert, deport, arrest or kill the
Muslims in our midst.
"'The moment has not come, but it is around the corner, when non-Muslims
will reasonably demand to have evidence the Muslim faith can operate within
boundaries in which Christians and Jews [and many non-believers] live and
work, 'William F. Buckley wrote last October.
"The ports controversy indicates that moment is coming closer for many
Americans, said National Review's Jim Geraghty. 'My sense is that in recent
weeks, a large chunk of Americans just decided that they no longer have any
faith in the good sense or nonhostile nature of the Muslim world,' Mr.
Geraghty wrote.
"Our view is clouded by political correctness, and by the ignorance, bias
and blustering cowardice of most news media.
"Americans know instinctively the 'Islam is a religion of peace' mantra is
garbage. Islam was spread by the sword. There are no Christian, Jewish,
Hindu or Buddhist suicide bombers.
"And Americans know it is idiotic to strip search grandmas at airports while
young Muslim males stroll through checkpoints. We were not attacked
September 11, 2001, by the Swedish bobsled team.
"It is true that up to about 400 years ago, Christianity was no friend of
democracy or religious pluralism. But that was 400 years ago. The key
question, which political correctness obscures, is whether Islam can become
(in, we hope, rather less than 400 years) as benign a faith as Christianity
is today.
"I think the answer is yes. I know of many Muslims devoted to liberty,
democracy and social equality. I recently wrote about 'the trainer' (who
infiltrated a terror cell in Toledo). Our ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay
Khalilzad, is an example. So is businessman and terror fighter Mansoor
Ijaz.
"You don't hear much about genuine Muslim moderates because if you did, it
would expose the cravenness of a news media that largely has capitulated to
the demands of Islamic radicals. That capitulation can be portrayed as
something other than cowardice only if the vast majority of Muslims are
depicted as offended by the exercise of free speech.
"So journalists describe as 'moderate' those - like the smarmy creeps at the
Council on American-Islamic Relations - who largely share the goals of the
Islamists, but who eschew their methods. Ordinary Americans see through
this, and wonder if there are nay moderate Muslims at all.
"Fewer would think that way if they knew, for instance, that most Danish
Muslims are shunning the four radical clerics who brought on the Cartoon
War, or if they read the recent declaration of 12 mostly Muslim or Muslim
apostate intellectuals who distinguish sharply between Islamism ('a
reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism') and the
basic tenets of the Muslim faith.
"It is easier to find moderate Muslims willing to speak out than to find
journalists who will pay much attention to that they have to say. Afghans,
Iraqis and Lebanese struggling for liberty and democracy are given short
shrift because giving them proper credit would give indirect credit to
George W. Bush.
"To keep a necessary war against Islamic extremists from morphing into a
clash of civilizations, we need to stand firm for our principles, and to
stand by those Muslims who share them.
"To those like Ann Coulter who refuse to recognize there are such Muslims, I
say: if you find yourself on the same side as Osama bin Laden, you should
reconsider your premises."
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