Islamist fanatics attacked us and yearn to destroy us. The Muslim civilization of the Middle East has failed comprehensively and will continue to generate violence. The only way to deal with faith-poisoned terrorists is to kill them.
And the world's only hope for long-term peace is for moderate Muslims - by far the majority around the globe - to recapture their own faith.
But a rotten core of American extremists is out to make it harder for them.
The most repugnant trend in the American shouting match that passes for a debate on the struggle with Islamist terrorism isn't the irresponsible nonsense on the left - destructive though that is. The really ugly "domestic insurgency" is among right-wing extremists bent on discrediting honorable conservatism. ...
Tom the Redhunter:
I agree with Peters that this sort of thing is wrong, and here's why.
Let me say right now that I am not talking about things like stopping or reducing Muslim immigration. I think that the Europeans should slow down or stop immigration into their countries by Muslims, and need to work hard to assimilate those that have. Nor, heaven knows, am I saying that the way Islam is practiced by many is not evil. Further, I am disgusted at how moderate Muslims (and yes they exist) have not done more to confront and counter the radicals. Many Mosques in Western countries are infiltrated by radicals and the Muslim community is not doing nearly enough to root them out.
But none of this the same as saying that Islam is evil. I am a Christian, and as such believe that Islam is a false religion. But it is not evil.
Tammy Bruce:
We do not need to think about wiping out Islam to defeat the enemy--we do need to democratize the Middle East, giving the people control, which should isolate and marginalize fascists. Once people get freedom, they like it. Fascists, of course, by their very definition, require totalitarian control.
For those who say I'm wrong, and it's Islam that needs to be wiped away and how all this is folly, I'll use WWII as an example. We did not need to "wipe away" all Germans or Japanese to win that war. Yes, we needed to defeat them completely, but we also forced democracy on them and forced the Japanese to westernize. But there is also one other thing we did to both countries that today's bending to political correctness precludes--banning state religion.
With the Japanese, we banned Shinto, and the with Germans we banned Nazism (which, of course, was the worship of Hitler and so-called Aryanism). When it comes to the Middle East, the equivalent for Afghanistan and Iraq would not to ban Islam, but to require a secular government, secular constitutions, and to ban the Wahabbist (the modern Shinto/Nazi problem) sect/interpretation/practice of Islam.
The Redhunter adds another post:
I've [seen] several right-wing (I won't call them conservative) sites in which the authors and commenters are convinced that Islam is a religion of hate, violence, it is evil, unreformable, the whole bit. Anyone who dares to disagree is a dhimmi. Once I see where the comments are going I usually don't chime in, as there's no point.
Anyone who's read more than this post knows that I believe that Islam as it is currently practiced [emphasis in original - aa] by all too many Muslims has a problem with violence. Far too many Muslims are completely hypocritical on the issue of military force, unable or unwilling to understand the difference between direct attacks on civilians and attacks on military targets where civilians are killed as an unfortunate byproduct (hmm, many Western liberals are confused there too). They excuse terrorism with weasel words. Abuse of women and total lack of civil rights are the hallmarks of most Islamic societies. I could go on but you get the point.
And he names names. Go to the link to read the rest, and to find out where he (slightly) disagrees with Ralph Peters.
