Dino writes:
“The Agerians did not follow the French home, they were Muslims. The French left there, and they made it home okay.” — Dino; WDH Forum
Mike writes:
“vilifying people is the oldest trick in the book. Now that the godless commies are gone, now we have the radical jihadists islomo fascists Muslims.” — Mike Cannon; WDH Forum
With due respect to Dino’s understanding of what’s going on in the world, France today is one of the most heavily Muslimized countries in Europe, followed closely by Britain – a legacy of their “open borders” and liberal immigration policies. Muslims came for the “opportunities” of a nominally free and democratic society, and many now seek to re-impose the type of oppressive society and culture that they originally fled.
Sort of like what is increasingly happening here.
The levels of violence perpetrated by radicalized Muslims living in France is a significant ongoing problem there, and the sheer numbers of Muslims who have refused to adopt and to become a part of the culture of their new country, is a significant political problem that in many ways has immobilized French politicians from taking necessary steps to protect the country from the Islamist’s who have indeed, “followed them home”.
Islamist-inspired terrorism is a significant problem in quite a few places in the world. With the notable exception of the successful 9/11 attacks in 2001, and the only partly-successful attack in 1993, we have so far been insulated here from the problems being experienced by much of the world – much as we were temporarily insulated from the virulent effects of German Nazism, and Japanese militarism.
Islamist revolution has largely replaced the Marxist revolutions of the 20th century. Yet many of their proponents and defenders are remarkably the same.
Of the Vietnamese who followed us home, we were fortunate that those who did were generally limited to those who we rescued from the killing fields and refugee camps of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, that became one legacy of our “precipitous withdrawal” from that conflict.
The other Vietnam consequence that arguably “followed us home”, to bear fruit decades later, was the lesson given to Islamists like bin Laden, that America and Americans had “become soft”, and lacked the will and resolve to sustain a fight, and that military and economic dominance could be politically and successfully undermined and countered at home.
The communist regime of North Vietnam did not have a national agenda of global expansion, although their driving ideology clearly did, and does.
Communism, Socialism’s bastar_d half-brother, did not exactly “follow us home” from Vietnam, as it was already here, finding fertile ground in the ivory towers of mostly-liberal academia, where it seemingly continues to thrive, waiting impatiently for the comradic return of a “workers paradise” (that never was), and free government healthcare.
Islamism is on the other hand (or perhaps the same hand) a virulant, expansionist ideology of conquest and domination, buttressed with the trappings and “legitimacy” of a religion.
It has been so since the earliest days of it’s inception, and although the political and military fortunes of Islam have waxed and waned since their “glory days”, there are those whose specific expressed goal is the return and extension of the Islamic mandate.
Islamism has a great deal in common with communism, socialism, and Nazi fascism – including an almost pathological hatred for those of Jewish faith and ancestry.
Former Palestinian Terrorist Walid Shoebat characterizes Islamic jihad as “Nazism with a religous twist.” Islamists do not fight and kill for the Fueher, the Fatherland, or even a dietified Emperor – they do so for Allah (God) himself, in Muhammad’s name, and for the promise of glory and babes in heaven.
C..c..can’t we all just “get along”?
Mike is correct in one point – personal vilification is an old trick. When you don’t like the message, and don’t have anything better to offer, denigrate the messenger. According to those occupying the political and philosophical “Left” in this country today, George Bush is thus now a bigger villan and a larger threat than bin Laden, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, or any suicide bomber.
Islamist “front” organizations like CAIR endlessly promote the canard that all concerns regarding the teachings and goals of fundamentalist Islam are the result of an irrational western “Islamophobia”, ignoring and denying the violent, fanatical “infidelophobia” that is a hall-mark of the Islamist ideology, and the dictate of Muhammad.
I suspect that those who do not or who refuse to acknowledge the fundamental challenge and threat that we now face, are either ignorant, in denial, or to some degree personally sympathize and agree with the ideology and/or tactics employed by those who constitute the threat.
Or perhaps it’s all just politics. The Islamists oppose George Bush and the ideology of liberty. Members of the socio-political Left oppose George Bush and the ideology of liberty (much as they love to use it’s language). Thus, the Islamists and the Left presently share a common enemy, and a common cause.
Appeasement is a dangerous game, that more often than not leads to results exactly the opposite of what you had hoped. Democrats currently are “feeding the alligator” of jihadic Islamism for their own purposes, expecting that in the end, they themselves will somehow be able to prevail, while nimbly side-stepping the alligator’s grasp.
In bin Laden’s own words, driving the “infidel” Americans from the Middle East and the cradel of Islam is only the first step of jihad. Step two is to take the fight to the American continent, with the objective of establishing an Islamic hegemony.
Killing or capturing bin Laden, as satisfying an achievement as that might be, will not end the problem – as bin Laden was not the beginning. The underlying problem is an ideology that transends bin Laden, al Zawahiri, and even Ahmadinejad.
Denying that a problem exists in this however will not eliminate it.
There are many ways in which this problem can be and will need to be addressed. None will provide the “silver bullet” – but neither will appeasement and surrender.
See also: http://StandingUpToJihad.com
