A global religion’s death dance

On some issues I do not see eye to eye with Thomas Friedman, but you have to give him credit, he gets the global war we are in. (BTW, who besides me is tired of the phrase “Global War on Terrorism?” (GWOT) if you are, raise your mouse. I am. It isn’t accurate. It is a war against a rabid form of Islam. Not the entire religion, but a virulent, growing, and expansive one. One that Charles Martel, and Don Juan of Austria, Prince Lazar, or Constantine X Paleologus, would recognize.)

Friedman is on our team. He isn’t 100% happy on how the war is being fought, but that is fair. A different idea and aggressive discussion on “how” is good and healthy, as long as you get the “why,” and he has the “why.”

Folding in the London bombings and the trial of Muhammad Bouveri, he manages to boil down the “root causes” in one article about as good as I have ever seen it.

There are a lot of angry (groups) of people in the world. But the only ones who seem to feel entitled and motivated to kill themselves and totally innocent people, including other Muslims, … are young Sunni radicals. What is going on?

Neither we or the Muslim world can run away from this question any longer.

Bingo! Run away. That is the description I have been looking for. The American left; running away. The human rights industry; running away. The TSA; running away. The European Union and the British Left; running away. We do not have the luxury to wish the world as we want it to be. We must accept it as it is.

Will London have to happen in New York? LA? Boston? Atlanta? When will we start to learn from Israel how to do it right?

We have to know our enemy. It isn’t poverty. It isn’t even Nationalism. It is a religion that is incompatible with the modern world. You know one of the most dangerous persons you can be around is one that is about to drown. Any lifeguard will tell you that if you don’t do it right, a drowning person will take you with them as they thrash around trying to use anything to keep their head above water. It isn’t rational, it doesn’t even work. It is just the mad thrashing of the survival instinct. We are seeing it with Islam. In a time of mass communication and globalization, in the world marketplace, the core of Islam just cannot reconcile itself to the reality of the 21st Century.

…The Financial Times put it, often (Muslim immigrants) find themselves “cut off from their country, language and culture of origin” without being assimilated …

Assimilation is the key. Do we have riots of Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics here in the US? No. Did we have Americans of English extraction rise up in the War of 1812? No. Did Americans of German extraction have a guerrilla movement here in WWII? Italians? No and no (OK some Americans that moved back to Germany became spies, but that is retail compared to what we have here). Reason #438 that all this multi-culti crap is crap. From (insert genetic sub-group here) History Month, to bilingual education, to gov’munt bureaucrats trying to classify mixed-race children into one of their little blocks; multi-culti non-assimilation is just a ticking time bomb. It is counter productive and self destructive. It has NEVER worked, and never will.

Islam has a long tradition of tolerating other religions, but only on the basis of the supremacy of Islam, not equality with Islam. .. Muslims are raised with the view that Islam is God 3.0, Christianity is God 2.0, Judaism is God 1.0, and Hinduism is God 0.0.

Additionally, they have a 12th Century attitude about criticism. It was once said (by one of my heros I think) that once a Muslim director makes the Islamic version of “The Life of Brian” in Mecca and he is not killed, then we will know if Islam can exist in the modern age in the West. I’m not holding by breath.

Using some common sense PSY101, he makes a very acute observation about motivation.

…they are on one hand tempted by secular Western society, and ashamed of being tempted. … (Islam’s) decision to ban the reform and reinterpretation of Islam since the 12th Century has choked the spirit of innovation out of Muslim lands, and left the Islamic world less powerful, less economically developed, less technically advanced than God 2.0, 1.0, and 0.0.
…
…while having been taught their faith is supreme, other civilizations seem to be doing much better.

Envy, pride, and a lack of self reflection. Bad in kids, ugly in adults, deadly in a culture.

This is not about the poverty of money. This is about the poverty of dignity and the rage it can trigger.

This should be part of the in-chop brief for everyone heading to the sandbox.

The secret of (how a secular, Western Muslim can quickly become a suicide bomber against those he grew up with) is in this conversion – and is the crisis in Islam. The people and ideas that brought about that sudden conversion … if not stopped by other Muslims – will end up converting every Muslim into a suspect and one of the world’s great religions into a cult of death.

Mr. Friedman nailed it. One thing I would add; there are great Americans that are Muslim. They need to work to rescue their religion. I am a 21st Century Christian, not a 12th Century Christian. Muslims need to find a 21st Century Islam, or they will be swamped by history. We are at the tipping point perhaps. Perhaps it is already too late, but this is going to get tougher, and is going to last longer. Islam's internal battle is lashing out.

As for my European friends: the Islamists are starting to see that America is a more difficult and more distant target. Sure, we are going to get hit again, but I think they are starting to see that their traditional enemy, Europe, is an easier and weaker target. That is where the battle of the busses is going.

The war is coming to their front, again. Cowboy up.