Bubba Muslims?
Remember earlier this year when Newsweek reported that US interrogators at Gitmo might have flushed a Koran down a toilet? Most reasonable folks assumed the story was, at best, overblown. After all, unless the offended Koran one of those miniatures written on a grain of rice there was not way it got flushed down any toilet I’ve ever sat on.
But never mind that little engineering detail. In a matter of hours Muslim crowds filled the streets in protest. All hell broke loose. The crowd even killed a few of their fellow Muslims to let the world know how seriously they took this matter.
T.E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) once observed, “Arabs are children of the idea.” His point being that it didn’t take much to get them in the mood for a party, a Haage or a fight. All it took was the right “idea.” Just the “idea” that a Koran might have been mistreated was all it took to send tens of thousands of Muslims to the streets in protest – violent protest. I know because I saw it on the evening TV news.
Forty years of personal (TV news) observation on all things Middle Eastern have confirmed Lawrence’s observation for me. Hardly a night passes without at least one story showing crowds of amazingly pissed off Muslims burning Israeli and US flags, chanting violent threats and slogans and promising the object of their ire’s hours were numbered.
That is except for one “idea.” That would be the idea of terrorism against Western civilian targets. On that particular “idea” I have yet to see footage of throngs of angry Muslims filling streets or chanting snappy slogans of outrage. I have not seen one burn a photo of bin Laden or Zarkawi or damning their souls in the name of Allah.
Oh I know it’s terrible for me to mention this. It's the most politically incorrect item on the PC Top Ten right now, you know. Sorry, but someone has to. The mainstream media won’t touch this subject with a ten-foot vaccinated crowbar. Even Tony Blair and George Bush go out of their way to deny there is an issue.
But, it is true. It’s demonstrably, certifiably and measurably true. It would take less than a week for even the dimmest CNN or NY Times intern to collect the data for a story documenting it. It’s just laying there, but it would be ever so rude and insensitive to notice it.
But notice it – sooner or later – we must. Because the West is learning – as Israelis learned long ago and the Iraqis are learning now – that there is no real protection against random radical Muslim terrorism. The solution to this growing problem resides almost solely in the hands of Muslims themselves. This wave of terror will not abate until the “idea” that it is wrong finds resonance on the “Arab street.” So far it clearly has not.
We can help that along but only if we, our governments and media to stop pretending this enormous disconnect not only exists but is not some kind of cultural or religious subtlety non-Muslim westerners should not be expected to grasp. It's an enabler.
Muslims, we are told, do hate terror, just not enough to protest it in large numbers. But, why not? Clearly they know how to organize large street demonstrations, just not against Islamic terror.
Muslims are conflicted, that’s why. My intent here is not to whip up hatred of Muslims. My purpose in breaking this politically incorrect taboo is to get it on the table, not as a passing mention, but as a pressing issue Muslims worldwide – but particularly those living in the West – need to get… Get this idea and get it fast.
The problem plaguing Muslims is not new. I've seen it before, right here at home. White southern Christian folk suffered the same kind of “confliction” during the last century. I’m talking about all those ever-so-proper white bible thumping, church-going southerners who lived through America's civil rights era. They too kept their own council as members of their communities and congregations bombed and burned black churches and lynched black men. They too were, you see, conflicted. Oh,, sure, they said they were appalled, but they secretly supported white terrorism against civil rights activists and blacks.
Like today’s Muslims today, white southern Christians back then believed a way of life was at stake, their unique traditions and culture, even their religion. So most of them did nothing to stop the violence against blacks, hoping somehow it might put the brakes on social change and allow the old ways to coexist with the more palatable aspects of progress and modernity.
Complicit silence did not work for white southern Christians and it won’t work for Muslims either – because it can’t work. Their silence and inaction in the face of criminal behavior was wrong then, just as it is for Muslims today.
Memo to Muslims: Remember how angry you felt when you thought US soldiers had flushed a Koran down a toilet? Remember the anger you felt – and feel – when you see Israeli bulldozers destroying Palestinian homes? Remember the anger that drove you to the streets when the US attacked Iraq? Got that?
Okay, now begin asking yourselves, those in your community and Mosques, why it is you couldn’t seem to muster the same level of outrage when 3000 innocent people died at the hands of radical Muslims on 9/11. Or again when hundreds died when fellow Muslims bombed trains in Madrid? Or now, as we mourn the 52 people who died in London’s subway last week, again at the hands of fellow Muslims? Where’s all that good-ole Muslim outrage now? Where are the throngs of angry “peaceful Muslims” in the streets of Riyadh, Karachi, Cairo, and Tehran demanding justice for the innocents killed? Huh? You see the problem?
Wrong is as wrong does. Western philosopher, John Locke, put a fine point on this when he noted – correctly, that, “The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts.”
So, Muslims, here, in Europe and world-wide -- stop telling me Islam is a ‘peaceful religion” in the wake of each new radical Muslim attack. I am no longer interested in hearing that. I am no longer watching your lips but your feet. I am watching your actions to determine your true thoughts.
Quote of the Day
"Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that our government can track a cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she sleeps in the state of Washington, and they tracked her calves to their stalls? But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country?
Maybe we should give them all a cow. "
(George Carlin)
Site of the Day
How much as the Iraq war cost your community.
Find out here
www.costofwar.com
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