The War with Islam
by Kyrel Zantonavitch
Ever since the conquest of Afghanistan in 2002 and Iraq in 2003, most Muslims worldwide claim that the West in general, and America in particular, is "at war with Islam." Westerners, especially Americans, tend to dismiss such views with surprise and contempt. They're baffled by such an evidently outrageous interpretation of the current world situation. Westerners and Americans consider such claims as the near-ravings of a child, or a fool, or a lunatic.
But maybe the West shouldn't be so hasty. Maybe the "you guys are at war with Islam" accusation isn't as silly and paranoid as it seems.
The likelihood here is that the Muslims and their facile rhetoric are making a huge psychological confession. They're inadvertently revealing to all that this is what the West would be doing—if it had any sense. Making war on Islam is what the West should be doing—if it had a decent sense of self-preservation and was reasonably loyal to its own values and beliefs.
This is because Islam, as it's constituted today, is at great odds with just about every important aspect and ideal of Western Civilization. As such, it constitutes a mammoth threat to our values and way of life. Muslims understand this, even if we don't.
Still, the charge that we are "at war with Islam" is strange on the face of it—and maybe bizarre. After all, in recent times the West has acted repeatedly on behalf of Muslims. In 1989 the U.S. and its allies intervened massively to rescue the Kuwaitis from Saddam. In 1993 America went far out of its way in Somalia to stop the warlords and try to prevent massive starvation. In 1994, America and NATO intervened in Bosnia against the Western-leaning Serbs. And the U.S. is consistently fairly neutral in the Middle East despite the overwhelming virtue and pro-Western stance of the Israelis, and the overwhelming evil and anti-Western stance of the Palestinians.
So America and the West basically never stop coming to the aid of Islam—often at great financial and human expense. So how, in the name of Allah, can these people be so suspicious and hostile? Why is their worldview so ignorant and foolish? Why are they so ungrateful and malicious?
To begin with, Muslims are a naturally and profoundly warlike people. Historically, Islam almost entirely grew and triumphed via war and conquest. And this is their principle technique and mindset to this day. All these politically correct lies to the contrary which emanate from Tony Blair and George Bush are just that—lies. These two, which often seem like fairly heroic freedom-fighters, have essentially become dupes and tools of Islam. Blair's and Bush's steady drumbeat of anti-Western propaganda about how Islam is a "great" religion of "peace" which has been "hijacked" is just what it often sounds like—a singularly inappropriate wartime Muslim apologia. Blair and Bush bring to mind Lenin's famous phrase "useful idiot."
According to the ambitious, aggressive, belligerent ideology of Islam, the world is divided into two areas: the Dar es Salaam, or "realm of surrender," and the Dar es Harb, or "realm of war." The non-Islamic West is their realm of war. Muslims seek to conquer the West. For them and their belief-system there are only three legitimate Islamic options regarding non-believers: convert, conquer, kill. Islam can never be at peace with the "godless," "infidel" West.
Thus their claim that the Western military incursions into Islamic Kuwait, Somalia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., constitute some sort of open or secret warfare against Islam, is not as ridiculous as it sounds. Not from their viewpoint. Were the situation reversed, they would make a mighty attempt to impose their ideology on the conquered states. This is why, ominously, it isn't radicals and extremists who principally hold the simple-minded view above, but mainstream Muslims, i.e., those who make up the vast majority.
But one overall issue here—which everyone seems to miss or ignore—is, Why are the Muslims so childish and crazy in their beliefs in the first place? Why are they so vapid, ungrateful, and neurotic about Western foreign policy—and everything else? It seems to say something terrible about Islam in general.
But clearly the West isn't listening. It's supposedly "bigoted" and "undemocratic" to listen too closely thus. Maybe a new "Hiroshima" will finally get our attention.
The reason America and the West can't properly hear the you're-at-war-with-us Muslims is the stupidity and depravity of our own ideology. Alongside such good things as democracy, rule of law, an attempt at "liberty and justice for all," etc., we contradictorily also believe in cultural relativism, moral equivalency, and political correctness, along with subjectivism, post-modernism, and nihilism. These all blind us to the fundamental and essential Muslim reality. We just don't hear what they're truly saying and admitting about themselves. Or, alternatively, maybe we really do see and hear—but by our own standards and ideology, we can't admit or act on it.
In the end, the Muslims are a very unusual religious and ideological group. Conceived in an immensely backward place and time, their philosophy—despite appearances and surface similarities—is really not all that similar to their fellow monotheistic Jews, Christians, and Mormons. Muslims are a medieval-type people with a mindset and ideology similar to the world-conquering Bolsheviks, Nazis, and Spanish Inquisitionalists. Muslims today are ambitious, aggressive, bold, and fearless—and they're coming right at us. They find the familiar Western ideas of "mind your own business" and "live and let live" completely alien. Eventually we're going to need to understand this about them.
When Muslims mutter or rage, "You bastard Westerners and Americans are waging war against us! You devilish infidels want to destroy us!" what they're really saying is that our attempt to bring them civilization, modernity, and liberalism constitutes a deadly threat. Our innocent and benevolent aspiration to give them freedom, justice, individual rights, and rule of law is, at bottom, a frontal assault on their way of life and whole being. When Muslims babble or rave "You guys want to wipe out Islam!" what they're really saying is that Western liberal values and beliefs are fundamentally inimical to their own. And so they are.
The fact is, whether we know or admit it or not—the West and Islam are currently at war.
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