The Bad Guys Get It. When Will We?

Very quick post today! Else the doghouse for me! And here's wishing my readers a great Valentine's Day!

There is quite a bit is in the blogosphere about the war today, but one post in particular ties in well with my recent viewing of the Ayn Rand biopic. Ayn Rand stressed throughout her intellectual life the paramount importance of ideas, and she stressed that we could understand history better with this insight. Ideas move history, and especially today. Sadly, it appears to be the case that it is mainly the Islamofascists who understand this. In a post whose title reminds me of a similar piece with a similar title by Rand, Daniel Pipes offers advice to those of us who are concerned with terrorism. It's worth a read, and it was partly with his third point in mind that I began this blog. But note which side best understands the role of ideas at present.

[T]o put it more starkly, Rita Katz of the SITE Institute says in the current issue of Newsweek, "Almost every [Islamist] Web site has a section on how to do jihad over the Internet" and these advise would-be holy warriors: "If you can't do jihad physically, do it on the Internet." The same applies to counterterrorists. [bold added]

I once pointed out that the Islamofascists openly stated what many in the West deny: that they philosphically oppose freedom. They also are right on this count: it will take more than bombs to win this war. The boldface above should be a call to arms for the West as well as the Islamofascists.

And not only do the Islamofascists oppose freedom. The book they take literally incites them to bloodshed. Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch is ready to collect on a million dollar prize. The whole thing is eye-opening, but here's a sample.

Below you will find Qur'anic references condoning a religious war, or jihad. Please send me one million dollars as per this statement from "Muslims seek tolerance" in NorthJersey.com (thanks to Susan):

Jamal Badawi, an economics professor and Muslim scholar, said the community has suffered from the media's portrayal of the Muslim holy book, the Quran, and in particular the suggestion that it condones a religious war, or jihad. He dismissed the idea, and jokingly offered $1 million to anyone who could find it in the Quran.

Here are the Qur'an quotes:

Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors. And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. And fight not with them at the Inviolable Place of Worship until they first attack you there, but if they attack you (there) then slay them. Such is the reward of disbelievers. (2:190-191)

Slay the disbelievers. Sounds like a religious war to me.

Sadly, while many of us on the internet might have noticed the huge and growing mound of evidence that Islamofascism poses a grave danger, our governments remain behind the behind the times, and crippled with multiculturalism. For example, consider what Daniel Pipes points out about our federal Bureau of Prisons.

Many branches of government need to understand Islam, but probably none deal with Muslims and their religious practices in so practical and detailed a way as do the wardens of prisons. It is therefore particularly dismaying to see that the highest prison authority in the United States, the Bureau of Prisons (which oversees all federal correctional facilities), has bought the Islamist line.

So, if our law enforcement, which have been compromised already, actually catch someone, our jailers won't take their beliefs too seriously. But this is nothing. In many cases, our governments are doing anything not to get in the way of these fanatics and their allies. In Great Britain, for example, comparative religion courses that deal with Islam now have the requirement that Mohammed's names be blessed any time it is written in coursework! Via LGF:

The potential problem has arisen in teaching about Muhammad. The exam board requires that every time Muhammad is written, the letters “pbuh” in parentheses be placed after it. This is shorthand for “peace be upon him”. The writer therefore prays a blessing upon him everytime [sic] his name is written, as is the custom of Muslims. So I have to tell my students (over and over if there is any hope of them remembering) that they must bless Muhammad every time they mention his name.

[Update (2-15-05): LGF corrects this. As it turns out, "OCR will always put ‘peace be upon him’ after Muhammad in the form of an Arabic colophon as a mark of respect. However we do not expect candidates to do this." So we still have a government agency paying obeisance to Mohammed. This is still way out of bounds.]

And remember, there's "anti-hate" legislation being considered there that might make it easy for people to get into trouble for "vilifying" Islam. (As if the Koran doesn't do that on its own. See above.) From the Christian News:

Some British opponents of the bill have pointed to a situation in Australia's state of Victoria, where similar legislation in place there has resulted in two Christian pastors being found guilty of vilifying Islam.

The controversial case arose from a post-9/11 seminar at which Muslim beliefs, scriptures and strategies were examined for a Christian audience.

And note that Australia's already sinking into the abyss. They're not the only ones. Mark Steyn has a chilling column out on how the West is in the main lacking in what he calls "war will." (I've complained many times that Americans are not angry enough about the September 11, 2001 atrocities.) From his article:

I'm not worried about Iraq. As they demonstrated on Jan. 30, they'll be just fine. The western front is the important one in this war, the point of intersection between Islam and a liberal democratic tradition so mired in self-loathing it would rather destroy our civilization just to demonstrate its multicultural bona fides. It's not that young Eden knows nothing, but that neither his teachers, judges nor furniture showroom proprietors do. By contrast, our enemies know us very well, at least when it comes to courtroom strategies and canny manipulation of the fetish of "tolerance."

A big step in the right direction would be for the West, as a whole, to remember that "tolerance" is a political, not a moral, virtue.

On Valentine's Day, we celebrate love. But if we don't protect what we love, we lose what we love.

-- CAV

Updates

2-15-05: Corrected MARK Steyn's first name. Added link to LGF update and comment.