Essay on Islam

Foreign Affairs magazine, July/August 2010 issue. The article is a review (Marc Lynch) of the book "The flight of the Intellectuals" by Paul Berman.

Page 145 is where I found an interesting quote that typifies the problem that many people have understanding much of the difficulty we in the rest of the world have with Islam.

"Put bluntly, Islamists have shaped the world around them in ways that many liberals in the United States and Europe find distasteful. Even moderate Islamists prioritize religion over all other identities and promote its application in law, society, culture, and politics. Their prosyletizing, social work, party politics, and organization of parallel civil societies have all helped transform societies from below. This frightens and angers secularists, liberals, feminists, non-Muslims, and others who take no comfort in the argument that the political success of the Islamists simply reflects the changing views of the majority."

Please note that moderate Muslims prioritize religion over ALL other identities. They promote Islamic law, society, culture and politics over all others. This describes not a religion as we know them, but nationalism. The Catholic Church does not defend the "land" that Catholic Churches sit on. Islam is fielding an army. This is the stuff that wars are fought over. This is why you have PROFESSIONAL armies. Liberals only find this ‘distasteful’? And to top it all off, this is simply what the majority wants? The author of this essay (Marc Lynch) cannot understand Islamic law very well at all. Islam is at war against our legal system; our political system; our society; our very culture. What is not to be understood here? Marc Lynch just does not want to see how important this is.

Muslim immigrants have demonstrated a remarkable resistance to assimilation. They are literally attempting to take over in all areas that they immigrate to by using any and all methods not to adapt to the country that they moved into, but to force that country to adapt Islamic laws and culture. (This is another example of the one-way streets in Islam.) Historically, when a government has helped immigrants to do things like this, the defending country declared war and attacked, as they have the right to. This would be an act of war if China or Russia or any other country did this. We would have the right to declare war. Yet because Islam is a religion, nor is their any specific country of origin, war is not a viable option? No wonder irregular warfare is so common throughout the areas of the world where Islam is approaching a significant minority of the population. The people are unable to defend themselves and are taking matters into their own hands. Yet they are on the defensive. As are we.

This is precisely why organized warfare is the ONLY way to permanently defeat the Islamic army. The very legal system and culture that is so hostile to us and our way of life (As with everyone else in the non-Muslim world) must be done away with. Islamic nationalism must die. Or else we become Islamic. The modern world cannot accept ANY religion fielding an army in the "religion’s" own best interests. Religion is NOT a national government. This contains many of those issues that you fight wars over. This war is BIG. With well over a billion Muslims, it will take a very large war to decide this issue. Not all favor this, although when push comes to shove, when it comes down to a fight, who are you going to side with? Human nature will persuade most to side with what you are familiar with.