Posted by
Neophyte Pundit on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 6:00:00 AM
A great piece over at City Journal posits the following:
Bruce Bawer: An Anatomy of Surrender
What has not been widely recognized is that the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie introduced a new kind of jihad. Instead of assaulting Western ships or buildings, KhoÂmeini took aim at a fundamental Western freedom: freedom of speech. In recent years, other Islamists have joined this crusade, seeking to undermine Western societies’ basic liberties and extend sharia within those societies.
The cultural jihadists have enjoyed disturbing success. Two events in particular—the 2004 assassination in Amsterdam of Theo van Gogh in retaliation for his film about Islam’s oppression of women, and the global wave of riots, murders, and vandalism that followed a Danish newspaper’s 2005 publication of cartoons satirizing Mohammed—have had a massive ripple effect throughout the West. Motivated variously, and doubtless sometimes simultaneously, by fear, misguided sympathy, and multicultural ideology—which teaches us to belittle our freedoms and to genuflect to non-Western cultures, however repressive—people at every level of Western society, but especially elites, have allowed concerns about what fundamentalist Muslims will feel, think, or do to influence their actions and expressions. These Westerners have begun, in other words, to internalize the strictures of sharia, and thus implicitly to accept the deferential status of dhimmis—infidels living in Muslim societies. (Emphasis mine)
We are beginning to lose the battles. When will our leaders stand up and call evil, evil? When will murderous Islamofascists be called what they really are? Oh, sorry, I can't say Islamofascist, either. One of the best sites for information regarding the War that our enemies are fighting, and that we now seem to be capitulating in, is Counterterrorism Blog. The blog has many
recent posts on what is happening in the halls of our government, from Condi Rices' dismissing jihadist, to the use of the term 'extremist' rather than 'jihadist.'
Couple that with the possibility that we might have an inexperienced, apeasement driven, way left president, and we are in trouble! I am very frightened about the potential that we may have a McGovernesque dimocratic presidential nominee. Regardless of the current kerfuffle that Obama is combatting (Rev. Wrigt is going play up his 15 minutes of fame, to the hilt) he is a liberal's liberal. His comments about sitting down with our enemies, seemingly without precondition, will doom US foreign policy.
Obama sat for 20 years in the pews of a man that literally hates, abhors, condemns US foreign policy as tantamount to terrorism. He has compared US actions in the world are no better than those of al Qaeda, and then he has uttered the infamous words: 'the chickens are coming home to roost.' Rev. Wright's defense is that he is merely quoting former Ambassador (Peck) to Iraq. Those words are far more inflamatory than he is trying to dupe the masses into believing.
On Dec. 1, 1963, immediately after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X responded to that event with the comment that, "Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've always made me glad," prompting the audience, according to a newspaper account, "to loud applause and laughter." When, shortly after, Malcolm X explained his comment in an interview with Louis Lomax, his views closely anticipated Wright's:
I meant that the death of Kennedy was the result of a long line of violent acts, the culmination of hate and suspicion and doubt in this country. You see, Lomax, this country has allowed white people to kill and brutalize those they don't like. The assassination of Kennedy is a result of that way of life and thinking. The chickens came home to roost; that's all there is to it. America—at the death of the President—just reaped what it had been sowing. (Source:
Daniel Pipes)
Therefore, don't let the reverend fool you. He wants change in America, and the change he desires and encourages from the pulpit are scary. Now, I ask you, Obama sat in Wright's church for 20 years, had the reverend marry him to Michelle, and then baptize their children. I have always screamed at the television when Obama talks about change to tell me how and what. Would he implement the changes that Wright, Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, to mention a few? Is the change he claims to want to foster inclusive or punitary? Is the hope he speaks of for everyone or limited to those he feels have been subject to injustices at the hands of the US government? There is no definition behind those words, "hope" and "change." Are we ready to accept what I believe he is hiding?