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November 25, 2004

OPINION: It's Time To Dust-Off The Four Myths About Muslims

Topics: War on Terror - the issues.

Our nation is locked in on a life and death world-wide war against terrorism and whether or not the Europeans, Asians and moderate Arab States(better defined as states that are tolerant of the West in order to maintain power and wealth) are willing to recognize this fact with us - it makes no difference whatsoever. They are engaged in the same war.

The Europeans for example have already begun to experience the effects of unrestricted non-Western immigration, their political leaders are being threatened by radical Islamists who are threatening and murdering their citizens in the streets, their families now have to be concerned that their next plane or train ride will be a terrorist target, and their society as they now know it is being threatened by Islamists determined to instill Sharia law in the West. Yet the liberal press, poorly informed political leaders, well-meaning religious leaders, and most non-Muslims simply ignore the elephant in the room - radical Islam. It has an agenda, it's agenda is to make non-Muslims convert or submit, and tolerance has no place in it's agenda.

If we wish to continue to pretend that "moderate" Muslims will ultimately speak-up, resist the onslaught of the fundamentalist Islamic agenda and it's adherants, and somehow non-Muslims and moderate Muslims together will make everything alright, we are wrong. Unless we realize these myths and others, our children and grandchildren have a strong chance of living under Sharia law or at the very least years of terror, gradually declining freedoms, inability to live and express their faith, the loss of Western civilization as we now know it, and the emergence of a society that looks much like Iran. I can't believe that any of us, non-Muslim and freedom-loving Muslim alike, want that to happen.

So what do we do about it? Let's start by learning more about our enemy. A good place to start is by dusting off a June 13, 2002 CNSNews.com commentary by C.T. Rossi entitled "The Four Myths Of Islam." Let's start there, dispell a few basic myths about Islam, and then take steps to learn how to differentiate between those Muslims who are our friends, and those who are not. (Opinion - Hyscience staff)

Let's begin by dispelling a few simple myths:

The Four Myths of Islam
By C.T. Rossi
CNSNews.com Commentary
June 13, 2002

If Robert Frost was correct when he quipped that "a liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel," then America has descended into the depths of leftism. The systematic way in which government and the media have consistently followed the path of self-loathing and self-negation could be the source of great humor, if the matters being bungled were not so grave.

While the attacks of September 11th roused a dormant patriotism in the collective American bosom, it also unveiled how deeply entrenched public discourse is in political correctness. Day after day the "war on terror" brings more misinformation, disinformation and propaganda. Most security measures are either window dressings for public consumption or usurpations of civil liberties by power-hungry elements within the bowels of bureaucracy.

The myths need to be dispelled and the elephant in America's living room needs to be addressed for the sake of that rarest of post-modern commodities - the truth.

Myth #1: Terrorism is not about Islam.

In fairness, someone did try to warn America to this sobering fact last fall in a Wall Street Journal editorial. The author, Amir Taheri, is a Muslim. He declared that "to claim that the attacks had nothing to do with Islam amounts to a whitewash." Some may think it ironic that a Muslim author is the one sounding the warning bell about his own faith. It isn't ironic in the least. Given the ground rules of politically correct discourse, only a minority may criticize a minority - only a Muslim may criticize Muslims.

Myth #2: Profiling is an evil to be avoided at all costs.

Profiling is an integral part of detective work and one component of the process is a person's race. When a cross is set ablaze on a black homeowner's lawn, you can guess that "white male" is placed atop the list of likely attributes of potential perpetrators. A white male is also most likely to be a serial murderer.

Truthfully, there is nothing in the genetic composition of a race that dictates social behavior. The real danger is that similar groups of people tend to share common cosmologies. If an ethnic group (pygmies for example) adopts an evil practice (cannibalism) in their world view, one may rightly call them backwards and savage - not because they are animists or short or black or from a different part of the globe, but because they have chosen to dine on human flesh. Terrorists are, overwhelmingly, Muslim males between the ages of 17 and 40 and from Middle Eastern ethnicities. If there doesn't exist a genetic predisposition to terrorism in the genes of peoples of the Tigres and Euphrates, then it must be their shared belief system - Islam.

If you are a young Islamic Arab male, you fit the profile for 19 of 19 terrorists of September 11th and you should be prepared to face additional security in airports.

Myth #3: Part of the FBI's failure on September 11th was lack of Arab or Muslim agents.

This laughable idea comes from the spin machine of the FBI's restructuring. Director Mueller has announced an Arab-American/Muslim affirmative action hiring policy as a part of the new proactive FBI. What Mueller or Attorney General Ashcroft have not done is explain exactly how having stuffy white-bread types at the Bureau led to the success of the attacks. If anything, there is evidence that just the opposite is the case.

FBI counter-terrorism special agent-turned-whistleblower Robert Wright has related an episode of some import. Wright asserts that while investigating possible Islamic terrorist activities, a Muslim special agent refused to wear an undercover wire, stating that "Muslims don't record other Muslims." Mueller and Ashcroft have not addressed this claim.

Uncooperative Islamic FBI agents aside, the FBI does not receive the lion's share of the blame for the incidents of September 11th. That honor goes to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Because of INS's incompetence, the United States is overrun with illegal immigrants - some are past terrorists, some are potential terrorists.

Myth #4: We must ally the "moderate" Muslims.

The truth be told, we don't understand who's who in the world of Islam. President Bush trotted out Sheikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi as the imam of "peaceful Islam." However it wasn't long before Tantawi was advocating the suicide bombers in Israel.

Even Mullah Omar calls himself a "moderate" Muslim, in that his Taliban regime did nothing more nor less than is called for in the Koran. With causuistries like that, Omar should move to Washington. After all, the FBI is hiring. 
C.T. Rossi comments on contemporary culture for the Free Congress Foundation.  Copyright 2002, Free Congress Foundation

Rossi's "Four Myths" tend to over simplify the issues, but they provide a starting point for learning how to differentiate between those Muslims who are our friends, and those who are not. Since few of us are experts in Islamic fundamentalism, Islam, the Islamic agenda, fundamentalist Muslim society, terrorism, interfaith relations, Sharia law, and especially what goes on in the mind of someone who is willing to strap explosives to their body, go into a crowded restaurant or shopping area(examples only, since terrorists seem to be willing to kill anyone, anywhere) and murder innocent people such as old people, mothers, fathers, children, grandmothers, grandfathers, and the like - we need to keep things simple at first, learn to discount invalid premises, and learn to be able to know the difference between our friends and our enemies. We are talking about people who you believe to be your friend, your neighbor, your co-worker, just the man or woman at the next table in the restaurant, or a fellow shopper. After all, our enemy has a deceiving agenda, in one hand is the olive branch, in the other is a ticking bomb, a knife, an agenda to destroy your freedom to worship as you wish, destroy your family, destroy your way of life, and destroy every other freedom that you now take for granted.

All Muslims are not our enemy. Many Muslims are our enemy. But we need to begin asking ourselves how we are suppose to know the difference, and does practicing Islam prevent a Muslim from doing such things as protecting America and our way of life(remember Rossi's example of the Muslim undercover FBI agent that refused to wear a wire because Muslims don't record other Muslims). No American should or can dispute the right of a freedom-loving, honest, hard-working,  considerate, tolerant, and truly peaceful America-loving Muslim to live, thrive, worship, dream, and enjoy our country. However, we need to know more about those Muslims that have hidden agendas to kill us or destroy our society in the future, and also those whose agendas are not so well hidden and wish to kill us now!

Posted by Hyscience at November 25, 2004 9:52 PM

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