The Taliban today advised all religious scholars in Afghanistan “to fully inform the masses about such barbaric acts of America in their sermons and to prepare them for a lengthy struggle” in the wake of the “Innocence of Muslims” film.
“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan condemns with the strongest of words insult towards the great Prophet of Islam, Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa (SAW), perpetrated in a screening in an American cinema with the authorization of its government,” the Taliban said in an English-language statement. “…Such revolting actions are not acts of individuals but rather are activities done with the approval or even directly by the government.”
The low-budget film screened once for a handful of people in June at The Vine Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.
“We, as the staunch defenders of Islam, make it very clear to the American regime as well as its rebellious transgressing individuals that such actions will not bring you any closer to your malicious goals but vice-versa; it shall further unveil the true satanic face of your government especially to the Muslims and will drive the Muslim world to communally respond with an appropriate reaction,” the Taliban warned.
“The bestial natured America has violated the religious, ideological, national and cultural sanctums of various countries and nations in its dark history and has allowed such irresponsible acts to flourish in its country therefore the international community and specifically the Muslim nations and countries should join hands and create an unbreakable alliance against this common enemy in order quickly respond to these evil elements with an appropriate and stern reaction and to contain these gross offences.”
Make no mistake–we face a challenge now. They–the Islamists–see an opportunity, and because they are “street toughs” who have survived in rough neighborhoods, they are going to take it, because they intuitively understand power. This problem is going to spread–Indonesia, Phillippines, Pakistan. Because it will be driven by hearts and a feeling of “Muslim Manifest Destiny”. They’ll make mistakes, of course, like bin Laden did with 9/11 (brought a ton of woe onto al Qaeda). But the Islamists will try to make something happen if they can, of that I have no doubts. They have dreams, and see a chance to realize them.
The basic problem we face is that we are going to need allies in this, because we won’t be able to combat it alone, absent a WWII mobilization. We simply will never have enough manpower by ourselves–to either fight real fights, or to fight intellectual ones (and we are far less equipped to fight the second than the first, because we in fact are somewhat “bestial” now. Our elite’s governing beliefs these days are all trite CW sayings that they all parrot or genuflect before religiously, for fear of the MSM. The West used to have an incredibly rich intellectual lfe. No longer. It’s been reduced to nothing more than talking points to trick the people into passing more social programs. We have quantity– we have many many thinkers. It’s the quality that appears lacking. The problem being that by and large the “thinkers” given credence all think the same types of things, and those things will not help one iota in this problem–in fact, will make it worse. If a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged, then the West hasn’t been mugged yet. But it’s probably coming. You let your foreign policy get ran by Fareed Zakaria, you’ll be fighting a war against the Caliphate one day as they make a play to be a great power. He simply does not understand human nature at its basest, and I’m not sure many of our “intellectuals” do.)
And I don’t mean Europe when I mean allies. I mean the Reformation Muslims. And they don’t exist. So…what we really need is a philosophical battle. And that is something our current elites are simply not equipped to do.
Because, frankly, of lockstep-thinking in academia and the MSM. It will take hard reality and blood on the ground to make people realize we have a real problem here that is a strong force of history aborning that is not going to get managed by spouting feckless pieties designed more to score points in domestic politics against social conservatives than anything else.
My guess is that the Byzantines died because winning domestic struggles became more important than external ones–and that no one ever had the strength to truly triumph over domestic foes, and thus “byzantine” plots to get power were always going on. Infighting was always the highest priority.
While the Turks did what they needed to do.
“we won’t be able to combat it alone, absent a WWII mobilization.”
We had a chance to do just that 11 years ago. And we blew it; our mobilization in Iraq was a tiny fraction of what would have been necessary in the region. Leadership was grossly afraid of the societal disruptions that a “total war” economy would entail for the body politic.
But, I’m sure that responsible, moderate, muslims are speaking out about this slander.
sarc/off.