People have all repeatedly asked me this question. Lately, their voices are more pained.
Westerners are in denial. And, the deniers are even more afraid of Jihad and terrorism than those of us who are crying out against it. Thus, like battered women, they seek to appease the violent offender; they also engage in self-blame in the misguided belief that if they do not “offend” their batterer that he will not batter them.
Thus, if the West had not published the “inflammatory” Danish cartoons and had not allowed the state of Israel to come into being and to stay right there, a mote in the eye of envious, corrupt, and lazy Muslim nations–then Arafat would not have launched his terrorist campaign, Muslim immigrants in Europe would not have launched their various Intifadas, and Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood would not have gained in strength.
Deniers also tend to blame it all on American foreign policy, Wall Street and the CIA. They rarely blame anything on Islamic gender and religious apartheid or on Jihad Rising.
What else other than fundamentalist Islam explains the Iranian stonings to death of perfectly innocent girls and women for the alleged crime of prostitution which is how female rape victims, those who dare allege rape, women who are not sufficiently “covered,” or who demonstrate for women’s rights– are all viewed. Read my book, The Death of Feminism for a longer discussion about this.
Read the foreign press. For example, I have just learned that the Saudi, UAE, and (to a lesser extent) Iranian governments will not allow female athletes to compete in the upcoming Olympics. This decision has nothing to do with the CIA. However, I would agree that America’s policy towards Saudi Arabia must radically change, both because of their mistreatment of women and in terms of our being held hostage to grossly inflated oil prices such that we have been funding the Islamist war against the West.
I have just also learned that the Pakistani-based Taliban has demanded that un-Islamic businesses “shut down” within fifteen days or “face dire consequences.” The businesses targeted are CD shops, internet cafes, and cable service providers. And, the Taliban are threatening any woman who is not wearing proper hijab with disfigurement by acid. (Read about it in the Daily Times of Pakistan).
Contrary to myth, the U.S. did not fund the Taliban to fight against the Soviet invaders. In fact, after the Soviet military withdrawal in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Washington simply washed its hands of Afghanistan. The Taliban did not even exist until about 1996, when Pakistan created them for its own purposes.
Finally, also in the Pakistani Punjab, (are we really allied with this awful country?–yes we are, and there is no choice), two Christian sisters, aged 10 and 13, were abducted by Muslim men who married them and forced them to convert to Islam. The local police refused to help the parents find their children. Now, a judge has ruled that the children cannot see their Muslim husbands or their Christian parents and has placed them in a woman’s shelter.
The persecution of infidels, forced conversions, and forced marriage to female children is typical of 7th century Islam which alas, is still alive and well today.
Folks: It’s not our fault. We didn’t break it (Islamic fundamentalism) and we may not be able to fix it. But we do have to prevent it from invading our shores. If not, all the Western women will be veiled, the intellectuals silenced, the technology used only for jihad, and not to spread modernity.
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