People are going off the rails that USA Today printed an editorial claiming the massacre of a French satirical newspaper was justified by the Quran, and the fault lies on the French government for not censoring the paper's blasphemous images of the prophet Mohammed.
People, you just don't get it.
Washington Post blogger Radley Balko voiced a typical response to the editorial criticizing USA Today for running it. That's what drew it to my attention and while I read the editorial, I thought it was written by the Washington Post editorial staff and they were complete fools. Look at this excerpt:
The truth is that Western governments are content to sacrifice liberties and freedoms when being complicit to torture and rendition — or when restricting the freedom of movement of Muslims, under the guise of protecting national security.
So why in this case did the French government allow the magazine Charlie Hebdo to continue to provoke Muslims, thereby placing the sanctity of its citizens at risk?
Then I got to the bottom and saw it was a guest editorial written by Anjem Choudary, the radical British Imam I've heard about for years from Pat Condell.
Well, that's completely difference.
USA Today did the world a favor by letting us see exactly what we're up against, and how crazy and perverse radical Islam is. Anjem Choudary doesn't speak for all Muslims, even the violent radicals, but he does speak for some Muslims. Look at this gem he wrote, presumably in blood:
Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone. Therefore, Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people's desires.
Isn't that worth knowing? Shouldn't you be aware that some Muslims truly believes Islam needs to conquer the world, not as a response to the west's foreign policy decisions, but because of divine right? It doesn't tell us how widespread the view is, but now we know it's not zero. Don't you want to know that? Thanks to USA Today, you now do.
Anyone paying attention to the Muslim world should have know this.
ReplyDeleteThe truly revelatory portion, for me, is that most folks think that this sentiment is confined to radicals (of many stripes). In fact, most of the workd's organizations, whether political, private, interpersonal or otherwise, are hellbent on some form of ideological conquest by force. After all, that's why most people vote.
Humanity will never know peace until this practice of imperialism, intellectual or physical, is seen as the actual problem.