We can
make the collective choice to turn our backs on what the Islamic
State represents, but that decision must be a deliberate one made
with full knowledge of the trade we are making.
The
somewhat limp and always disappointing-to-me backlash against
American involvement in a military action against theocratic fascists
in Mesopotamia seems to me, looking at it in a generous light, to be
solely driven by the desire to not continue sending our countrymen to
die in the desert at the hands of people we probably wouldn't
collectively be thinking or talking about if our soldiers weren't
there. This is drawing an affirmative conclusion from
a negative or unproved premise, namely that our soldiers being there
is guaranteed to result in their death and that non-involvement will
somehow insulate us from the developments in the region. It is
inaccurately described as “war weariness” by our media, as if any
civilian opining on military action from the comfort of 6,000 or more
miles removed has the right to claim to be weary of combat. This is
more of the same petulant and smug complaining from the comfortable
set, weary of nothing but the intrusion of other people into their
self-serving cocoons. Instead of choosing action based on
well-reasoned and logical argument for non-involvement, it is a
complacent and conciliatory trade we are engaged in with this growing
horrorshow, just as a lifelong laborer trades wage for cartilage.
The
ignorant and self-defeating proposition from the more fuzzy-minded
among us would have you believe that groups such as the Islamic State
and Al-Qaeda are somehow extremists, that their incredibly barbarous
and backwards ideas and actions are a perversion or corruption of the
horrific relic referred to unironically as a religion of peace
instead of a fundamental command from their holy texts. The latter is
obviously true, and denial of that fact in the name of tolerance is
one of the more odious symptoms of the virus running unchecked
through otherwise intelligent people who would like very much to
allow for religious pluralism while simultaneously not being at war
with those same religions. This proposition necessarily requires
peaceful co-existence with groups of people who are told they have
divine warrant for the wholesale slaughter of anyone from any other
group. As you can see, this is an incredibly difficult endeavor to
simply imagine, let alone achieve with the rapidity we require to
avoid the worst outcomes imaginable.
 |
| I'm actually referring to a nuclear war, but this is still somehow horrifying. |
The
population of a group of true believers relative to the rest of us,
especially when they are committed to getting what they want through
violence, has never created an obstacle to one crackpot religion
after another shaping us through force both culturally and
politically. It must be unthinkable to us to forget what all
religions of the world have done – the damage inflicted and
civilizations lost forever – when they thought they could get away
with it due to no secular resistance. Dismissals of the Islamic State
as being a non-threat to America due to their geographic distance and
perceived logistical shortcomings may be technically true for the
immediate future, however those dismissals ignore the fact that
diseased beliefs like religion spread very quickly in both a benign
vacuum as well as under threat of death. The converts flocking in
currently small numbers to the pretender caliphate are not only
people with no futures from the region, they are people from tolerant
and pluralist countries like the US, Australia, and Great Britain,
where publicly speaking out against the threat Islam poses us is not
yet recognized as common sense. Whether their group grows by the
dozens or thousands by year's end, there is no amount of them small
enough or geographic region isolated enough to be tolerable or judged
to pose no threat to the rest of us. I argue that if left unchecked
they will grow and expand outside Mesopotamia to pose a constant and
credible threat to all nations, and they will do so waving their holy
texts.
 |
| Just like these extras from "Conan" and their ghost horses. |
Either the
writings of the Qur’an and hadith are the divine delivery of
mandate from the creator of everything through the Archangel Gabriel
to the prophet Mohammed or they are not. Within those writings are
the mandates for the oppression of other peoples, the subjugation of
women, the destruction of modernized civilizations, and the death
penalty for apostates. If these instructions are the creator's divine
word then these “extremists” are the only true believers getting
it right, as it were, and our decision to pretend they're not Muslim
is not only suicidally ignorant but incredibly disrespectful to their
religious beliefs, which we claim to respect. On the other hand, if
these mandates are nonsense dictated by an illiterate epileptic,
which they are, what does that say about the parsing of real Muslims
from false ones? And why, with the inability of influential mullahs
and imams to issue a blanket fatwa against any kind of false crusade
due to their religion, do we continue to pretend these actions are
not recognized, promoted, and praised by the leaders of this sick and
dangerous cult? I do not propose a false choice, and I do not see how
any other conclusion could be reached.
 |
| Those other conclusions have an inordinate amount of 'splaining to do. |
In
anticipation of the immediately obvious rebuttal, that of the vast
majority of people who profess the Muslim faith are peaceful and
contributing members of society, perfectly wonderful human beings to
all they meet, loved by puppy dogs and goldfish, let me offer this
explanation. Every person I have personally met who claimed to be
Muslim has been a genuinely warm and sweet individual, not including
those whom I have met tangentially through debate. They do not want
to kill me or anyone else, they are as furious at the actions of the
Islamic State as I am with the added seasoning of shame and revulsion
at what they feel is being done to their religion's reputation. Their
wives and girlfriends speak openly, and I can see their face when
they do so, and no one is missing any body parts. I can scarcely
believe they're being honest with me about their faith. I again argue
that if you are not adhering to the mandates handed down by the being
you believe created you and will punish you for disobedience, on what
authority can it be argued you are an adherent of that cult? If Allah
told Gabriel to tell Mohammed to tell Muslims to kill apostates, and
you're smarter than that, what need have you to still tie the noose
of religion around your own neck? It should be cast off, as all the
needs people fulfill with religion can be satisfied just as easily
without it.
 |
| As illustrated here, in this poorly photoshopped metaphor. |
On
material costs. By postponing the extirpation of the Islamic State,
we are actively delaying the reconstruction of a tragically and
needlessly destroyed modern civilization that made irreplaceable
contributions to the advancement of knowledge and humanity. This is a
consequence that should cause any thinking person discomfort. We
prevent the reconstruction of education and trade infrastructure,
which the area is muddling through but can obviously use as much help
and time as possible without ignorant savages blowing everything up.
Postponing the stabilization of development of Mesopotamian oil
supplies, which is approaching amounts unseen since the Hussein crime
family controlled the region, strangles the financial benefits to
both Iraqi and Kurdish people.
Ignoring
our pocketbooks for a moment, I want to explore what would result as
the moral consequences of our decision. To begin with, we leave the
peoples of the area who are powerless or ineffective at providing
real resistance to the Islamic State at their mercy, which is a very
grim thought if you mull it at all. The eschatology of Islam, along
with all other religions, calls for the absolute end of all humanity.
Total erasure of man from the face of the Earth at the time of (or to
bring on) the second coming. Since these people proclaiming an
Islamic State must have the primitive self-awareness necessary to
understand how pitifully inept they would be at any kind of
scientific or technological endeavor, they must outsource the brain
power necessary to achieve their ends. Muslims educated at European
and American institutions must go and help these savages with their
work. The consequence of this, and no one can call it alarmist, is
that every day we do not actively participate in the stabilization
and reconstruction of the region we move one day closer to finding
out what the religious will do with nuclear and biological weapons.
This isn't news to anyone, but I bring it up to reiterate and
reinforce that Islam calls for the extermination of all humanity to
bring on the final judgement.
|
| Just in case you forgot what that will look like. |
At that time, Mahdi the redeemer of
Islam will come to Earth and team up with Jesus like some kind of
post-modern Superfriends to do battle against the false messiah, whom
they apparently have in common. Their inevitable victory will result
in all of our deaths and the eradication of sin so that their ghosts
may eat grapes and our ghosts may suffer eternally. As silly as all
this sounds to anyone with half a reasoning mind, it barely begins to
relate the sheer mindless nonsense the Muslim religion imparts to our
enemies. The very real consequence of that nonsense, and our reward
for trading in tolerance, is that as soon as these people get their
hands on a way to carry out nuclear or biological attack on our
civilization, they will.
