The Religion of Peace

If you have a strong stomach read this outstanding piece by Australian Andrew Bolt (Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the tip). Bolt finds a putative interview on an Islamic web site with a leader of the recent terrorist atrocities in Saudi Arabia. The man's name is Fawwaz bin Muhammad al-Nashami, and he's one of the terrorists who managed to escape after participating in the slaughter of innocent foreign workers. Bolt quotes him as he recounts the psychopathic violence:

The terrorists then stormed a second compound, and found an "American infidel".

"I shot him in the head, and his head exploded. We entered another office and found one infidel from South Africa, and our brother Hussein slit his throat. We asked Allah to accept (these pious acts) from us, and from him."

The terrorists then killed guards at a third compound, where al-Nashami says they found Johansson: "Brother Nimr cut off his head and put it at the gate, so that it would be seen by all . . ."

They caught other workers and checked their religion. "We found Filipino Christians. We cut their throats and dedicated them to our brothers the Mujahideen in the Philippines. We found Hindu engineers and we cut their throats, too, Allah be praised . . ."

There is much more, but this is enough to give one a sense of the horror these sick people were willing to inflict in the name of God. As Mohammed at Iraq the Model so eloquently puts it the terrorists' victims are much closer to God than are these "pious" Muslims. Their offerings and praise of Allah must be a stench in his nostrils as must be their very lives or else Allah has nothing important in common with the God of Christians and Jews. Indeed, if this sort of cruelty and bloodthirstiness is pleasing to Allah then Allah is the devil.

As Sullivan suggests, it's ludicrous to argue, as some have, that the savagery of Islamist terrorists is more political than religious. They are driven by their interpretation of Islam to do what they do, not by political ideology, and the Koran, as Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis points out in his book The Crisis of Islam, need not be twisted all that much to be made compatible with their interpretation.

In any society, brutes and thugs seek power. If they attain it they will strive to impose their interpretation of the guiding myths of their society on everyone else, and theirs is almost certainly going to be the most brutal interpretation of all the alternatives. This is the history of twentieth century Europe and of the contemporary Middle East.

The Islamists are fascists, to be sure, but they are Muslims first and foremost. If other Muslims wish us to believe that the jihadis do not represent Islam they better start shouting their condemnations from the high spires of their mosques. It may be that the thugs have the "moderates" intimidated in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Muslim world, but that shouldn't stop the Imams in America from proclaiming their fatwas and execrations against those who perpetrate such unspeakable crimes in the name of God.

Bolt ends his column with a discussion of the media's reception of the findings of the 9/11 Commission. A few excerpts:

"This week also saw the release of two interim reports by the commission US President George W. Bush set up to investigate al-Qaida's September 11 attacks. In a little-reported passage, they warn: 'Al-Qaida remains extremely interested in conducting chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attacks..'"

"This spectre, of course, is what drove us to invade Iraq. Not only did Saddam house and help terrorists, including Abu Abbas, Abu Nidal, Palestinian suicide bombers and a bomb-maker of the 1993 World Trade Centre attack, but his scientists worked on chemical and biological weapons up until the war, as the Iraq Survey Group now confirms. The day would surely come when Saddam's weapons and the terrorists who wanted them finally met."

"So there were links between Saddam and al-Qaida, not to mention other terrorists, but no proof (yet) of active collaboration or co-operation in the September 11 attacks. This is almost word for word what Bush has long said. Yet ABC TV news said this week's reports prove al-Qaida 'had no links with Saddam Hussein, as suggested by the White House', and ABC's The World Today added: 'One of the Bush administration's central arguments for going to war with Iraq appears to be in tatters.' As if Bush had blamed Iraq for the September 11 attacks. The liar."

"More of this and al-Nashami can take it easy. We'll have cut our own throats already."

Zayed at Healing Iraq is an Iraqi Muslim who fears that "we are going to see more beheadings, the Mujahideen seem to appreciate the publicity and attention they receive with each new execution. Don't count on any public demonstrations of Muslim outrage though, there won't be any."

Chilling stuff. A very important question we should be asking ourselves is how would a president John Kerry protect us and our children from these people?