Avoidance of Islam's violent past and present

Submitted by A. Zahler (United States), Jul 31, 2002 at 16:39

Daniel:

Your thesis reverses that of Daniel Goldenhagen in his "Hitler's Willing Executioners". The German population was somehow infected with genocidal impulses that impelled them toward annihilating Jews, Slavs, gypsies and the mentally retarded--ordinary Germans willingly engaged in murder and violence, embracing the NAZI government's war on Europe as an extension of their own desires.

Few intellectuals--certainly you among them, if consistent-- were willing to accept this view--particularly Jews. It ignored the long centuries of cultural and scientific enlightenment, as well as the civil conflict that preceeded the NAZI rise to power. Goldenhagen gave no weight to the affect of overwhelming suppression of liberty and speech, nor the wholesale murders of the political opposition. People never act without fear when the jackboot's on their throats.

Yet with all that said, this monstrous anit-human crusade was nonetheless formidable. Hitler mobilized the entire population to wage war and these "unwilling" executioners murdered millions before being stopped. Is that any different for the threat of "Islamists"? These cutthroats have hijacked a religion just as surely as Hitler hijacked a country, but until they are forcefully and forcibly stopped, there is no possibility that more "reasonable" heads can prevail. No Martin Luther could raise his head under the present circumstances. Fascism was stopped, and decisively, before Europe could rebuild and prosper as democratic nations. And then one wonders how much the loss of a war actually changed them, given their support of Islamo-fascism, Palestinian barbarism and an anit-Israel/anti-Jewish mindset.

Your arguments are so half-hearted. I admired the forthrightness of your early articles on the heels of 9/11, but all I've been seeing for months now is this delicate, politic tip toeing. What gives?

A. Zahler
Michigan

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