Dr. Pipes is mistaken

Submitted by Lorthog (United States), May 18, 2013 at 02:24

In the operative essay, Dr. Pipes posits "Our killer question is "How do you propose to defeat Islamism?" Those who make all Islam their enemy not only succumb to a simplistic and essentialist illusion but they lack any mechanism to defeat it.".

In fact however, and as Dr. Pipes undoubtedly recognizes, it is not the Christian, Jewish, secularist West that has made Islam the enemy. Quite the opposite. Hatred of "the other" is baked into the Koran and served up on a daily basis in every corner of the world where Islam is represented by a substantive population. Let us deal with the killer question "How do you propose to defeat Islamism?"

Here is the good news. To defeat Islamism we need only apply the laws on our books and the same common sense we used in similar times past. In WWII, Japanese and German nationals living in the USA were physically isolated in detention centers because we rightly understood that they posed a threat. Political correctness aside, if the same commonsensical approach was taken today, precious few radical mosques would be allowed to persist. The Muslim Brotherhood in the guise of CAIR would be dismantled and banned. Islamic lobbies, Islamic funding of higher institutions would be banned.

The TSA would stop interrogating grandmothers from Debuque, Iowa and instead direct their scrutiny to those who fit the profile of terrorists. And yes, I am suggesting that, just as Israel does every day, we use PROFILING as a tool against terrorism -- unapologetically and enthusiastically.

Another simple step would be to halt all Islamic immigration into the United States. When terrorists stop screaming Allahu Akbar while waving a Koran, we can consider once again treating Islam as a religion and not a religious form of Naziism. Till then, I believe we need to assume the worst and protect ourselves accordingly. Another simple change would be to call a spade a spade. The media need to stop referring to these monsters as radicals, or extremists or hobgoblins. They are Islamic terrorists. And they are following the guidelines set down in the playbook they use, which is known as the Koran.

You now see, these are just a few pretty simple ideas. But the thread that runs through them can be encapsulated thusly. We need to remove the blinders and stop worshiping at the alter of political correctness. Our enemies know the difference between us and them. So should we.

Dr. Pipes, brilliant thinker that he is, fails to address an important fact. If there are moderate Muslims, they have lost respect for us because they see us cowering and kowtowing to their more violent coreligionists. When we start acting as though our culture and our civilization is worth defending as aggressively as the Islamists defend theirs, then maybe the dynamic will change. Until then, we are doomed to play a losing game of defense and Islam and its adherents will just keep wearing us down, day by day, bit by bit.

I for one think that maybe it is time we transition to a more energized approach. If Western society answered back every Islamic terror attack with a pain-inducing response, we might actually start to demotivate our foe. I do not think it helpful to pick thru the barrel in the hope that we may separate the good Islamic apples from the deadly poisonous ones. Instead, build a barbed wire fence around the whole damn barrel, I say.

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