Who are the Civilians?

Submitted by Mike Ramirez (United States), Jun 5, 2013 at 09:19

Dr. Pipes, you make excellents points in your response to Bret Stephens as outlined in numbers 1 to 3. However, point number 4 still brings into question the "ideology" of the civilians that are caught up in the sectarian war between Sunni and Shia.

For example, both sectarian groups of non-fighting civilians (Sunni and Shia camps) still hold to their fundamental ideology that the West is corrupt and that it is their command to make this earth a Muslim-dominated world. The situation we have is an escalating power struggle between which sect, Sunni or Shia, will be the one to lead Islam into global governance. While we consider the plight of "innocent civilians" caught up in the power struggle, the end result will still be that the Sunni "civilians" and Shia "civilians" will stil believe and promote their core ideology of wanting to destroy Israel, America and all other secular countries. Sunnis want to establish a Caliphate to govern the world's system while Shia want to expedite the return of the Islamic saviour, al-Mahdi, through global chaos. Either way, Sunni civilians and Shia civilians would never accept a Western-style form of government and would, therefore, continue their struggle (jihad) against America and all other non-Muslim societies.

The Western mind-set, as exemplified by your comments, is commendable in having compassion for innocent men, women and children caught up in the throes and destruction of wars and/or natural disasters. We are ready to generously assist with food and financial aid. However, it is my opinion that the "innocent civilians" we would rush to help in this sectarian conflict are still not going to abandon their core ideology of wanting to establish Islam as a global governance and they would then pick up the banner of Islam and rise to be the ongoing enemy of Israel, America and the West. A dilemma, indeed!

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