Plato, you don't know what you're talking about

Submitted by Noah Wilk (United States), Jan 26, 2007 at 20:59

Sorry Plato, but you don't know what you're talking about, and I will explain why. You wrote:

"If even 10% are peaceful, just a ballpark figure, could be as low as 5, that is something to work with."

Show me where this mythical mass of moderate Muslims is reforming Islam? Are they doing so in Egypt? Jordan? The so-called Palestinian territories? Sudan? Iran? You have nothing to work with, Plato. People are basically referring to me, Susan, and other realists as "hawks", and yet you "doves" have yet to offer even a single, sane, workable, realistic, peaceful solution to the problem. It's New Age psychobabble, mainly from Michel. "Let's have a dialogue! Let's have conflict resolution!" No, let's have an effective, proven deterrent.

"I don't want to dredge up dead history, but the Inquisition was not so long go, and how many in the Catholic world would have approved of and cheered the burnings, tortures, and converting the infidels as you seem to believe of the Muslims today. This is relevant as Islam as practised today will soon be on the dust heap of yesterday."

Really? Do you really believe the absurd statement you just made? Militant Islam is growing in the world, Plato, not shrinking. It is expanding beyond the borders of Arabia and into the Western world. Iran is becoming ever more militant, Islamic terror groups are attaining the equivalency of statehood, Muslims are subverting culture in many western countries and even instituting Sharia law in those western countries. The Western world is paralyzed with fear and bends over backwards to avoid "offending" those savages, due to their barbaric reactions to even the most innocent actions (like political cartoons). People in western countries are in hiding because of fatwas from Muslims living in those supposedly free countries.

Plato, I'm afraid your belief system and reality are polar opposites.

"Certainly it is your duty. But by driving Muslims into a corner you make them even more dangerous like any cornered being."

Wrong again. A cornered animal is only dangerous of you're standing in the corner with them. Do yoyu mind backing your claim? If all Muslims are deported back to the middle east, and all aid is cut off from them, what can they do to us? They don't have nukes. They don't have a military worth spitting at. They are inferior militarily, economically, morally, and in every other way imaginable. What could they do to us from Arabia when they're penned in? Mount a wimpy tank attack into Europe? No. A couple of bombing runs from F-16s will take them out. Send a nuclear missile over? No, they won't be allowed to ever develop one (not that they ever could, without foregin aid). They certainly can't fly planes into our skyscrapers or walk a suitcase nuke into our country, because they won't be here and will not be allowed in.

Because they are a savage, barbaric, warlike people, they simply cannot resist the urge to destroy. They will have to focus that anger somewhere...it needs to be let out. So they will turn one one another. Hamas and th PLO will go to war (as if they aren't already), Shia will fight Sunni, and the entire Muslim world will be so concerned with fighting one another and simply surviving that they will not have time to even think about attcking us.

"The blundering blunderbuss Bush did do that and the threat has only grown. I guess your response would have been even more powerful but i hate to think of its fallout."

Bush is a bumbling idiot and is owned by the Saudis. My approach would have been totally different and far more effective. The threat has grown because Bush is weak, and he has made America look weak with his paddy-cake war. That is not how you fight a war.

"They had their Mutazilites, and some Sufi sects. They have Ziauddin Sardar and Fazlur Rehman, sure they are are not well appreciated but they are there."

Changing nothing in the big picture, and amounting to nothing.

"You have not mentioned by force of arms. Was it deliberate?"

Yes, it was deliberate. They are mounting a migratory attack, only too many in the West are too stupid to see that.

"Was what happened to the Red Indians "un-American"? You have heard that nice little phrase "the only good injun is a a dead injun". And now all the injuns are dead aren't they? Except a few good noble savages in the reservations all dolled up in their feathers and paint, reduced to doing the rain dance instead of their war dances for the pleasure of the newly-minted owners of the lands on which their oh so recent ancestors danced."

Totally irrelevant to the subject and nothing more than an attempt at deflection. Stick to the topic.

"The drift of your argument seems to be "the only good Muslim is a dead one". "

No, the drift of my argument is that the only good Muslim is a reformed, peaceful Muslim. If that's not possible, then the only good Muslim is a Muslim confined to his cage (ie isolated in Arabia). If that in turn is not possible, then yes, the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim.

"Well Islam does massacre but they are more into converting, which may only be a bit better than being killed, at least for the women among them,"

Well that's certainly an absurd statement. I'd rather die free than become a slave to that depraved death cult. And they are very much into massacre. Ask the Alabanians. Ask the Jews in Israel. Ask the Christians in Sudan.

Once again, your views do not reflect reality.

"On two of earth's largest land masses (not forgetting Australia) the West's ideals were established, but on the bones of injuns and aborigines. Morals and ideology (religion) did go out the window, but now it is all hunky dory again. But let us move on it is the dead past. "Stuff happens" in history, to quote a famous defender of American values."

Well, since we don't have a time machine, we can't go back and un-do that, now can we? So the issue is moot. Get back to the actual topic and stop deflecting.

"God gave you the right to be in America and Australia did he not? You were invited to these places were you not, just as the Muslims say they were invited when the misguided saw the glorious light of the Koran"

I'm not Christian, so I can't say that God gave me anything. ;-)

Be that as it may, the idea is that America is blessed by God, and that all peace loving, freedom loving people are welcome. America believes that it should be a shining exampe of what true freedom can accomplish, and no matter how much one might hate America, it cannot be denied that America has contributed more to the world and more to man's advancement than any other country. Our system has been proven superior to all other systems since the dawn of mankind.

Islam on the other hand believes that it can spread its "values" by forced conversion...by murdering, raping, enslaving, and converting others at the point of a sword. That's a depraved and evil ideology. Hence your comparison is inaccurate.

"Well lets say Bin Laden managed to convince the Muslims to endure nuclear annihilation. How many nations are you going to nuke."

As many as it takes. If that means wiping all of them out, fine. As far as I care, we can nuke Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Kuwait, give one each to the USA, China, and Russia, and that will prevent any conflict between the Big Three over it.

"Haven't you heard of nuclear fallout. Neither your god nor theirs, who so loves death, can ensure it will affect only the muslims. As you say "end of story" for most of us."

Apaprently you're not aware of American armaments such as the MOAB bomb (non-nuclear) and the neutron bomb (leaves little dangerous fallout and only for a very short period, hence the term "clean bomb").

"There is the nuclear-armed Kim Jong-what leading millions of starving Koreans."

Let South Korea and Asia deal with him. He's not our problem. Once he sees America acting like a true warrior and taking out Islam, he would not dare point a missile at us. We tell him that we are re-enacting our old policy that if we see any missile launched from North Korea in our direction, we assume it is an active nuke and our policy is automatic and massive nuclear retaliation towards Korea. Problem solved. He won't even think about it.

"There are several nukes under Musharaff's hat and fundamentalist Muslims of a kind you have not dreamed of in the US waiting to deprive him of his cap"

Which only proves the point that it is essential to take out Pakistan before the crazies take over.

"You start deporting, sequestering muslims in the West and you will have a feeding frenzy at the fundamentalist watering holes."

They're already in a feeding frenzy, and your theory stems from fear, which is no way to fight a war. If we constantly worry about how the enemy will react, we emasculate ourselves. Did we worry about how the Germans would hate us if we firebombed their cities? Did we worry about a Japanese feeding frenzy wen we nuked them? No. They hate us anyway. Stop worrying about "making it worse". They already want to destroy us, to wipe us out, to make us submit. How much worse can they hate us and who cares is they can? It changes nothing.

Did you ever see the movie Lethal Weapon with Mel Gibson? His partner (Danny Glover) says "God hates me, that's what it is!". Mel Gibson looks back and him and says "Hate him back, it works for me!"

There's the attitude! Hate the enemy back. Stop trying to analyze him and pity him and understand him and sing Kumbayah with him after a nice lovey-dovey group hug with tinkly New Age music and patchouli incense burning in the background. Hate him back! He wants to destroy everything you are, everything you hold dear, everything that matters in your world. If this was how we had fought WWII, we'd be saluting images of Der Fuhrer here in America today.

"True about Nazi-like regimes. But Gandhi's methods live on in Martin Luther King, Mandela, the Burmese lady and India. From what I have read of your posts you are not happy with your government including the voting public. What method do you propose to overturn it?"

Don't even get me started on MLK. Luckily, that's off topic.

I propose putting the Constitution Party in power. I've been supporting them and working with them. I think they are our only hope, short of armed revolution.

"True. True. True. Not by drawing first blood, firing the first shot. Otherwise your flowers will wilt and may never bloom again. I agree just a belief , but a belief I am happy to broadcast."

Meaningless, philosophical nonsense. There is no room for philosophy on the battlefield. Only a fool would fail to sto his enemy before his enemy had a chance to attack.

"Perhaps not but what happens when an irresistible force (the West)comes up against an immovable object (Muslim faith). Your words "They need to either adapt or be killed. All of them."

It doesn't matter because the "immovale object" will exist in its own corner of the world and will therefore not have contact with us.

"What people like me are trying to do is loosen the object's foundations so that it will keel over. '

Well, I'm sure you can understand that those of us who dwell outside the confines of Fantasyland prefer not to wait another 1,400 years and hope for the best, considering the facts of the first 1,400 years and the realities of the current situation. We can hope that a dripping faucet in my apartment drills a hole through the earth and reaches China, but that's a somewhat ridiculous and unrealistic expectation.

"You seem to think it is an impossible task, history will speak. If we fail you have the immovable object to deal with."

The problem is that "your side" has given the rest of us nothing that in any way resembles a realistic and workable solution given the realities of our world. I can sum up your argument like this:

"Let's talk. Let's negotiate. Let's give the mythical moderates time to slowly erode the radicals."

Well, I am sorry to tell you that your approach is pathetic, unrealistic, and unworkable. And none of you yet have spelled out a detailed plan for dealing with Islam using your "Kumbayah Method". All we hear from you is "eventually, the voices of reason will prevail". And then I point out the rally in Arizona where a community of 50,000 Muslims failed to generate even a couple hundred Muslims speaking for peace. I point out that nowhere in the Muslim world are the mythical "85%-90% peaceful" Muslims able to suppress and overpower the supposed 10%-15% violent minority. You put your faith in fantasy. And when it comes to my future, the future of those I love, the future of my country, I simply cannot tolerate a an ill-defined (actually, non-defined) fantasy solution to an imminent and actual threat.

"Remember Noah, Islam's advances were always against very similar despotic forces, the kings and potentates of the age. Since the collapse of the Ottomans where do you see any triumph for Islam."

Not sure I have enough fingers and toes to count them. How about Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood is taking over power? How about the so-called Palestinian territories, where they voted into power the terrorist group Hamas (which takes over from the terrorist group the PLO)? How about in Afghanistan, which we supposedly freed? There again is Sharia law and a man being put to death for converting to Christianity. What about all those free Muslims living in utopian (compared to their homeland) countries like France, Spain, Britain, the USA? Look at how they behave there and what atrocities they have engaged in.

Funny you should bring this up. It brought to mind an article I just read yesterday. As much as Buchanan makes me want to vomit my lunch whenever I hear his name, I gotta agree with him on this.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53935

"As your posts always remind us they all live in hellholes and cesspools of corruption, poverty and what should be of great comfort to you, Muslims have been intellectually emasculated by their imams."

All hellholes of their own making. And so they project their hatred onto us.

"Islamic triumphs are only in the minds of Muslims. The present day muslims live in the reflected "glory" of their dead past. What are you afraid of, Noah."

If you cannot see the threat Islam poses, then you are clearly too stupid to engage in conversation on the matter with me. A nuclear Iran? A mass migration of Muslims that will enable another 9/11? Ever hear of Bin Laden's American Hiroshima plan?

"Noah, I feel that given your presence on these blogs and eagerness to challenge and answer all the Muslims you perhaps have a niggling hope that you won't have to do all that you claim you want to do, including pushing the button, to the Muslims. Keep going. I enjoy many of your hard hitting words, sadly I also cringe at some of them.

Believe me, if you knew me in real life you would not doubt me. I have no compunctions about nuking the middle east. If it were up to me, Iran would already be a sea of glass, and we'd have colonized Saudi Arabia. I have no mercy for a barbaric foe. Would I be happy if they suddenly reformed and civilized themselves and we did not have to deport them and deter them with the threat of nuclear annihilation? Sure, that's fine with me. Saves us a lot of work, time, and money. However, I live in reality, not Fantasyland, and I know that my solution is the only one that will work given the realities of our world.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".