A Complete Way of Death” Edward Cline
ttp://edwardcline.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-complete-way-of-death.html
On May 26, Family Security Matters reprinted an article, co-authored by Clare Lopez and Retired Admiral James A. Lyons, which originally appeared on Accuracy in Media. “Misrepresenting the Threat of Islam” largely a critique of retired General David Petreaus’s article in the Washington Post (May 15).
Lopez and Lyons score Petreaus on his politically correct verbal soft-shoe about Islam, pointing out that he overlooks or chooses to ignore the fact of the Global Jihadist Movement (GJM), and that Islam is fundamentally not “religion of peace” that was “hijacked” by “extremists.” Jihadists, they write,
…are carrying out the core principles of Islam as specified in the Quran, Shariah and the hadiths.
Anyone who has bothered to peruse the Koran, Sharia law, and the hadiths, will acknowledge that this is a true statement. I maintain a folder devoted exclusively to violent Koranic verses; there are over two hundred of them I could easily cite here. The core principles reside in those verses and they are taken literally by jihadists of the Sunni and Shi’ite branches of Islam – as they were meant to be taken and which do not leave any room for subtextual interpretation. Those verses do not represent a guide to becoming flower children, but rather to becoming conquerors and killers.
Lopez and Lyons also upbraid Petreaus on his cheap shot at the First Amendment.
Petreaus not so subtly actually attacked our First Amendment rights when he expressed his concern over the current political dialogue that highlights the threat from Muslims and Islam. This was unconscionable! He has fallen into the trap of “Don’t criticize or take a position that might offend” the seventh century sensibilities of the followers of Islam.
Heeding that draconian advice would effectively shut down all criticism of Islam – scholarly, satirically, and vocally. Permanently. No one could open his mouth about or apply a pen to the subject without inviting a Muslim or government “backlash.” And what were Petreaus’s squeamish words?
Setting aside moral considerations, those who flirt with hate speech against Muslims should realize they are playing directly into the hands of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The terrorists’ explicit hope has been to try to provoke a clash of civilizations — telling Muslims that the United States is at war with them and their religion. When Western politicians propose blanket discrimination against Islam, they bolster the terrorists’ propaganda. At the same time, such statements directly undermine our ability to defeat Islamist extremists by alienating and undermining the allies whose help we most need to win this fight: namely, Muslims…. I fear that neither is true; in fact, the ramifications of such rhetoric could be very harmful — and lasting.
Let’s parse that statement, and not “set aside moral considerations.” After all, Muslims are the most sensitive crybabies around (until they become crybullies).
“…those who flirt with hate speech against Muslims should realize they are playing directly into the hands of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.”
Not criticizing or mocking Islam has not caused al-Qaeda or ISIS or a domestic Muslim convert to refrain from beheadings, bombings, and conquests. Official government silence, on the other hand, has invited the terrorists to commit more atrocities. Jihadists rush to fill the vacuum left open by political correctness and appeals to “moderation.”
“The terrorists’ explicit hope has been to try to provoke a clash of civilizations — telling Muslims that the United States is at war with them and their religion.”
But the clash of civilizations has been underway for decades, and no American president – not Reagan, not either of the Bushes, and certainly not Obama – has ever had the courage or the moral rectitude to recognize that the West ought to be at war with Islam, especially because Islam has declared war on the West. The “provocation” has come and gone, and Islam owns it.
“When Western politicians propose blanket discrimination against Islam, they bolster the terrorists’ propaganda.”
This is an indirect reference to Donald Trump, but also to other critics of Muslims and Islam who have proposed the same thing. I personally fail to understand how speaking out against Islam and jihadists “bolsters” terrorists’ propaganda. They will spew their propaganda regardless. They would prefer that we keep our mouths shut and go quietly into the night, and that anyone voicing opposition to Islam or Muslims or jihadists be silenced and punished in accordance with the West ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of Muslms by eviscerating freedom of speech (per the Muslim Brotherhood Memorandum of 1992). Read a portion of the memorandum here.
“The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
“At the same time, such statements directly undermine our ability to defeat Islamist extremists by alienating and undermining the allies whose help we most need to win this fight: namely, Muslims.”
This is news to me, that we have “allies” among Muslims in this country or elsewhere. There’s nothing to “undermine.” A Muslim rooting for the Dallas Cowboys or having an ice cream cone is not a definition of a Muslim “ally.”
But the one statement by Lopez and Lyons that caught my attention was this:
Muslims do not consider Islam to be a “religion.” They call it a “complete way of life.”
A complete way of life. I had encountered the phrase almost repeatedly in my Islamic readings, but never grasped its significance in relation to Islam until Lopez and Lyons stressed it.
Yes, I knew that it meant the totality of living. Lopez and Lyons wrote:
Clearly, our leaders need to understand that Islam is a totalitarian ideology, governed by an alien legal system called Shariah that obligates all Muslims to carry out jihad to conquer the world and subjugate it to Islamic Law. [Italics mine]
Every dictator in history has preached a “way of life” to his subjugated citizens – Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. And in every instance those “ways of life” have invariably led to misery, slaughter, and poverty. And to death. What the dictators preached, however, was that the imposed “way of life” was a struggle to achieve some of kind of happiness on earth.
Islam’s notion of a “complete way of life” is quite the opposite.
And what is a “religion?”
Every definition of it I found boiled down to the same basic parameters: the institutionalized worship of and reverence for a deity or supernatural being, with obedience to the deity’s wishes in variance with the severity of the creed. Some religions impinge on one’s daily life to some degree, or not at all. One’s “way of life” can include following divinely given golden rules, or none at all. But most religions allow one to set aside some quantum of mortality for oneself.
Islam does not. However, here are some excerpts from a handful of Islamic sites that emphasize a “complete way of life.”
From “Islam: A Complete Way of Life”:
Argument 2: One could out of sheer academic interest look at every aspect of life covered by Islam. Then one could develop alternative forms for each aspect and thereby have a theoretically complete way of life (assuming that Islam is indeed a complete way of life). However, the alternative way of life, although complete, would obviously be a humanly-inspired way of life. Again, being a complete way of life is not a sufficient condition for being divinely-inspired. The very concept of divine inspiration includes the concept of being a complete way of life.
This assumption holds that the concept of divine inspiration logically entails, or analytically includes, the concept of being a complete way of life. [Emphasis mine]
Assumption 3: If a way of life is not complete, then it is not divinely inspired.
It says that while one may have a “religion,” it does not mean that the “religion” is a “complete way of life.” It rejects the human element. Islam regards man-made law as pernicious.
From “Islam 101:”
The Shari‘ah thus prescribes directives for the regulation of our individual as well as collective lives. These directives affect such varied subjects as religious rituals, personal character, morals, habits, family relationships, social and economic affairs, administration, the rights and duties of citizens, the judicial system, the laws of war and peace and international relations. They tell us what is good and bad; what is beneficial and useful and what is injurious and harmful; what are the virtues which we have to cultivate and encourage and what are the evils which we have to suppress and guard against; what is the sphere of our voluntary, personal and social action and what are its limits; and, finally, what methods we can adopt to establish a dynamic order of society and what methods we should avoid. The Shari‘ah is a complete way of life and an all-embracing social order. [Emphasis mine]
Sharia law commands that its “complete way of life” be integrated with an “all-embracing social order.” Which means that Islam is totalitarian, from top to bottom. It embraces everything you do, say, or think.
From “The Austin Network of Islamic Studies”:
A Complete Way Of Life !
Islam is a religion, but not in the western meaning of religion. The western connotation of the term “religion” is something between the believer and God. Islam is a religion that organizes all aspects of life on both the individual and national levels.
Islam organizes your relations with God, with yourself, with your children, with your relatives, with your neighbor, with your guest, and with other brethren. Islam clearly establishes your duties and rights in all those relationships.
Islam establishes a clear system of worship, civil rights, laws of marriage and divorce, laws of inheritance, code of behavior, what not to drink, what to wear, and what not to wear, how to worship God, how to govern, the laws of war and peace, when to go to war, when to make peace, the law of economics, and the laws of buying and selling. Islam is a complete code of life. [Emphasis mine]
Instead of the crescent and star,
this is the proper symbol of Islam |
Islam is arguably more totalitarian then were Nazism and Communism. Nazism at least allowed you to eat your sauerkraut in peace before you attended the next Munich rally or killed another Jew. Communism allowed you gulp your vodka without recrimination before killing another kulak or Polish officer in the Katyn Forest.
Islam allows you nothing that is proscribed or specifically forbidden, or nothing that is not halal. Every little detail of living is governed by Islam, except for minor concretes, such as the brand of your underwear or the make of your car.
And what is the purpose of Sharia law and conforming to Islam? To gain a place in Paradise. Life on earth is not important. One’s life is not important except as it relates to Allah’s will and pleasure. Islam could be said to be similar to Christian altruism. But in Christianity it is a virtue to sacrifice values. In Islam, it is a virtue and an obligation to sacrifice non-values. Such as infidels, Jews, and other non-Muslims. Islam can’t value that which it condemns or does not value; albeit, the non-values can be eliminated, destroyed, and infidels can be enslaved to serve Muslims and Islamic purposes.
Islam has no values, not for anyone who values his life, not for anyone who wants to achieve or keep values. It is the perfect system for those motivated by envy, by hatred of the good for being the good, and by a Kantian will and rote-learned imperative to destroy for the sake of destruction. The elimination of values is the only value possible in Islam. And to a rational Western mind, that is a non-value.
Islam is not interested in creating a Paradise on earth. It is interested only in creating a perfect human society that abides by Allah’s wishes. It is creates a hermetically sealed society that permits no air, no choices, and no freedom, with everything predetermined and beyond the realm of reason and choice. It is the enemy of volition and values. It is a system of nihilism.
Islam is literally a “complete way of death.” It is not for nothing that it is often called a death cult by its critics. Its devout worship and live for death, in various degrees of fervor, whether or not they consume ice cream or root for the Dallas Cowboys or set off bombs in Belgian airports or slaughter concert goers in Paris or massacre 3,000 people on 9/11.
The only way for “peaceful” Muslims to cast off the stigma of responsibility for the crimes committed in the name of Islam is to understand and repudiate Islam.
Men like General Petreaus are politically correct ignoramuses and dhimmis.
However, do we really want Islam— or systemic nihilism – to gain more than the toe-hold it already has in America?
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