From Wittenberg to Mosque Doors: Peter Smith
If Islam is not reformed – root and branch – the very notion of moderate Islam becomes an even more glaring contradiction in terms. If you belong to a club whose very rules condone bad behaviour, the only moral and logical option must be to change the rules or get out.
Memories are short. Charles Lane of the Washington Post said that the events in Paris were ‘a wake-up call’. Weren’t we already well awake before 9/11, never mind since? Charles Krauthammer said that the events reflected a new ‘third phase’ of internally planned and executed attacks, following the externally planned attack of 9/11 and the recent ‘lone-wolf’ attacks. He must have been snoozing when, as just one example among many, the London Underground was bombed.
No doubt the killings in Paris will also fade from mind as Islamic terrorists continue their murderous rampages. One reason memories are so short is that immediately the dust has settled each terrorist event is dealt with discretely, as though it were a law and order problem. The backgrounds of the murderers are analysed. One or more are bound to be identified as alienated, disadvantaged, or as having a prison record.
Then there is the subsequent soul-searching about why the perpetrators in question weren’t kept under observation as putative murderous terrorists. As if, for example, it is remotely possible to keep tabs on so-called ‘disenfranchised’ young people in a Muslim population of around 6 million-plus in France, many of whom live in no-go ghettos. Talk about fanciful.