Fictitious Islam vs. Real Islam: Time to Stop Kidding Ourselves

Ever so often we have a break-through moment when we see things in a new light.  Understanding floods our brains and we replace a faulty paradigm with a better one.  I think this article does that for me.  It's time to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Our "nation-building" missions there are a fool's errand.  After all the blood and treasure invested, we will be left with what we started with:  a barbarian society ruled by sharia law.

We must devise better strategies for dealing with the Islamic threat.  Ending Islamic immigration into the U.S. would be a first step; isolating the Islamic nations would be a second step; and making a concerted effort to become energy independent would be an important third step.

Andrew McCarthy on "Imagining Islam":

If only the fantasy were true: If only there actually were a dominant, pro-American, echt [genuine] moderate Islam, an ideology so dedicated to human rights, so sternly set against savagery, that acts of terrorism were, by definition, “un-Islamic activity.” Imagine an Islam that, far from a liability, proved an asset (indeed, an indispensable asset) in combating the threat against us. Imagine that we could accurately call the threat mere “extremism” — no “Islamic” (or even “Islamist”) modifier being necessary because the “extremists” truly were a tiny, aberrant band, fraudulently “hijacking” a great religion.

Such an Islam, over nine long years, would have risen up and made itself heard. It would have identified by name and condemned with moral outrage the imposters purporting to act in its name. It would have honored America’s sacrifice of blood and treasure in the liberation of oppressed Muslim peoples. It would have said “thank you” to our troops. It would have joined America, without ambiguity or hesitation, in crushing terror networks and dismantling the regimes that abet them. It would not have needed trillion-dollar American investments to forge democracies; it would naturally have adopted democracy on its own.

What excruciating truths have we yet failed to grasp on this ninth anniversary of 9/11? The first is that such an Islam does not exist. The second is that, despite this fact, American foreign and domestic policy continues to proceed as though it does exist — and as though it were the only real Islam. That is, nine years after Islamists made their commitment to our destruction as unmistakable as possible...our national-security strategy is still steeped in fiction.

Read it all here.