I notice on the Talking Points Memo that Steve King, US. Representative from Iowa, said “I will tell you that, if he [Senator Obama] is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al-Qaida, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they will declare victory in this War on Terror.”
Um, can they declare victory and go home?
I don’t want to make anything, you know, serious out of this, but would it be an altogether bad thing if amongst the more ignorant anti-Americans there grew a false belief that the President of the United States was secretly a Muslim? If they thought we’ve won, the American fools have withdrawn their troops because B. Hussein Obama told them to, now we can stop donating to those Al-Qaida assholes?
I’m not saying that it would happen. I mean, it’s a fundamentally stupid thing. But what worries me is the sneaking suspicion that a US Representative really honestly deep down feels that his job is to prevent jubilation on the streets of Damascus and Tehran. Bloodshed is one thing, but let there be no glee.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
Because it’s not a war on terror, it’s a war on Islam. The phrase “Islamic terrorism” isn’t meant to suggest that all terrorism is Islamic, it’s meant to suggest that all of Islam is terrorism. (Ok, that’s an exaggeration, it’s really just meant to equate the two.)
So, yes, if Muslims are happy, then we have failed in our war on Islam. We were taught this from the other side when I was a child — that moments of joy in the concentration camps were an assertion that the Nazis had not won in their war against the Jews. It wasn’t quite the same as declaring victory, but the idea seems distinctly related.
I don’t think we should be engaged in a war on Islam. I think we should be engaged in many dialogues with the many facets of Islam. And while I deplore terrorism, I don’t think we should be engaged in a war on terrorism, because I don’t think terrorism can be reduced through military means. I think we should be engaged in a massive effort to promote human rights, social justice, and the value of human life, because I think that’s how we’ll reduce the utility and eventually the use of terrorism.
I’m really surprised, though, to see that quote by Rep. Steve King (R-IA). It’s so much more expected from Rep. Peter King (R-NY). Leads one to wonder whether the founders might have been onto something when they said that American should have no King.