Modern Day Crusades

While I was cruising the internet today I stumbled upon a rather interesting piece written by Uncle Jimbo over at Blackfive's place. It is entitled "The Reverse Crusades". It's a good read that makes a whole lot of sense. But I disagree with Ol' Jimbo. I don't think the coming rift between the West and Islam is being propagated by any one person or group. Sure, while the actions of Osama bin Laden, the MSM's negative portrayal of the culture, and all of the hoopla over the Danish cartoons aren't helping things, this clash between two vastly different cultures has been coming for much longer than most of the people on this earth have been alive. This great war between the Muslim world and Western society has been coming since before 9/11, since before the taking of hostages in Tehran, since before the Middle East was divvied up way back in 1916. No this has it's roots back in the very early days of Islam.

Islam was spread upon the blade of the sword. It was spread by Mohammad in a series of holy wars, until a Muslim empire spread from southern Spain all the way to Indonesia. Many who were converted were the pagan bedouins. In fact, the shrine at Mecca was originally a pagan shrine that housed the holy artifacts of these bedouin tribesmen(in case you didn't know). In these holy wars, or jihads, Mohammad proclaimed that all the Muslim warriors who died while spreading Islam would be promised a spot in Paradise. Sound familiar? It should, because that is exactly what Osama bin Laden and his cronies have been telling young brainwashed foolsjihadists for years. It seems as if, OBL and his ilk see themselves as modern day Mohammads, called upon by Allah to spread Islam. Maybe I'm just stating the obvious.

They want nothing more than to convert us all to Shari'a Law and basically enslave us all under the banner of one giant caliphate. Or they will just kill all those resist. The one thing they will not do is allow our way of life and culture to continue. They are fueled by hate and have blinded their followers with religion. And I have yet to be impressed with this whole "silent majority" of moderate Muslims. There don't seem to be many of them in these violent protests against the Danish cartoons. One would think that some rational Muslim would eventually come to his senses and tell the protesters to pack it up and go home, but I guess they can't even do that. And because of this, everyday I grow less and less certain about these rumors of moderate Muslims. And that is a bad thing, because the fundamentalists are slowly turning this fight from a clash of civilizations to of religions. If the fundamentalists have their way this war will become a war not on terror, but on Islam, and I fear that if that happens, there will be no stopping World War III.

But that can be prevented if we act now. This is not an enemy that, in the event of their victory, would confine their act of oppression and violence to a small portion of the globe like the North Vietnamese, no they will move out globally. Al Qaeda is not a small organization. They act globally. We cannot lose this fight. And that's something I don't think many of those criticizing the United States and our allies seem to comprehend. This is a war unlike any other. It transcends borders and our enemy is not(at least publicly anyway) sponsored by other nation-states. We are fighting a different kind of enemy, which calls for different tactics, and sometimes they can be rather shady. And while I don't believe that any of our critics and those citizens of our country that dangle far left really want the terrorists to win, I think they simply are in denial. If you think about it, the harsh reality that there are evil people in the world that want to kill them simply for the freedoms they enjoy everyday and because they do not to conform to a certain religion, doesn't exactly fit in their world view where the only evil people are the CEO's of corporations and all forms of authority. I merely credit this to their ignorance and fear. We must make them aware that this is in their best interests, while we try to encourage the moderate Muslims to let their voices be heard. There is no other way. If we simply bomb them back to the Stone Age, this problem will simply resurface later on, unless we wipe out the Muslim religion and all of its followers forever, which make us no different than them. There must be change from within the Islamic community.

So, the way I see it is, the fundamentalists are no different than Saladin of old. So who are the Crusaders? Well, for all intents and purposes we are; the "civilized world." Instead of crusading in the name of God, we are crusading in the name of freedom, democracy, and the basic Rights of Man. We are a progressive force while Osama wants nothing more than to plunge us back into the Dark Ages. We have our work cut out for us. We must not fail.

Oh, and here is one voice of reason within the Muslim world. If only there were more and people were willing to listen.