Will Muslims Do The "Heavy Lifting?"

In January 22nd issue of THE WEEK magazine, they had the following as their quote of the week:

"If the battle against Muslim terrorism is to be won, moderate Muslims will have to do the heavy lifting. If Americans and Westerners continue to take the lead, it will remain an 'us vs. them' war. If Muslims take the lead, it will be 'them vs. them,' co-religionists battling co-religionists, not 'infidel and oppressive outsiders battling 'victimized' Muslims. [So] where are the funds, the programs, and the personnel to re-educate young ones brainwashed in madrasas, and where are the alternate schools for these children? Where are the programs to show up at mosques everywhere and argue with mullahs who say that Allah wants them to kill fellow Muslims and infidels and enslave women?"

At first I thought it was wonderful that the author (Leslie Gelb from TheDailyBeast.com) used the phrase, "Muslim terrorism." Even that small acknowledgment of the Islamic role in terrorism seemed unusual to read in such a mainstream magazine as THE WEEK.

As Phil Cooke wrote, "I find it interesting that on those rare occasions when someone — no matter how wacked — commits a crime at an abortion clinic, there's no hesitation by the media to label them as a 'Christian.' But political correctness leaves them unable to mention 'Muslim' when it comes to terrorism."

And yet Leslie Gelb does just that and THE WEEK quotes him. But the underlying premise of his questions reveals an ignorance about the situation. Where are the Muslims who will argue with the mullahs? It's a silly question if you know the first thing about Islam. On what basis would these people argue? They cannot argue as Muslims because they would have no ground to stand on. To argue as Muslims they would have to base what they say on either the Qur'an or Mohammad's example, or both, and using those writings, they would have no way to argue that it's anti-Islamic to enslave women or kill infidels.

And if they were arguing against the mullahs on any other basis, they place themselves immediately into the category of infidels — or worse, apostates — and would not be listened to.

In other words, the Muslims cannot win any battle against "Muslim terrorists," and remain Muslims. And if they are no longer Muslims, there will be no co-religionists battling co-religionists.

We will not be saved by good-hearted Muslims, no matter how many of them there are. We will have to save ourselves.

Our first step is to make this understanding very common and widespread among non-Muslims: That it is fundamental to Islam to be at war with non-Muslims and to try to seize the reins of political power wherever they can. This is part of their religious teachings. It is their religious duty and they have no choice in the matter. It is not "fringe" and Muslims following these teachings are not "extremists."

And as soon as this knowledge is widespread enough, our first political action should be to stop importing Muslims into our countries.