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Religion of Peace? Yeah... right.

I've been walking around a conundrum for a while: Moderate Muslims? All the historical literatures I've read for years have described the spread of Islam in military terms. And the smattering that I've picked up from reading the Koran has been all brutally direct in its language.

Ibn Warraq, the executive director of the Institute for the Secularization of Islamic Society says, "There may be moderate Muslims, but Islam itself is not moderate. There is no difference between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism. At most there is a difference of degree but not of kind. (from www.secularhumanism.org)

From the Koran 4.56: "As for those who disbelieve in Our communications, we shall make them enter fire; so oft as their skins are thoroughly burned, We will change them for their other skins, that they may taste the chastisement; surely Allah is Mighty, Wise."

Also: "Then when the Sacred Months have passed, then kill the Mushrikun (Jews) wherever you find them, and capture them and besiege them, and prepare for them each and every ambush. But if they repent and perform As-Salat (Muslim prayer) and give Zakat (pay a fine)then leave their way free. Verily, Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful."

I guess what that means is that if you will bend over and take it from the Muslims, then as long as you are willing slaves they will allow you to live, but they are obliged to snuff you out if you don't follow like slaves. Hey, it's God's will. It's the old line of My Way or the Highway.

The trouble I'm having is that I sat right here and heard our President pour understandable oil on the troubled waters after the 9/11 disaster. I can understand it only as a way of avoiding a "Wounded Knee" style reaction for our quick draw population. He didn't want a bunch of pissed off red necks going down to the local mosque here in Cracker Orlando and burning the place down with a bunch of children inside hiding from their neighbors.

These are the folks (I mean the Muslims who live here in America that only want what every reasonable American --- read secular --- person wants... a peaceful life)who want us to believe that they are moderates. OK, they're moderates because they don't want to witness bonfires of burning babies here in the land of Mickey. And they know intuitively that we are just the kind of folks who can burn down their mosques in a heartbeat and kill their children without blinking an eyebrow and make their sandy jihads seem like small potatoes. I already hear otherwise serious people talking about deserts of glass surrounding the Middle East. Even while the Muslim fundamentalists are hacking off the heads of Americans on the other side of the world.

These folks really don't have any idea who they are messing with. We are not nice people. Ask the Indians. Or the Japanese. Or the residents of Dresden. Heck... go ask the Muslims who bucked us in the Phillipines and didn't see General Black Jack Pershing coming.

The point is that there may be lots of "moderate" guys who are of the Islam point of view... but they are gonna have a hell of time with their neighbors. Their church says Kill the Infidels. No partial measures, no compromise, no meeting at the half way point. Can you be a Moderate Muslim? I think not. That's kind of like being a Moderate Hellfire and Brimstone Fundamentalist Baptist. You know, one of those snake handling, Bible thumping, Gospel shouting Baptists that are constantly asserting that if you don't repent and be quick about it... they're by God gonna burn you at the cross. Of course, that kind of rabid Christianity used to be the norm. Remember, Savronola was burned alive at the stake right in the Florentine street in front of Machiavelli's office. And remember the Inquisition once upon a time emptied out whole villages in Medieval Europe.

The Muslims who are troubling our sleep today are still trapped in those old... and I do mean olden... days. Their culture made a full stop when they failed to take Vienna and stirred up a Holy War that resulted in the Crusades. Today WE can only stir up memories of those days in books and bad movies starring Governor Arnold. But to those rag heads... they are trying to pick up the banner that they dropped when they failed Allah and lost a war of conquest at the gates of Vienna before the Crusades. They haven't forgotten. We have. We moved on. They haven't.

They have hated us (the West)for centuries because they think that their God was defeated at the hands of evil Shaitan. They refer to America as Satan and they will kill us all if they can. That is the precise reason Black Jack Pershing understood that the only way to coexist with them was if they all were dead. Well... OK. Let's get on with it.

Yeah... that makes sense. But "a religion of peace"? Not even close. Not in a dozen centuries. Islam has always been a religion based of conquest. Those guys make us seem like lightweights in the brutal massicree business. Hell, Sulieman was one of those guys who lead the way in defining what a mass murderer is. Him, Stalin, Pol Pot... lovely characters. Madmen, true believers, fundamentalists.

Now these loonie fundamentalists are chopping off heads to prove a point. Fine. And there are lots of guys who are recommending the traditional answer to rabid fundamentalism: If they won't listen to reason, apply the General Pershing solution to them -- eradicate them. The nice thing about killing your enemies is that they aren't around making any more noises.

My suggestion is to not give way to anger, but to calmly seek each and ever one of them out and stop their breathing. Pershing did just that in the Phillipines, and today most folks can't even remember what they were fighting about.

I know it's an old Marine Corps joke but there is a kernal of truth in it - Kill them all... Let God sort them out. That way we only have managable problems.

Then let's get on with the business of managing them.


Bob