Why Won't We Say What We Are Fighting Against?

[NATO AIR]

she makes a damn good point, to back up what kathianne talked about earlier in another thread.

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20050120-083547-3406r.htm

Military on the Mall

By Diana West
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

"Exactly what do you wish to achieve with your articles?" a reader asked. "Do you want a war against Islam?" Such questions are particularly piquant this week as I write near a massive deployment of military force that includes anti-aircraft missile batteries on the ground and round-the-clock combat jet patrols in the sky. Also aloft are E-3 warning and control aircraft, in place to guide interceptor jets — at the ready, natch — to a target. Or targets. And no, I'm not in Fallujah. This is Washington, D.C.
Which makes me think we are already in a war against something. Terror? I'm not afraid, I'm mad; livid that our alabaster capital bristles with armaments so we might solemnize the outcome of our peaceful election. So the president might give an inaugural address and make his way safely from the steps of the Capitol (unchained for the occasion) to the reviewing stand in front of the White House. So we might begin Bush II without a deadly explosive bloody hitch.
We are at war in Iraq, not on Iraq, which we have liberated. We fight on to endow Iraqi Muslims, some Iraqi Christians and even a couple of Iraqi Jews with a little liberty and running water against ... terror? There's no war on "terror" any more than there's a war on car bombs. Neither term describes what animates the terrorists — drivers of car bombs, wearers of explosive vests, or wielders of butcher-blades. Invariably, it is Islam and the murderous, expansionist ideology of jihad that drives that extreme fringe you read about to the point of unspeakable violence. And by the way, that's some fringe; according to Daniel Pipes' famous estimate, it includes 10 percent of the Muslim world — 100 million-plus people.
Which takes me back to the original idea of what there is to achieve by writing about those central, retrograde aspects of Islam that clash with Western society — namely, the precepts of jihad and dhimmitude, and the dictates of sharia law. Clarity is the goal. We are unlikely to witness a security-lite inauguration four years — or eight or 12 years — hence if we remain confused about the ideology that animates our foes. And we are unlikely to ward off the spread of jihad, dhimmitude and sharia law the world over — including the U.S.A. — if we know nothing about it, or, worse, know only apologetics about it. Infinitely more pleasant, they are also misleading.
But apologetics are what we get. Take the reading list that Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, our new commander in Iraq, has given senior staff. It whitewashes jihad, dhimmitude and sharia law with the works of Karen Armstrong and John Esposito. No Bat Ye'or; no Ibn Warraq; no Robert Spencer; no Daniel Pipes; no Paul Fregosi; no Oriana Fallaci; not even any Bernard Lewis. Ignorance before September 11 was bad enough; perpetuating that ignorance is inexcusable.
Because not learning about it, not talking about it doesn't make the threat of violent Islam go away. I found it wickedly ironic that around the time the Website Islam Online claimed Fox television decided "to remove some stereotypical aspects about American Muslims" from its terrorism series "24" — whose hero, after defusing the terrorist threat from Bosnia, South America, Germany, and corporate America, now battles honest-to-goodness Muslim terrorists — real-life news broke about the vicious murders of a Coptic Christian family whose bound and gagged bodies, slit throats and stab wounds on a Coptic cross tattoo immediately raised fears that the crime may have been Islamic in nature, a slaying of "infidels" — in Jersey City. Around the time the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was charging Fox with perpetuating terrorist stereotypes, stereotypical terrorism may well have been taking place.
Fox spokesman Scott Grogan, meanwhile, has told me there have been no changes made to the series "to date." He revealed nothing of the network's meeting with CAIR, three of whose officials, Robert Spencer reminds on frontpagemag.com, have been arrested on terror-related charges. Mr. Spencer learned from an "informed source" that "24" will "feature an American Muslim character that CAIR would find more to their liking." Cause for celebration? Michael Meunier, president of the U.S. Copts Association, told me a disconcerting tale of being invited, vetted (three pre-interviews), and scheduled to appear with Fox's Greta van Susteren to discuss the Copt slayings — before being canceled immediately after his lengthy radio interview with Michael Reagan. Did Mr. Meunier say the "wrong" thing? Is America now the land of the "wrong" thing to say? If we grow too accustomed to missiles on the Mall, the answer may be truly terrifying.

 

[theim]

because it would hurt someones feeeeeeeeelings

 

[Annie]

It seems that Oriana Fallaci is going to trial, I find it appropriate that the banner is for UN committee:

http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200505241320-1114-RT1-CRO-0-NF51&page=0&id=agionline-eng.arab

FALLACI TO GO ON TRIAL FOR DEFAMING ISLAM
(AGI) - L'Aquila, Italy, May 24 - In Oriana Fallaci's book "The Force of Reason" there are expressions that are "unequivocally offensive to Islam and Muslims," said the Bergamo preliminary investigative judge, Armando Grasso, who accepting the Adel Smith's opposition to filing away the trial proposed by the prosecutor, ordered the prosecution to formulate the charge "according to article 406 of article 403 of the criminal code," for defamation of Islam. The well known author, therefore, will be put on trial. Adel Smith, president of the Italian Muslim Union, sued the writer on April 8, 2004, after "also in other writings Oriana Fallaci had propagated hate against Islam and Muslims, distorting real historical facts and inventing others, lying, offending, and defaming Muslims around the world. For the rest, ever since "Anger and Pride" the writer has injured Islam and Muslims, writing expressions such as 'fucking sons of Allah'," said Smith. The Bergamo Prosecution is taking on the trial, since the book was published in the city, and now has ten days to come up with a charge. The preliminary hearing judge will set the trial date. Matteo Nicoli of Verona will represent Adel Smith.

 

[theim]

It seems that Oriana Fallaci is going to trial, I find it appropriate that the banner is for UN committee:

http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200505241320-1114-RT1-CRO-0-NF51&page=0&id=agionline-eng.arab

Now that scares me. Muslims are about to accomplish through immigration and breeding what centuries of medieval warfare couldn't.

 

[dilloduck]

Bush already got in deep shit for calling it what it really is---a crusade. If we call it that again we will be fighting Islam AND a much energized and angry secular America.

 

[archangel]

Bush already got in deep shit for calling it what it really is---a crusade. If we call it that again we will be fighting Islam AND a much energized and angry secular America.

Damn and I thought this is what we were doing all this time...in my humble opinion Islam is not a religion..it is just masked as one...it has always been and will continue to be a radical political party...nothing more and nothing less!
The sooner the world wakes up to this the better...the last political crusade the Muslim world made to conquer the world was the "Ottoman Empire"...they failed then and will fail again...it is just a matter of time when the world gets fed up with their 7th century philosophy...and sends them screaming home to Mecca... The home of Islam...where the hypocrits can only dream of all the fun they will now miss going to Vegas undercover...that is casually dressed and having fun as a real person...before covering up and returning home saying"down with America"! I'm sick and tired of all this catering to these hypocrits!

 

[Annie]

Now that scares me. Muslims are about to accomplish through immigration and breeding what centuries of medieval warfare couldn't.

More:

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8600989

Fallaci charged in Italy with defaming Islam
Wed May 25, 2005 08:13 AM ET


By Crispian Balmer
ROME (Reuters) - A judge has ordered best-selling writer and journalist Oriana Fallaci to stand trial in her native Italy on charges she defamed Islam in a recent book.

The decision angered Italy's justice minister but delighted Muslim activists, who accused Fallaci of inciting religious hatred in her 2004 work "La Forza della Ragione" (The Force of Reason).

Fallaci lives in New York and has regularly provoked the wrath of Muslims with her outspoken criticism of Islam following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities.

In "La Forza della Ragione," Fallaci wrote that terrorists had killed 6,000 people over the past 20 years in the name of the Koran and said the Islamic faith "sows hatred in the place of love and slavery in the place of freedom."

State prosecutors originally dismissed accusations of defamation from an Italian Muslim organization, and said Fallaci should not stand trial because she was merely exercising her right to freedom of speech.

But a preliminary judge in the northern Italian city of Bergamo, Armando Grasso, rejected the prosecutors advice at a hearing on Tuesday and said Fallaci should be indicted.

Grasso's ruling homed in on 18 sentences in the book, saying some of Fallaci's words were "without doubt offensive to Islam and to those who practice that religious faith."

MUSLIMS HAIL DECISION

Adel Smith, a high-profile Muslim activist who brought the original law suit, hailed the decision.

"It is the first time a judge has ordered a trial for defamation of the Islamic faith," he told reporters. "But this isn't just about defamation. We would also like (the court) to recognize that this is an incitement to religious hatred."

Justice Minister Roberto Castelli, who has a prickly relationship with the Italian judiciary, said the ruling represented an attack on freedom of expression.

"In Europe we are seeing the birth of a movement that is looking to silence those who don't follow a single mindset, within which it is forbidden to speak ill of Islam, of homosexuals or of the children of homosexuals," Castelli was quoted as saying in an interview with Radio Padania.

"In Fallaci's book there is very strong criticism but not defamation," Italian news agency ANSA quoted him as saying.

There was no immediate comment from Fallaci who is in her 70s and suffers from cancer.

Just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Fallaci published "La Rabbia e l'Orgoglio" ("The Rage and the Pride"), in which she said the West was superior to Islamic society and complained that Muslim immigrants had "multiplied like rats."

The book sold more than one million copies in Italy and at least 500,000 elsewhere in Europe.

Fallaci received numerous death threats following its launch and "La Forza della Ragione" was billed as her response to the outpouring of anger.

No date was set for the opening of the defamation trial.

Jeff Goldstein responds, with a lot of links, natch!:

http://www.proteinwisdom.com/index.php/weblog/entry/18457/

Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Freedom's just another word for nothing left
From Reuters:

A judge has ordered best-selling writer and journalist Oriana Fallaci to stand trial in her native Italy on charges she defamed Islam in a recent book.

The decision angered Italy’s justice minister but delighted Muslim activists, who accused Fallaci of inciting religious hatred in her 2004 work “La Forza della Ragione” (The Force of Reason).

Fallaci lives in New York and has regularly provoked the wrath of Muslims with her outspoken criticism of Islam following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities.

In “La Forza della Ragione,” Fallaci wrote that terrorists had killed 6,000 people over the past 20 years in the name of the Koran and said the Islamic faith “sows hatred in the place of love and slavery in the place of freedom."

Another victory for the leftist gold standard of “tolerance,” the great enemy of free expression and the rhetorical mechanism by which totalitarianism is practiced by academic elites and leftist ideologues (on the right, this same impulse manifests itself in appeals to decorum or properly “moral” speech—impulses regular readers of this site will recognize as frequent targets of my scorn).¹
Make no mistake, people: what you are witnessing here is a carefully crafted velvet insurgency, a diminution of freedoms on the part of leftist governments and judiciaries by way of gaining control of the parameters for acceptable speech and discussion.

We see this impulse spreading through Canada (where criticism of certain groups is considered “racist” and is prosecutable by law), and we see harbingers of that same impulse here in the U.S. in things like hate crime legislation and in our mindless cultural surrender to the execrable and anti-individualist “diversity” movement.

Where reasoned criticism is successfully cast as “hate” or “intolerance,” freedom is a moribund ideal; and I don’t know how much longer we in the US—with a lingering guilt over our own historical intolerances fueling a subsequent nonconfrontational desire to do right by the Other—can keep the relentless tide of PC sanctimony at bay.

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related thoughts here (via Glenn, who adds an interesting thought of his own)

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update: Rusty, the Qu’ran, toilet paper... Don’t ask.

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update 2: Pandagon’s Jesse Taylor disagrees with me—noting that because the left is notorious for being hostile to religion, the ruling by the Italian judge, which would seem to privilege religion, cannot possibly be driven by a leftist impulse toward “tolerance” doctrine of the kind I outline above.

Which, I’ll believe that when an Italian judge seeks to have an Imam arrested for preaching jihad.

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¹ In an earlier post I wrote that “in many ways social conservatism—with its desire to dictate “proper” or “decorous” speech—is simply dressing the PC-sensibilities of the left in the starched, high-collared clothing of neo-Victorian morality.” I include this here to make it clear thatwhile “tolerance” and “diversity” as political docrintes have become institutionalized by the left, many on the right share the same impulse to quash speech. But nobody is being prosecuted for criticizing Christianity.

Posted by Jeff Goldstein @ 12:19 PM