I’m still trying to get my head around this dickhead and his attempt to blow up Times Square, apart from being one of my favourite spots in the world, had this incompetent fool (something we should be thankful for) succeeded, the tragedy would have been immense. Countless innocent lives would have been lost, and our world – the so called Muslim nation – would descend further in the quagmire of international scorn and isolation.
Times Square Car Bomber Faisal ShahzadAdmitted terrorist Faisal Shahzad was so eager to tell how he plotted to kill Americans in Times Square, he went to court with a prepared statement.
U.S. District Judge Miriam Cedarbaum refused to hear him read it Monday, instead challenging the Pakistan-born American citizen to just say “what happened.”
In an unapologetic, matter-of-fact courtroom colloquy that followed, Shahzad offered chilling details about how he trained with the Pakistani Taliban to build bombs, then returned to the U.S. to launch an attack that would avenge attacks on Muslims by U.S. forces overseas.
“One has to understand where I’m coming from,” he said in an unusual departure from tightly scripted guilty pleas, with his defense attorney and prosecutors sitting in silence in federal court in Manhattan. “I consider myself … a Muslim soldier.” AP
A Muslim what?
I think the dimwit should plead insanity. Ask his wife, she’d confirm, I’m sure.
The guy comes from a wealthy and privileged family. He was a relatively obscure and unnoteworthy student in both his native Pakistan and in the USA, but he was lucky to land a job and gain a “green card” to stay in the country he claims to have become to hate. The bitch got full US citizenship 3 months before he decided to blow it up.
And he calls himself a “muslim soldier.” I’m not sure if this idiom comes from Islam, but colloquially we have a saying which states that only a dog flips his dish after he’s eaten. That typifies the ungrateful, and disloyal, and turncoat. To me, Faisal Shahzad is nothing less than the definition of these terms and an awful lot more.
Why?
We have to ask ourselves why would people like Faisal Shahzad and hundreds more from all strata of our society succumb to this meaningless violence? How is it condoned and why is it permitted to fester amongst us?
I used to think that its simply because of a person’s ignorance of “the true interpretation of Islam” that allows him to veer away from the correct path. But incidents like these shake my belief in that premise, leading to think of the possibility that it’s not the interpretation that’s awry, but maybe, just maybe some of the fundamentals are wrong, or maybe at least are mis-applied or even no longer relevant.
Could it be that the literal interpretation of the Quran without putting it in a proper frame of reference is at the source of these troubles which we are facing on a daily basis? Not a day passes, it seems, without one act of terror or another being launched at innocents around the world. All for what? To establish the supremacy of Islam. To build an Islamic super-state. To re-establish the Khalifate of old, completely and willfully forgetting the intrinsic difference of the world 1500 years ago and the present day.
We have to stop making excuses.
We have to come down on these terrorists and their incubators like a ton of bricks. Let’s recognise the very source of the problem and annihilate it. Not by continuing to put on the kiddie cotton gloves, but remove them from our midst as a surgeon does with cancerous tumours.
How?
There are no short term solutions of course. We have to change mentalities and modes of thinking and this will take a long time, generations probably, but we have to start now!
I believe a modern education system is critical. Emphasis on humanities, science and engineering. Emphasising and encouraging critical thinking without the “red lines” of not criticising religion or state must be taught and nurtured. Criticism must be encouraged and the protection of people’s right to information, and ensure the freedom of the press, inculcate accountability and transparency and inshrine those principles with the milk a babe drinks. Only when these take place and people start to not just accept them as a given, but fight for their protection with their lives, will we put a stop to this spreading cancer.
Yes it is a difficult proposition and I know that huge waves of opposition will be raised. But I can’t see another way of dealing with these acts of orchestrated violence. We tried to blame them on anything and everything, but never approached the real cause.
It’s time to call a spade a spade and be done with the literal interpretation of old texts and apply the spirit of the religion. I’m sure this is what the essence of Islam or any other religion is in any case.
While the Taliban may be bunglers and incompetents who occupy themselves with porn and romance farm animals, the Afghan Army is hardly any better. They spend quite a bit of time shooting themselves and each other accidently out of sheer stupidity.
There are reasons why Afghanistan is one of the most backward countries in the world and Afghans are one of the main reasons.
Ali J
I think it has more to do with the reluctance of the wider Islamic community to admit that the Religion was hijacked decades ago and that whilst the rest of humanity is seeking human rights and equality for all, Muslims in general want all non Muslims to convert no matter what, and are not prepared to let existing Muslims who doubt the faith choose the modern path.
Chris
Well said… As an American that was against the Iraq war and the continuing Afghanistan adventure for my own reasons, I understand how those things can make matters worse – but there is indeed something more sinister going on. What does us being in Afghanistan have anything to do with the Taliban pumping poison into a school for girls? (Muslim girls!) I’d say most deaths in Iraq were caused by violent Muslim-on-Muslim religious differences… where’s the love? Drone attacks in Pakistan aren’t helpful, but blowing up each others mosquesâ€â€then blowing up the hospital where the victims of that heinous deed are being cared for… seriously?! I see people marching all the time over the standard Israeli brutality there, but almost never over those things that kill way-way more people. The modern incarnation of those forces started emanating from 1920s Egypt (before Israel was created and before we arrived), then got fueled with petrol dollars latter on… I don’t know how it will end, but I do know one thing: you deserve better.
Steve the American
Last Friday they stopped sifting through the dirt and debris uncovered by recent construction around the World Trade Center. They found another 72 sets of human remains in it. Some 34 sets were found under the road on the west side of the site. My girl and I have driven over that road, over those remains.
Some of the remains are heretofore undiscovered victims of the Muslim terrorists of Sep 11, while others are new pieces of previously discovered victims. As remains dribble out, the families must decide whether to exhume the graves of their loved ones and place the new remains with the existing remains or wait for more remains to surface. It keeps their grief ever fresh. Archeologists will probably be finding human remains centuries from now.
Sometimes as we’re walking around Manhattan, my girls will drop in a firehouse to buy their souvenir shirts. In the firehouses are memorials to their dead firemen from Sep 11. Usually, there’s about a dozen or more photos of the firemen in formal portraits in their uniforms. Tucked in beside those photos are other photos of them with their families. I can not express the feeling I have when I see that. All of the fire stations in Manhattan have such memorials. All of them.
All of this death so that savage, barbarian Muslims can spread their evil and inhuman religion.
And the terror plots by Muslims keep coming. Twenty so far since Sep 11. It’s been very educational. There is scarcely an American who doesn’t regard his Muslim neighbor with suspicion, since so many are so enthusiastic in butchering their neighbors. And everyone sees mosques not as places of worship but rather as enemy forts where plans are made to do evil to their community.
Lisa
Steve,
As an American, I do NOT view my Muslim neighbors with suspicion. Yes, many do, but stop inflating the numbers. Birds of a feather flock together, so maybe it’s your friends who feel this way.
Thank you Lisa. Steve is a very special case. He’s convinced that his attitude to Islam and Muslims is the right way to convey his messages across and force change to the better.
Like you, most people visiting this site disagree with him.
Steve the American
Lisa,
Muslims deserve to be treated with suspicion because very few publicly oppose Islamic terror. Of those who do oppose terror, close questioning reveals they’re talking about Israelis, not Muslims. Quite a few Muslims make excuses for Islamic terror and quite a few are quite enthusiastic in their support behind closed doors. The bottom line is that most Muslims support Islamic terror to some degree, if not outright support in public then passively. Try finding unambiguous condemnation from American Muslims of the lastest Muslim terrorist Shahzad. I have seen none.
Even you agree that many Americans regard their Muslim neighbors with suspicion, as any sensible person would do in the face of a hostile religion with a history and doctrine of promoting itself through violence, violence which it is actively visiting upon the world and the US in particular. I suspect that some Americans, clinging to a false belief that all religions will reciprocate good will, publicly hope for the best from Islam but privately fear the worst.
The numbers of people suspicious of Muslims rises not through my exaggeration nor in my imagination, but due to the unrelenting hostility of their Muslim neighbors. In Europe, the politically correct position of turning a blind eye to Muslim misbehavior has crumbled. Now, popular opposition to “immigrants,” a code word for Muslims, is mainstream and the foundation for laws stopping more Muslims from immigrating.
And Lisa, your promiscuous labelling of any criticism of Islam and Muslims as prejudice falls flat. I did not imagine the Sep 11 attacks and all the ones that followed. I did not imagine Muslims celebrating those attacks. I’m not imagining the Islamic doctrine which endorses them. Any religion which produces a constant stream of unrepentant terrorists who feel they have a divine right to butcher their neighbors deserves criticism and should be confronted. You might consider what kind of prejudice you have that prevents you from looking the facts in the eye and calling things as they are.
If the Ku Klux Klan was lynching black guys in some southern town and the townspeople offered no criticism of the crime, remained silent in public while approving of it in church, would you say it’s wrong to criticize that town? Would it be prejudiced or righteous to confront the town on its bigotry?
Why, then, is it anything but morally correct to confront Islam and Muslims on their murderous bigotry?
Anonny
Interesting. Steve writes things that upset almost everybody, but the one person who actually tries to give him orders about how to communicate (“Don’t dump your prejudice …”) is from the Land of Free Speech.
What irony.
Steve the American
We’re allowed to publicly disagree with each other in America, even encouraged to do so. That’s what free speech is all about. We don’t have to kowtow to a politically correct public line set down by an unelected government.
You’d be better off in the Middle East if you did the same, instead of the rigid conformity to the official postions of your government and religion, most of which are pure nonsense.
Anonny
Steve,
I know. I just thought it funny that yet another liberal leaps in from America and starts ordering people around because she doesn’t like what you’re saying. Scratch an American liberal, and you find a closet despot. It’s true! Look at your current regime. They are worse for this region than the previous one because they are not honest about what they are doing here. Kagan has expressed a desire to “change America” years ago in her career. I don’t envy you with all these arrogant ideologues and wannabe social engineers infesting your government right now. Do you think Lisa truly values your freedom of speech? She’s already told you “Don’t”.
Like I said: what irony.
Steve the American
Thanks for the clarification. Now that I understand better what you said I wonder if you are my long lost twin brother.
Yes, I quite agree that American liberals secretly have the hearts of fascists. They hate free speech. They love running everybody’s lives. When they get in power, they overplay their hand.
And, yes, we are deep s* right now with the present administration that is driving America into the ditch.
I disagree that Obama is not honest about what he’s doing in the Middle East. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, which is worse. Obama is hostage to many leftist fantasies about the world, most of which are proveably wrong. Even worse, Obama doesn’t learn when reality rebuts his prejudices. Instead, he doubles down on his fantasy world.
Wayne Job
Mahmood,
I am from Australia and we have many problems with Imams preaching hatred and Jihad. Young men born here are totally against our society, causing us much grief, as the more kind we are to them to try and accommodate their difference.
The worse their actions become, they seem to take good deeds and kindness from us as a weakness. Christ said turn the other cheek, we have run out of cheeks to be slapped.
Although our politically correct governments keep panderring to the excesses and threats of the Islamic community the average person is getting a little pissed off.
The Western world is slowly getting angry, you seem to be a man of reason and common sense , I can only hope your ideas and ideals prevail fairly soon, for I fear a backlash from the West, if it comes will make all Islamic countries Pariahs.
Anonny
I’m not your evil twin, Steve. As I’ve said before, I’m English, so I don’t think you’ll be so quick to claim kinship really, will you? 😉
I think that when Obama appoints these fringies, he knows what he’s doing. When he kowtows to plutarchs and plutocrats while sending drones to the poor, he knows what he’s doing. When he turns down offers of help from experienced countries in dealing with his oil spill (allowing it to get worse), then finally starts talking to a Brazilian oil entity, one of whose majority stockholders is George Soros (his ‘sponsor’ if you like), he knows what he is doing. When he talks all sorts of nonsense about bringing troops home, scaling down the war, taking a tough line on corporate malfeasance, and pretending to come down hard on BP – while in reality doing the opposite on every front – he knows what he is doing and that makes him very toxic indeed.
Steve, both our governments are filled with Liberals who are not really liberals and conservatives who are not really conservatives. It’s time to ignore what they say and see what they do Are you prepared to do that? Most of us in the West simply are not. This whole left and right paradigm is derived from positions of seats upon which British parliamentarians since days of yore have seated their plump backsides while baying like a pack of hounds about issues mostly forgotten. How true or meaningful is it now?
If your militant Islamic primacy scenario has any truth to it, then surely we should stop stoking the fires by bombing them in their home countries and bending over backwards for them in our own nations? This is something I believe we can do when “left-wing” and “right-wing” are consigned to the dustbin and then we can see things clearly.
Steve the American
Some of my ancestors were Welsh so I’m still sticking with the evil twin concept. I suspect they were not the best of the Welsh either.
I agree that American liberals are illiberal and the Republicans seem to be Democrats Lite. The Tea Partiers are a manifestation of displeasure with the Republican Party as unmoored from its conservative roots.
I don’t agree that engaging our Muslim enemies militarily in their home countries is bad because it “stokes the fires.” Did invading Normandy stoke the Nazi fires and lead them to win WWII? Not defending ourselves from Muslim attack would be far more provocative than taking their war back to their doorsteps.
I do agree that we are bending over backwards at home in a wrongheaded and absurd effort to avoid offending Muslims, as seen in this clip about “Islamic Infiltration”:
When I read about Londonistan, I can’t help but wonder if the same will happen here in American, if we can’t change the current vector.
History comforts me some in this regard because there is a precedent for the Muslim madness in the Japanese. Prior to WWII, many second generation Japanese became hyper-Japanese. Some of them journeyed back to Japan to soak up their Japanese identity and returned as radicals to America. They were devoted to worship of their emperor and sided with Hirohito after Pearl Harbor. Thousands found their way back to Japan to join the military and fight America, their own country. We locked the rest up in relocation camps.
Now, there are none of those Japanese radicals left. Japanese-Americans are some of the most moderate people around. Japan itself gave up its belligerence to embrace pacificism and commerce, building itself up into a respected economic power. The problem of Japanese aggression has completely dissipated.
But we had to drop two atom bombs on them to solve the problem.
Steve the American
Here’s Aayna Hirsi Ali’s take on Faisal Shahzad and his ilk:
Don Cox
I agree with everything Mahmood says. It could perhaps be summarised as “What we need is intelligent religion, not mindless religion”.
And this applies equally to the other major religions.
Clearly Mohammed in his day thought long and hard and did not simply accept everything in some sacred book as the absolute truth. Indeed, the reverence shown to sacred books is a form of idolatry.
As for “Muslim soldier” – when I was at school, we used to sing a popular hymn called “Onward Christian Soldiers”.
Comments
Please give a warm welcome to the dumbest *taliban* EVER. Wow!
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-case-for-calling-them-nitwits/8130/
Sorry, several nameless lads ahead in line…
While the Taliban may be bunglers and incompetents who occupy themselves with porn and romance farm animals, the Afghan Army is hardly any better. They spend quite a bit of time shooting themselves and each other accidently out of sheer stupidity.
There are reasons why Afghanistan is one of the most backward countries in the world and Afghans are one of the main reasons.
I think it has more to do with the reluctance of the wider Islamic community to admit that the Religion was hijacked decades ago and that whilst the rest of humanity is seeking human rights and equality for all, Muslims in general want all non Muslims to convert no matter what, and are not prepared to let existing Muslims who doubt the faith choose the modern path.
Well said… As an American that was against the Iraq war and the continuing Afghanistan adventure for my own reasons, I understand how those things can make matters worse – but there is indeed something more sinister going on. What does us being in Afghanistan have anything to do with the Taliban pumping poison into a school for girls? (Muslim girls!) I’d say most deaths in Iraq were caused by violent Muslim-on-Muslim religious differences… where’s the love? Drone attacks in Pakistan aren’t helpful, but blowing up each others mosquesâ€â€then blowing up the hospital where the victims of that heinous deed are being cared for… seriously?! I see people marching all the time over the standard Israeli brutality there, but almost never over those things that kill way-way more people. The modern incarnation of those forces started emanating from 1920s Egypt (before Israel was created and before we arrived), then got fueled with petrol dollars latter on… I don’t know how it will end, but I do know one thing: you deserve better.
Last Friday they stopped sifting through the dirt and debris uncovered by recent construction around the World Trade Center. They found another 72 sets of human remains in it. Some 34 sets were found under the road on the west side of the site. My girl and I have driven over that road, over those remains.
Some of the remains are heretofore undiscovered victims of the Muslim terrorists of Sep 11, while others are new pieces of previously discovered victims. As remains dribble out, the families must decide whether to exhume the graves of their loved ones and place the new remains with the existing remains or wait for more remains to surface. It keeps their grief ever fresh. Archeologists will probably be finding human remains centuries from now.
Sometimes as we’re walking around Manhattan, my girls will drop in a firehouse to buy their souvenir shirts. In the firehouses are memorials to their dead firemen from Sep 11. Usually, there’s about a dozen or more photos of the firemen in formal portraits in their uniforms. Tucked in beside those photos are other photos of them with their families. I can not express the feeling I have when I see that. All of the fire stations in Manhattan have such memorials. All of them.
All of this death so that savage, barbarian Muslims can spread their evil and inhuman religion.
And the terror plots by Muslims keep coming. Twenty so far since Sep 11. It’s been very educational. There is scarcely an American who doesn’t regard his Muslim neighbor with suspicion, since so many are so enthusiastic in butchering their neighbors. And everyone sees mosques not as places of worship but rather as enemy forts where plans are made to do evil to their community.
Steve,
As an American, I do NOT view my Muslim neighbors with suspicion. Yes, many do, but stop inflating the numbers. Birds of a feather flock together, so maybe it’s your friends who feel this way.
Don’t dump your prejudice on all Americans.
Author
Thank you Lisa. Steve is a very special case. He’s convinced that his attitude to Islam and Muslims is the right way to convey his messages across and force change to the better.
Like you, most people visiting this site disagree with him.
Lisa,
Muslims deserve to be treated with suspicion because very few publicly oppose Islamic terror. Of those who do oppose terror, close questioning reveals they’re talking about Israelis, not Muslims. Quite a few Muslims make excuses for Islamic terror and quite a few are quite enthusiastic in their support behind closed doors. The bottom line is that most Muslims support Islamic terror to some degree, if not outright support in public then passively. Try finding unambiguous condemnation from American Muslims of the lastest Muslim terrorist Shahzad. I have seen none.
Even you agree that many Americans regard their Muslim neighbors with suspicion, as any sensible person would do in the face of a hostile religion with a history and doctrine of promoting itself through violence, violence which it is actively visiting upon the world and the US in particular. I suspect that some Americans, clinging to a false belief that all religions will reciprocate good will, publicly hope for the best from Islam but privately fear the worst.
The numbers of people suspicious of Muslims rises not through my exaggeration nor in my imagination, but due to the unrelenting hostility of their Muslim neighbors. In Europe, the politically correct position of turning a blind eye to Muslim misbehavior has crumbled. Now, popular opposition to “immigrants,” a code word for Muslims, is mainstream and the foundation for laws stopping more Muslims from immigrating.
And Lisa, your promiscuous labelling of any criticism of Islam and Muslims as prejudice falls flat. I did not imagine the Sep 11 attacks and all the ones that followed. I did not imagine Muslims celebrating those attacks. I’m not imagining the Islamic doctrine which endorses them. Any religion which produces a constant stream of unrepentant terrorists who feel they have a divine right to butcher their neighbors deserves criticism and should be confronted. You might consider what kind of prejudice you have that prevents you from looking the facts in the eye and calling things as they are.
If the Ku Klux Klan was lynching black guys in some southern town and the townspeople offered no criticism of the crime, remained silent in public while approving of it in church, would you say it’s wrong to criticize that town? Would it be prejudiced or righteous to confront the town on its bigotry?
Why, then, is it anything but morally correct to confront Islam and Muslims on their murderous bigotry?
Interesting. Steve writes things that upset almost everybody, but the one person who actually tries to give him orders about how to communicate (“Don’t dump your prejudice …”) is from the Land of Free Speech.
What irony.
We’re allowed to publicly disagree with each other in America, even encouraged to do so. That’s what free speech is all about. We don’t have to kowtow to a politically correct public line set down by an unelected government.
You’d be better off in the Middle East if you did the same, instead of the rigid conformity to the official postions of your government and religion, most of which are pure nonsense.
Steve,
I know. I just thought it funny that yet another liberal leaps in from America and starts ordering people around because she doesn’t like what you’re saying. Scratch an American liberal, and you find a closet despot. It’s true! Look at your current regime. They are worse for this region than the previous one because they are not honest about what they are doing here. Kagan has expressed a desire to “change America” years ago in her career. I don’t envy you with all these arrogant ideologues and wannabe social engineers infesting your government right now. Do you think Lisa truly values your freedom of speech? She’s already told you “Don’t”.
Like I said: what irony.
Thanks for the clarification. Now that I understand better what you said I wonder if you are my long lost twin brother.
Yes, I quite agree that American liberals secretly have the hearts of fascists. They hate free speech. They love running everybody’s lives. When they get in power, they overplay their hand.
And, yes, we are deep s* right now with the present administration that is driving America into the ditch.
I disagree that Obama is not honest about what he’s doing in the Middle East. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, which is worse. Obama is hostage to many leftist fantasies about the world, most of which are proveably wrong. Even worse, Obama doesn’t learn when reality rebuts his prejudices. Instead, he doubles down on his fantasy world.
Mahmood,
I am from Australia and we have many problems with Imams preaching hatred and Jihad. Young men born here are totally against our society, causing us much grief, as the more kind we are to them to try and accommodate their difference.
The worse their actions become, they seem to take good deeds and kindness from us as a weakness. Christ said turn the other cheek, we have run out of cheeks to be slapped.
Although our politically correct governments keep panderring to the excesses and threats of the Islamic community the average person is getting a little pissed off.
The Western world is slowly getting angry, you seem to be a man of reason and common sense , I can only hope your ideas and ideals prevail fairly soon, for I fear a backlash from the West, if it comes will make all Islamic countries Pariahs.
I’m not your evil twin, Steve. As I’ve said before, I’m English, so I don’t think you’ll be so quick to claim kinship really, will you? 😉
I think that when Obama appoints these fringies, he knows what he’s doing. When he kowtows to plutarchs and plutocrats while sending drones to the poor, he knows what he’s doing. When he turns down offers of help from experienced countries in dealing with his oil spill (allowing it to get worse), then finally starts talking to a Brazilian oil entity, one of whose majority stockholders is George Soros (his ‘sponsor’ if you like), he knows what he is doing. When he talks all sorts of nonsense about bringing troops home, scaling down the war, taking a tough line on corporate malfeasance, and pretending to come down hard on BP – while in reality doing the opposite on every front – he knows what he is doing and that makes him very toxic indeed.
Steve, both our governments are filled with Liberals who are not really liberals and conservatives who are not really conservatives. It’s time to ignore what they say and see what they do Are you prepared to do that? Most of us in the West simply are not. This whole left and right paradigm is derived from positions of seats upon which British parliamentarians since days of yore have seated their plump backsides while baying like a pack of hounds about issues mostly forgotten. How true or meaningful is it now?
If your militant Islamic primacy scenario has any truth to it, then surely we should stop stoking the fires by bombing them in their home countries and bending over backwards for them in our own nations? This is something I believe we can do when “left-wing” and “right-wing” are consigned to the dustbin and then we can see things clearly.
Some of my ancestors were Welsh so I’m still sticking with the evil twin concept. I suspect they were not the best of the Welsh either.
I agree that American liberals are illiberal and the Republicans seem to be Democrats Lite. The Tea Partiers are a manifestation of displeasure with the Republican Party as unmoored from its conservative roots.
I don’t agree that engaging our Muslim enemies militarily in their home countries is bad because it “stokes the fires.” Did invading Normandy stoke the Nazi fires and lead them to win WWII? Not defending ourselves from Muslim attack would be far more provocative than taking their war back to their doorsteps.
I do agree that we are bending over backwards at home in a wrongheaded and absurd effort to avoid offending Muslims, as seen in this clip about “Islamic Infiltration”:
http://www.pjtv.com/page/Afterburner_with_Bill_Whittle/127/
I take no pleasure in saying the problem is far more advanced in England, as shown here:
http://theopinionator.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/05/bolton-man-left-with-68-stitches-in-his-face-after-muslim-gang-attack.html
When I read about Londonistan, I can’t help but wonder if the same will happen here in American, if we can’t change the current vector.
History comforts me some in this regard because there is a precedent for the Muslim madness in the Japanese. Prior to WWII, many second generation Japanese became hyper-Japanese. Some of them journeyed back to Japan to soak up their Japanese identity and returned as radicals to America. They were devoted to worship of their emperor and sided with Hirohito after Pearl Harbor. Thousands found their way back to Japan to join the military and fight America, their own country. We locked the rest up in relocation camps.
Now, there are none of those Japanese radicals left. Japanese-Americans are some of the most moderate people around. Japan itself gave up its belligerence to embrace pacificism and commerce, building itself up into a respected economic power. The problem of Japanese aggression has completely dissipated.
But we had to drop two atom bombs on them to solve the problem.
Here’s Aayna Hirsi Ali’s take on Faisal Shahzad and his ilk:
I agree with everything Mahmood says. It could perhaps be summarised as “What we need is intelligent religion, not mindless religion”.
And this applies equally to the other major religions.
Clearly Mohammed in his day thought long and hard and did not simply accept everything in some sacred book as the absolute truth. Indeed, the reverence shown to sacred books is a form of idolatry.
As for “Muslim soldier” – when I was at school, we used to sing a popular hymn called “Onward Christian Soldiers”.